“The internet is an amazing resource which enables children and young people to connect, communicate and be creative in a number of different ways, on a range of devices. However, the internet is always changing, and being able to keep up to date with your children’s use of technology can be a challenge. You may sometimes feel that your children have better technical skills than you do, however children and young people still need advice and protection when it comes to managing their lives online.”
(taken from Childnet ‘Supporting Young People Online: Information and Advice for Parents and Carers‘)
“We tell our children to share but online it’s different. In fact, sometimes sharing online can be dangerous.” The NSPCC has lots of information online to help parents’ keep their children safe online while using apps, games and social networks.
Their Share Aware site can be found here: NSPCC Share Aware
All parents will have received an email discouraging the use of various social networking sites by children in the Prep. Department. After all, for many there is a minimum age limit of thirteen years old – are you aware of how easily these can be bypassed, and the risks that may arise from particular sites?
The NSPCC have reviewed many of these sites on their Net Aware site, which gives a guide to the social media sites your child might be using.
Children will often want to conduct innocent searches on the internet but these can sometimes lead to not-so-innocent results. Using safe search engines such as Kidrex and Swiggle will help alleviate these issues.
More importantly, parental controls are an important way to keep your child safe online. Parental controls can be used to block upsetting or harmful content, control in-app purchases or manage how long your child spends online. And the good news is parental controls are really easy to set up. How do you do this?
Click on this Parental Controls link to follow the NSPCC’s simple guidelines.
The National Online Safety group publish regular useful parental guides – we post these on the main Blog feed but you can also see some of these here.
