Information for Parents

The internet is an integral part of children’s lives these days. It opens up so many educational and social opportunities, giving them access to 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 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.

To help them stay safe, it’s important that you understand how your son/daughter uses the internet.

The following tips have been researched from ‘thinkuknow’ and may help you.

 

  • Help your son/daughter to understand that they should never give out personal details to online friends they do not know offline.
  • Explain to your son/daughter what information about them is personal, for example, email address, mobile number, school name, sports club, arrangements for meeting up with friends and any pictures or videos of themselves, their family or friends. Small pieces of information can easily be pieced together to form a comprehensive insight in to their lives and daily activities.
  • Make your son/daughter aware that they need to think carefully about the information and pictures they post on their profiles. Inform them that once published online, anyone can change or share these images of them.
  • It can be easy to forget that the internet is not a private space, and as result sometimes young people engage in risky behaviour online.  Advise your son/daughter not to post any pictures, videos or information on their profiles, or in chat rooms, that they would not want a parent or carer to see.
  • If your son/daughter receives spam or junk email and texts, remind them never to believe their contents, reply to them or use them.
  • It’s not a good idea for your son/daughter to open files that are from people they don’t know. They won’t know what they contain—it could be a virus, or worse – an inappropriate image or film.
  • Help your son/daughter to understand that some people lie online and that therefore it’s better to keep online mates online. They should never meet up with any strangers without an adult they trust.
  • Always keep communication open for your son/daughter to know that it’s never too late to tell someone if something makes them feel uncomfortable.

 

For more information you may wish to right click on the following link for a very good ‘Parents Guide to Technology’, produced by the UK Safer Internet Centre.   Parents Guide

 

You should be aware of professional sources of help, there is an enormous amount of information on the Internet; the following  sites can be recommended – just right click on the links:

 

  •  www.thinkuknow.co.uk: the main UK Government website with advice for parents on how to keep children safe online
  • www.ceop.police.uk: the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) is the Government body dedicated to eradicating abuse of children. Concerns about inappropriate contacts between a child and an adult, including online, can be reported directly to CEOP.
  • www.iwf.org.uk: the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) works to remove illegal material from the internet. If you have found any material you believe to be illegal e.g. child sex abuse images, other obscene material or material which incites racial hatred, you can report it to the IWF.
  • A number of specialist websites contain general advice that may be of help to parents.  These include:  www.nspcc.org.uk,  www.nch.org.uk,  www.barnardos.org.uk, and www.beatbullying.org.
  • Other sites can offer parents support on broader issues. These include www.parentlineplus.org.uk
  • K9 Web Protection is a free Internet Filter & Parental Control.  Download it for free HERE.

 Please click HERE for the Parent Internet Safety Evaluation