Talk with your child about safe online practices.

Consider discussing the risks of sharing personal information online, including the possibility that someone can gather small amounts of personal information to guess the correct answers to security questions, reset passwords and take control of financial accounts.

“Encourage your young person to be selective with his or her ‘friends’ online, just as he or she would in real life,” said Bobbie Gray, an FDIC supervisory community affairs specialist.  “Discuss how not everything they see on the Internet is true, and that some criminals may pretend to be friends or relatives in order to obtain personal information or worse.”

Help your child learn to analyze advertisements, some of which may be fraudulent.

“Explain that advertising, even in an online video clip, is intended to get people to make purchases or otherwise act on things they might not usually do,” said Luke W. Reynolds, chief of the FDIC’s Outreach and Program Development Section.  The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has an online game called Admongo to help youngsters age 8-12 think critically about advertising and make smarter decisions as consumers.