• Passwords should be easy to remember, hard to guess. If your kids have to write it down, it's too hard to remember. If it's a pet's name, their middle name, their favorite sports team, etc., it's too easy to guess. Sit down with your kids and talk about ideas for a password, and remember a combination of numbers and letters is always best.
• Don't allow kids to give out their password to others. 85 percent of elementary school students and 70 percent of teens polled said they shared their password with at least one friend. That's one friend too many!
• Friends can be cyberbullies too, signing onto your child's account, impersonating them and possibly embarrassing them. They can also change your child's password, locking them out of their account.

(Family Features) - For anyone with children or teenagers in the house, it's no surprise that being
online is the in thing to do.

According to research studies conducted by The Nielson Company, approximately 16 million U.S. children
ages two to 11 are active online.


This shows an 18 percent increase over the past five years, while the overall Internet population only increased
usage by 10 percent. Furthermore, the amount of time children spend online is 63 percent higher than just five years ago.

One problem that falls under the umbrella of Internet safety that children may face when they're online, is cyberbullying.
A cyberbully is a minor who uses the Internet, phone or other digital device to post hurtful messages or images to another minor.

Parry Aftab, executive director of the charity that runs StopCyberbullying.org says, "They do it by posing as each other, stealing or misusing their passwords, stealing points in online games.

They call each other names, or send offensive messages to their friends while impersonating them. They even take embarrassing pictures of others and post them online."

Cyberbullying affects children as young as seven and up through high school. According to a yearlong
survey of students in the U.S. and Canada conducted by Aftab, results showed that:

• Cyberbullying starts as early as third grade, peaks in fourth grade and again in seventh and eighth grade.



• 75 percent of teens reported cyberbullying someone else and 85 percent of students reported they had been targeted
  at least once in the past year. 

When kids are still in grammar school, the direct attacks usually consist of making fun of each other and testing limits.

In middle school, cyberbullies attack classmates' reputations and it can escalate from there as children move into high school.