Instagram has become pretty popular among adults and kids. Even though your kid shouldn’t be on Instagram unless they’re 13 years old, some kids are getting online younger and younger. Whether you’ve allowed your kid to get on Instagram or not, it’s important that you know how to keep kids safe on Instagram. This helps you to be proactive for the day when you do allow them to venture into the world of social media, mainly Instagram.

How to Keep Kids Safe on Instagram

The first step to keeping kids safe on Instagram is to only allow them to have an account when they reach the age of 13. Any accounts on Instagram that appear to have a kid younger than 13 years of age are able to be reported and then removed by Instagram.

Private or Public

Instagram has two options for a profile, public or private. In order to keep your kids safe on Instagram, I highly recommend that you put their Instagram profile as private. This allows them to post their photos and videos with only friends seeing it rather than the entire internet. This will also restrict access to their Instagram data to people they’ve accepted as friends.

Friends

That brings me to my next part of how to keep kids safe on Instagram, friends. With a private Instagram profile your kids will receive friend requests, once accepted, the “friend” will see all of your kids’ Instagram photos and videos. This is where you, as the parent, need to monitor who your kids accept as friends and set ground rules about who they’re allowed to be friends with on Instagram.  We don’t allow our kids to accept requests from anyone we don’t know in real life.  Even then, we still go through their account often to check and see who they are following and who is following them.

No Private Info

Remind your kids that they need to have their location off and to never, ever give out private information. This private information includes, but is not limited to, phone number, address, or friends’ phone numbers and addresses. It’s important that kids are taught what information you determine to be private or personal and not allowed to be shared so you can keep your kids safe on Instagram.

There you have it, a few ways to work towards allowing your kids the freedom to have an Instagram account without the worry of whether they’re safe on this social media platform or not. The number one key to keeping kids safe on Instagram is to only allow them to be friends with people who they know in real life or people that you approve of them being connected with. In addition, all kids should have a private Instagram account so that no strangers can easily access their photos, videos or other personal details.