Miacademy’s Safe Games for Kids: A Guide for Parents

With the rise of the internet, many parents worry about their children’s online safety. In this article, we’ll explain how we moderate our safe games for kids to ensure everything on Miacademy is safe, secure, and age-appropriate for every student! 

The Importance of Safe Social Interaction for Kids

Social interaction is a crucial component of development, helping children build essential skills to succeed in life. Through peer interactions, children learn to express themselves, understand different perspectives, and learn about social norms. These skills greatly contribute to a child’s success and well-being and leave a lasting impact on their life.

While the internet provides plenty of opportunities for children to connect with others, it’s not without risks. Without proper supervision and guidelines, children might encounter cyberbullying, privacy violations, or harmful content. A moderated environment is a great solution to allow kids online, risk-free.

Moderation Matters

Did you know that, according to the NCES, a reported 20% of children have been a victim of bullying? And in online spaces, that number is even higher, with 42% of kids reporting cyberbullying. 

In fact, the top reason that parents chose to homeschool in 2019 was due to a poor learning environment. Most often, parents were citing concerns about safety and negative peer pressure. This is where moderation comes into play.

Moderation in online communities involves managing interactions to keep the environment safe, respectful, and positive for everyone. Effective moderation is crucial, especially for children. Some great benefits of Miacademy’s moderation include: 

  • Peace of mind for parents knowing their children are in a safe environment
  • Encouragement of positive social skills and respectful communication
  • Enhanced learning experiences through collaborative and supportive interactions

Our live moderation team helps children follow our Community guidelines, ensuring all interactions are safe and respectful. Students can engage in an array of moderated social features, including:

  1. In-game student artwork businesses
  2. Sending messages between established friends
  3. Collaborative groups, clubs, and teams
  4. Discussion forums
  5. Interactive games
  6. Video sharing, similar to social media for kids
  7. Student-run weekly newspaper

These features provide children with opportunities to connect, share ideas, and work together, all within a safe space. With different feature settings, parents can easily customize their child’s learning experience to the best level for them:

  • Include Group Games: Enjoy all of our games, participate in group competitions, write and comment on newspaper articles, join member groups called “teams,” and even run an online business! This community level doesn’t allow users to send or receive emails or messages.
  • All Community Features: Get everything from the Group Games level, plus the ability to message friends, comment on games and videos, post status updates, and write in other members’ guestbooks. 
  • No Community Features: For full focus on learning! This setting disables all social features.

How Miacademy’s Moderation Works

There are many different ways that students can interact on our site, which requires diligent and careful monitoring. Instead of leaving the online safety of our students in the hands of automation or AI, we use carefully trained live moderators to ensure all content is positive, respectful, and age-appropriate for our students.

When a child updates their profile or submits any type of content (messages, videos, artwork, etc.), it must be approved by our moderation team before other students can see it. 

A live moderator reviews each and every submission, ensuring the content doesn’t contain personal information or anything inappropriate. When necessary, our moderators will check the content against our rating catalog to ensure it follows our Community guidelines.

Approved submissions become visible to other users, ensuring a consistent experience for everyone. When a submission doesn’t meet our Community standards, we return the submission to the student with specific feedback for changes. 

How Parents Can Support Online Safety for Kids

We do everything in our power to ensure your child’s safety while on our platforms. However, what happens when they aren’t on Miacademy?

Talking to children about online safety is crucial in today’s digital world. Here are a few ways to start the online safety conversation:

  1. Emphasize the importance of being kind and respectful online, just as they would in person. 
  2. Encourage children to report any strange or uncomfortable behavior from other users. In addition, remind them not to share any personal information online.
  3. Use parental controls to monitor your child’s online behavior, providing an added layer of protection. 

Stay Safe and Have Fun on Miacademy!

At Miacademy, we are dedicated to providing an enriching environment where children can learn and play safely. By combining education with safe social interaction, we create a unique platform that nurtures both academic and social development. 

We encourage you to explore everything that Miacademy has to offer! If you have questions about how Miacademy keeps your child safe online, please contact our friendly customer service agents! You can also explore all Miacademy has to offer with our $1.99 trial! We can’t wait to see you on Miacademy!