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You may have heard a news story regarding the "Momo Challenge". The Prevention Action Alliance has published some parent tips with some details of this particular threat and another similar threat from 2017. You might also have heard about some YouTube Kids videos that should be blocked but have slipped through the curation process.

Teachers spend a great deal of time working with students to help them achieve the ISTE Standards and one of those standards covers Digital Citizenship, but it's also important for you to be actively involved in your child's digital activities at home. Common Sense Media has an excellent catalog of information for parents about various apps, games, platforms, movies and media.

I encourage you to talk with your child about privacy and internet safety, supervise and limit their screen time, review the apps and games they want to play, facilitate their social-emotional health by seeking out media that helps kids develop empathy, and engage them in discussion about what to do if they suspect their device has been hacked, if they find something online that makes them uncomfortable, or if they are contacted by a stranger online.

YouTube Kids definitely has the potential to be a family's go-to for kids to watch videos online -- if you supervise your children's activities and enable safety settings.

YouTube is hugely popular with school age children, and there are some built in protections that can help reduce the risk of your child seeing offensive or dangerous content. Enabling Restricted Mode will block the ability to play videos that are age restricted or that have been flagged by the YouTube community, and Google has a team that reviews videos that are flagged 24/7. Restricted Mode is administratively enabled on student's school devices and school Google accounts in grades PK-8.

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact EWG Technology.