Currently there are over 7.5 million tweens and younger kids trolling the social media. However, according to Time.com  “that number could be low, since it’s only based on parents who knew their underage kids were facebook members.” More than likely your kids are involved with social networking.  It is important to know with whom your kids are associating and help them establish meaningful relationships.

1. Get involved with social networking yourself. If you don’t know how, then now is the time to start finding out. One of the best ways to do that is ask your kids. They will appreciate you taking an interest in something that they like to do, whether they are willing to admit it or not.

2. Connect with your kids on the social networks that they use and insist that they connect with you. What they do online affects both you and them for better or worse. If you are connected with your kids you can better monitor what they are up to and whether they are posting and reading appropriate material.

3. Educate your kids about the dangers of going public with personal information. When you put your personal information and opinions out on the Internet, that data is there for everyone to see and it cannot be taken back.

4. Make sure your kids know how to control their social network privacy settings. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure when it comes to protecting your privacy online.   Your kids should take the same care using applications as they take connecting to other people.

5. Let your kids know what you define as appropriate social networking material, both for sending and receiving. The Golden Rule can be applied here. Your kids should treat others (online) the same they want to be treated (online).  Bullying on social networks has become a serious problem. Teach them about what constitutes bullying behavior and that they should let you know when they experience it. If they are bullied, report this to the social networking service.  If the bullying comes from other students, report this to their school administrators.

6. Discourage your kids from establishing friendly contact with just anyone. With social networking, as in life, you need to choose your friends carefully.  If you value your privacy and you want your kids to follow suit, make sure they only connect with people that both you and they know well. At the very least, make a rule that your kids should not connect to people they don’t know at all or have never met in person.

7. Be on the look out for people who are not who they claim to be. “Friending” people who are not who they claim to be is dangerous.  Stalkers or criminally inclined people might use this as a ruse to get to your children. Celebrities on social networking sites rarely reach out to fans, instead preferring to have the fans connect with them.

8. Keep an eye on strange posts regardless of who sent them. Occasionally, social network accounts are hacked or stolen. They can be used by the hackers to post or send information to people to lure them into navigating to phishing websites or other sites where you can potentially pick up malware.

9. Follow social networking and security blogs. Social networking is an ever-changing landscape both in terms of feature enhancements and new security threats. Social Networking Sites: Tips for Teens and Tweens is put out by the Federal Trade Commission and gives several tips for safe social networking including a comprehensive list of sites where parents can get more information about staying safe online.

10. There are easy to use Parental Controls. You can monitor and filter web use and keep tabs on your kids’ social networking activities anytime, from anywhere, and take action to keep them safe.