WhatsApp Safety: A Parent's Guide

This guide focuses on the world's most popular instant messaging application. whatsapp messenger.

The app, available for download from the App and Play stores, averages over 2 billion monthly users. The minimum age to use the service is 16 years old.

How does WhatsApp work?

WhatsApp only allows your child to send instant messages to contacts they have added to their WhatsApp account. Only people who have a WhatsApp account can send and receive messages through the app. Messages can be sent individually or as part of a group conversation. For all sent messages, WhatsApp sends "read receipts" to tell the sender whether the message was delivered, read, viewed, or played.

What information can be shared?

Last Seen
This is a timestamp that shows users when your child last used their WhatsApp account.

Status
This can be customized to show what the person wants to share with their contacts.

Online
This will tell your contacts if you are online. Please note that there is no option to hide online status from all users.

Remember: By default, WhatsApp automatically sets your privacy settings so that any WhatsApp user can view read messages, recently viewed messages, as well as profile pictures and status. If you don't share your last visit information, you won't be able to see other people's last visit information.

How to manage the information posted on WhatsApp

There are three options to control what information is shared:

All
This option will show the time of the last visit, your profile picture and the status for all users.

My contacts
Last visit, profile picture and status information will only be available to your child's contacts in the address book.

Nobody
No content will be shown to any user. Encourage your child to change this setting to "My Contacts" so that only their contacts can see this information. If you don't want to send "read receipts", you can disable this option in the app.

Please note that if you uncheck the Read Receipts checkbox, you will not send read receipts. You also won't be able to see other users' read receipts.

WhatsApp Location Sharing
If this setting is enabled, any images and videos you share will also show the location where they were taken on the map. Discuss with your children the importance of turning off this feature.

Control what content your child can see on WhatsApp

To ensure that your child only receives messages from people they trust, they can block, delete, or report users.

Remove or block users
Blocked users will not be able to contact you. No updates to your status, profile picture, or last seen timestamps will be shown. If you have blocked someone, they will not receive a notification, but they will still be able to resolve the issue since your status message will no longer be displayed.

Please note that blocking does not remove the contact from the WhatsApp list, nor does it remove you from the list on that contact's phone. To delete a WhatsApp contact, you must remove the contact from your phone's address book.

Report spam
If you receive a message from an unknown contact, you can Report Spam and Block. This will report the user and add them to the blocked list.

Setting privacy settings

Whatsapp in news . ..

Here's a quick summary of the latest WhatsApp news you need to know:

Fraud Alert - New Scam Allows Criminals to Block Accounts and Messages

How Parents Add Complexity

Svetlana Logvina

Lawyer

Author Profile

Two of my children are in different grades of the same school, and I voluntarily joined the parent committee in each grade.

More precisely, she did not join, but proposed her candidacy at the parent meeting. And she turned out to be alone: ​​no one else agreed to this heroic deed.

I decided to do this because I want to help the class teacher solve everyday problems and not distract him from teaching children. I also do it for the sake of my son: I immediately learn about school events and conflicts between children. I don’t talk about the child’s progress with the teacher: I don’t want my voluntary help to affect grades.

I live in Moscow and I don’t know how it is in other regions, but at our school they don’t collect money for new blinds, a cleaning lady, renovation of the classroom and water coolers: the school provides everything. Parents are left with holidays, workbooks and small purchases for the comfort of children. For 9years of work in the parent committee, I met different parents: those who simply transfer money without discussing spending, and those who constantly argue, and donate money reluctantly.

Being a member of the parent committee is technically simple: you can collect money from parents through transfers by phone number, you can order textbooks and workbooks online and with delivery directly to school. If you need to organize a holiday, then I buy tickets for the performance on the theater website, and I agree with the animators in advance the conditions and the fee in the messenger.

But in practice things are not so smooth. I will tell you how my parents add complexity to my voluntary unpaid work.

They don't want to help

This is the main problem - no one wants to participate in the life of the class, there are many excuses: I work, I have no time, I don't understand. At the same time, it is not clear to me what exactly the problem is. As a rule, at least a third of mothers do not work, there is one child in the family, but no one can simply buy something on the Internet with the collected money and order delivery to school.

Same problem with field trips and school activities. I am a mother of many children, I work on weekdays on the other side of the city and cannot come to school to, for example, decorate the classroom. But before work, I can bring tinsel, garlands, balls and treats.

One day, before the New Year, there was a party at the school. I agreed with the animators - Santa Claus and the Snow Maiden - I bought and brought gift sets for children, juices and cakes in advance. In the parent chat, I asked the parents to help the teacher give the children gifts and treat them with juice and cakes. Silence. As a result, one mother agreed to come in the last stages of pregnancy.

But all the parents came to the holiday itself. When I was at work, I saw notifications in the messenger: photos from the holiday flew. A complete class of parents! Only me was not there. That is, almost everyone was able to come to the holiday, but they refused to help the teacher in the class.

/prava/school/

Parents' rights at school

Our school often holds competitions to see who can decorate the class best. Once I was lucky, and the child's class teacher was a young girl who brought a stepladder and was able to decorate the office. What if the teacher is an elderly woman? Then children hang decorations, and this is dangerous: the ceilings in schools are higher than in ordinary houses.

We never went on excursions as a class, because we need several accompanying parents. Therefore, we ask other classes to take our children with them.

They do not trust the choice of the parent committee

Many parents are outraged that they have to donate money for school supplies. This number includes different categories of purchases.

