How to teach your kid digital citizenship: fake posts, strong passwords and teaching others

By 10 to 12, kids are online more and more on their own: for school, games, videos and messages. Digital citizenship means being safe, smart and kind there: knowing what to trust, protecting your accounts, and helping others do the same.

What schools aim for

The Computer Science Teachers Association's standards build these skills over time:

• Kindergarten to 2nd grade: explain what passwords are and why we use them, and use strong passwords; keep login information private.
• Grades 3 to 5: discuss real-world cybersecurity problems and how personal information can be protected.
• Grades 6 to 8: describe the tradeoffs between making information public and keeping it private.

Skill 1: Spot a fake or misleading post

1. Look at the post with your grown-up.
2. Ask: who made it, and why?
3. Check it against a trusted source.
4. Explain what made it fake or misleading.

This is harder than it sounds. In a 2016 Stanford study, more than 80% of 203 middle schoolers believed an ad labeled "sponsored content" was a real news story. Across the project, researchers found students at every level struggled to judge what to trust online.

Red flags to look for:

• No author, or one you can't find anything about.
• Big emotions: content designed to make you angry, scared or amazed tends to spread fast.
• "Sponsored," "ad" or "promoted" labels.
• Photos that seem too perfect, or that might be edited or computer-generated.
• No other trusted source reporting the same thing.

Use examples your grown-up picks. Real fake posts can be upsetting, so a parent choosing the examples keeps it safe. (More on judging sources in spotting ads and checking sources.)

Skill 2: Set a strong password with a parent

1. Long passwords are the strongest.
2. Make one from random words.
3. Never in a photo, never in a voice note.
4. Keep it secret, except from your grown-up.

What the experts say. The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) recommends passwords of at least 16 characters, longer is stronger, and suggests a passphrase of 4 to 7 unrelated words as one option. It also says to use a different strong password for each account.

Random words are kid-friendly. The quest starts with three random words; CISA's 4 to 7 is even stronger. "purple-lighthouse-pancake-river" is long, easy to picture and hard to guess. Avoid names, birthdays and pet names, which are easy for others to find.

Your grown-up stays in charge. At this age, any account belongs to a grown-up who manages it. CISA recommends a password manager to store passwords safely, and that's a grown-up tool. Kids in Family Quests never have their own email, password or account.

The challenge: teach a younger family member

The mastery goal is to teach a younger family member how to stay safe online.

1. Pick three safety rules to teach.
2. Explain each one simply.
3. Act out a pretend pop-up together.
4. Ask them to say the rules back.

Good rules for a younger kid:

• Stop, don't click, tell a grown-up if anything seems strange.
• Keep your name, address, school and passwords private.
• Only use apps your grown-up says are OK.

Teaching makes it stick. To explain a rule simply, your child has to really understand it. And younger siblings often listen to an older sibling better than to a parent. (More on younger kids' rules in online safety basics.)

Keep the conversation going

The Federal Trade Commission says talking with your kids about your family's rules and expectations is key to good online habits. A few ideas:

• Ask what they're seeing. "Seen anything weird online this week?"
• Share your own mistakes. "I almost clicked a scam text yesterday."
• No punishment for telling. Kids who fear losing their device stop telling you about problems.

Make it a quest

In Family Quests, this is the Digital Citizen skill. Practice quests are spot a fake or misleading post and set a strong password with a parent, and the mastery quest is teach a younger family member how to stay safe online. The password quest is confirmed with a tap only, so a password never appears in a photo or recording, and every Digital Citizen quest involves a grown-up. Start free.

Next: help your kid make digital projects, or go back to online safety basics.