The statistics are alarming.
One in three children have been a victim of cyber bullying.
One in four children have seen porn by the age of twelve.
Childline held over 11,000 counselling sessions with children who had online issues in 2016.
These are scary facts to see and there are plenty more where they came from.
From an early age we teach our children to share with each other, but when it comes to good practice online, new boundaries about sharing need to be put in place.
Children need to know that every time they accept a stranger as a friend online, they are potentially putting themselves at risk.
Risk that their photo could be shared without their permission or that a message they receive from a ‘friend’ is actually someone who is not who they say they are.
Parents have to keep up to date on controls of the increasing number of home devices and keep the lines of communication open with their children.
Here are some top tips to keep your children safer online.
Make use of parental controls on your home broadband and any internet-enabled devices in the home.
To see how to do this for each device, head to Internet Matters for details.
Remember to check mobile phones, laptops, home computers, gaming consoles and your smart TV.
Ask your children to befriend you on all their apps, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat etc, then tell them if they are posting pictures or comments that they wouldn’t want you to see, then it doesn’t belong in the public domain at all.
The majority of children use computers at school and will be exposed to other devices at friends’ houses.
Allowing limited screen-time in your home will help to control and educate your children about responsible browsing and which games are safe to play online.
Like most things, if parents ban them, they often become more appealing to children.
The tech giants in Silicon Valley mostly have a rule for children to use all devices in the main room of the house where adults are present, but devices are banned from bedrooms.
This allows for the children to enjoy playing games or chatting online with friends but in the knowledge that their parents will be checking every now and again what they are actually doing and talking about.
A good rule of thumb for children and teens is that if you wouldn’t do it face to face then don’t do it online.
The NSPCC suggests that you ask your child if they know:
Show them a film to help them stay safe – this can often be more effective with younger children than parents talking to them.
Credits: Metro.co.uk
