Parents should make sure their kids treat a stranger online the same as a stranger on the street, advised cyber safety expert Dr. Elizabeth Englander, noting kids are often too naive in thinking a “friend of a friend” on Facebook is someone they can trust.

“ ‘My friend must know this person, so I guess it’s OK if I talk to them.’ They don’t know how circular that argument is,” said Englander, a psychology professor at Bridgewater State University.

While the FBI advises parents to keep the family computer in a common room, not a child’s bedroom, Dr. Sharon Maxwell, a Canton clinical psychologist, said that should go for smartphones, too.

“You would not put the front door in a child’s bedroom. And this is what you’re doing when you give them a smartphone,” said Maxwell. “No child should have a smartphone at night. Take the Internet and smartphone and put it away.”