As a blogger, I know how important my child's safety is in this online world. However, what can a parent do to protect their kids online as well as off? It's scary that your kids “friends” aren't just the kids hanging out in your family room – they're also the hundreds of contacts on their online “friend” and “buddy” lists. Did you know that more than 50 million teens (ages 13-17) are online worldwide? Or that the average number of “friends” on a list is 130? The totals are much higher for many teens.

SafeSocial, a new AOL product that launches today, can help you protect your children, even if you aren't a social media expert. SafeSocial helps you:

• Find out where your child has online accounts
• Know who your child is “friends” with online
• Get notified if your child is in a conversation about violence, suicide or drugs
• See photos your child has posted online, and others' photos in which your child has been tagged

Another benefit? You can monitor all this activity without being a “helicopter parent.” Your child will have to agree to be monitored, but you won't need to connect with them on the social media accounts, or hover over their shoulders in person. (Which I personally think is great).

Since this is a tool that I think is great in your arsenal to help protect your kids, I wanted to let my readers know about it and let you also know that you can sign up for a 30 day free trial!

How do you protect your kids offline and online? Is this something that you'd use?