When it comes to using technology safely, it’s impossible to skip over the topic of passwords. They’re everywhere, and they protect everything. As adults, we know the importance of creating strong passwords — but how do we pass this knowledge on to young children? 

Everything from our online banking accounts to our tax documents to our pay stubs are protected by passwords. We prevent others from accessing our finances, our social media accounts, and our streaming services through password protection. And password security is just as important for children as it is for us. We want to keep identifying information about our children out of the wrong hands, and we want our kids to build positive password habits from an early age. 

Teach Your Child about Cyber Safety at Cyber City

Featured in an upcoming children’s book series, Cyber City serves as home to many dynamic characters. Told through picture and rhyme, these books will help your child develop strong technology skills that keep them safe. We’ve already met the city’s leader, Digital Dan, who teaches kids how the cloud works. Now it’s time to meet his friend, Padlock Picasso, who uses his job as an artist to teach kids how to think of (and remember!) strong passwords. 

Meet Padlock Picasso: Password Artist

The second character introduced in the Cyber City books is Padlock Picasso, a talking padlock who arrives in Cyber City with a suitcase and a paintbrush. She immediately excites the children by showing them all her different devices and his scroll of password rules that she’s written with her special paintbrush. 

Padlock Picasso first teaches children to take their time in choosing a password, rather than creating an obvious, simple password like “password 123.” Instead, they should choose something hard to guess but not so hard they won’t be able to remember it, and she uses her shield to show that passwords are important shields that protect our information. 

Next, she tells kids that they should never share their passwords with other kids, even their best friends. However, it’s a good idea to share passwords with parents, who can even help kids think of good passwords. 

Padlock Picasso really loves secrets (the good kind!) and wants kids to come up with the best secret passwords they can. She offers the suggestion of using a combination of letters and numbers and not using ordinary words that many people can guess like “bird,” “cat,” or “dog.” She stresses that if passwords aren’t 8 characters long, they aren’t ready yet!

Padlock Picasso loves her job as an artist and wants to help kids in Cyber City use their imaginations to come up with the best passwords possible. She even tells kids they can use secret codes for their passwords. This gets the kids excited and they all rush to get started on their phones!

Padlock Patty-Picasso has a very important job in Cyber City, but she has lots of other friends as well. Stay tuned for our next post about Smartphone Savi, who will teach kids about staying safe on their smartphones. 

Do you want to take your kid on a journey to Cyber City?  Padlock Picasso and all her friends will be released January 25, 2020. Click here to preorder your copy!