Online Safety
The internet is such an integral part of children and young people’s lives it opens up so many educational and social opportunities, giving them access to, quite literally, a world of information and experiences.
As you would protect your child in the real world, you will want to make sure that they are safe whatever they are doing, like learning to cross the road, online.
Online safety skills are skills for life. If your child understands the risks and can make sensible and informed choices online, they can get the most from the internet and stay safe whilst doing so – particularly from those people who might seek them out to harm them.
Where to start?
One of the easiest and most effective things you can do is simply talk to your child.
Help your child think about who sees what they share, and compare it to what they would be happy to share offline. Explain how everything they share online – like user names, images and comments – builds up a picture of who they are.
- Agree on some ground rules together – which sites and apps can be used; when it is okay to use the internet; what parental controls will you use?
- Remember that you can use technical tools like parental controls and filters. Ensure that your child knows about privacy settings on social media apps.
- Safety starts with you. You can help your child by simply setting a good example online. It’s important to show them what safe sharing looks like.
- Innocent searches sometimes reveal not so innocent results. Parental controls can be used to block this 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. For more on Parental controls – visit the NSPCC website by clicking here.