Notebooks for tests, teaching aids. I have heard comments from various departments many times that textbooks that the school gives out for free are enough for education. By law, all education should be free and students should not buy textbooks. But textbooks, in my opinion, help children to better study and consolidate the material - that's why teachers ask to buy a workbook for the textbook.

You can also buy workbooks on your own, but it happens that the content differs in different batches: for example, the teacher asks to open page 10, and half of the class has the required text on page 11.

Pens. Black gel pens are needed for test papers: as they explain to us at school, papers are scanned, therefore, in order to avoid mistakes, it is necessary to write with black gel pens. Others may not be recognized correctly by the scanner.

Older children already cope with this issue on their own, and it is easier for kids to buy a pack of pens for the class so that no one forgets a pen at home before the test.

Of course, you can buy all this, as well as coasters, organizers and other stationery items on your own. But someone will definitely forget to buy a pen, and someone will buy the wrong notebook that the teacher asked for.

Several times a year I buy workbooks and school supplies for 30 people from the biggest online stores. Due to the volume of purchases, I have good discounts:

• in the "Labyrinth" there is a constant 15% discount and additional promotional codes come regularly. As a result, the total discount can reach up to 40%;
• in "Myshop" a 15% discount and you can regularly add additional discounts to the price;
• Lifetime free premium account on Ozone with free shipping from 99 RUR

But some parents refuse such an offer and say that they will buy everything themselves. Once I was very surprised by my mother, who, with a scandal, refused to hand over money in May, after finishing the first grade. I bought workbooks for the rest of the children for the second year of study - with big discounts and free shipping. In September, when classes began, her child found himself without workbooks, according to which homework had already begun.

As a result, at the parent-teacher meeting, this woman came up to me and said: “I went to all the stores, these notebooks are nowhere to be found. Here's the money for you, buy us a kit where you buy them there." I had to upset her that she would have to continue the search on her own, since there were no such prices in September and delivery would be more expensive than the notebook itself.

They don't want to discuss anything

Different events are not often held in our class, mostly they are timed to coincide with the New Year, February 23, March 8 and Teacher's Day. That is, there are only four holidays in a year, for which the whole class gathers. But it is almost impossible to find out from parents what would be interesting for their children.

Usually only six or seven people express their wishes, the rest silently donate money or do not hand it over in silence. You can order any animators for the holiday, but it’s better to choose characters that are interesting to all children, and not Luntik, whom I suddenly decide to order - because my child loves him.

Or you can order pizza, but at the party it suddenly turns out that some child is allergic to tomatoes: if this child’s mother warns in advance, I can ask the pizzeria to do without tomatoes in one pizza. But usually this does not happen - everyone is silent in the chat when I ask what to feed and how to entertain children.

/perevod/

How to transfer a child to another school

As a result, I began to organize all the holidays and choose gifts on my own. I discuss only with the teacher. Parents usually don't mind. I collect money in parts before significant events: we collect a maximum of 3000 R per child per year. In the first half of the school year, money is spent mainly on teaching aids, then gifts for the holidays for children and teachers, household trifles for the class: liquid soap, paper towels.

I've heard about wars in parent chats going offline, but I haven't experienced this. I don’t even know which is better: active discussion with fierce arguments or a quiet swamp of indifference.

Money is not paid on time

In general, I have no questions: I buy everything online, I always have electronic checks at hand, I keep a report on expenses in a table, which I periodically drop into the general parent chat. From this school year, I plan to make a report in a Google document so that any parent can come in and look at the expenses of the parent committee.

Despite the fact that I report on expenses, from time to time parents ask where the money went and why his child has minus 1000 R. I suggest that they take a closer look at the table.

I fully agree that the parent committee is a form of self-organization of parents, so no one can be forced to donate money, this is a voluntary matter. But, in my opinion, the point of collecting money and spending it afterwards is a little help for children, and not a complete financial support for the educational process.

See for yourself. The child goes to school every day. The school has drinking water, but, for example, after a drawing lesson, you need to wash your hands from paint, these children do in class. And what do they use to wipe their hands? Paper towels bought by the parent committee. The teacher told me that I needed towels, and I already passed it on to the other parents.

Gifts from Santa Claus don't appear just like that either. And after all, parents see that the child went to the holiday and brought a gift, but they don’t want to think about where all this comes from. I buy gifts for the whole class because I'm worried about children whose parents have not handed over money. Imagine a situation: a couple of children are taken aside and told that their parents did not return the money for gifts, so while everyone is eating candy, they need to do something else.

/list/1-class-prava/

What parents of first graders can expect from a school

It's a terrible situation, but it doesn't happen often. Parents who donated money react normally to the fact that another child receives a gift, but then I have to literally knock out a debt. I try to collect gifts myself, so it comes out inexpensively: 300-400 R per child.

The only place where I ended up with charity was buying workbooks. I buy only on an advance payment and I warn you in advance that there is no money - no notebooks. Once I bought notebooks for all the children, because I had enough money: many parents handed over for the needs of the class. And then for four years she tried to get 1000 R from her parents, who did not hand over the money, but took the notebooks.

Learn more

• 
  How to delete instagram account online
• 
  How to put borders on instagram photos
• 
  How to take a picture off of facebook
• 
  How to watch instagram story videos
• 
  How to change the share setting on facebook
• 
  How to create attractive instagram bio
• 
  How to make a bot in facebook
• 
  How to send custom gifs on instagram
• 
  How to increase video call quality in whatsapp
• 
  How to make good usernames for instagram
• 
  How to get deleted instagram messages back on iphone