Exploring Internet Safety with Your Child – We rely on the internet for most things – staying in touch with friends and family, getting around and accessing new opportunities. But just as it has its merits, there are pitfalls to being online. There’s the risk of stranger danger, cyberbullying, privacy issues and much more. It makes internet safety incredibly important to explore with children, especially as they are being exposed to it at a younger age. To help, we’ve created some guidance with the help of a school IT department on the topics that you might want to explore.
Internet Safety – Sharing Content
When it comes to sharing information online, children must be cautious and think carefully before they post. Whilst it’s a great way to keep in touch with loved ones, depending on their privacy settings, sensitive information can fall into the wrong hands. To prevent this from happening, teach your child to stop for a second before posting and ask themselves whether the content they are sharing is appropriate.
Internet Safety – Cyber Bullying
Bullying can be harmful to a child’s confidence and self-esteem. What’s worse is when it’s online. There’s no way to tell who the bullies are as it’s easy for individuals to hide behind fake profiles. To protect your child from cyber bullying, it’s advisable for children to keep a low profile and only add those who they know online. Privacy settings also allow children to restrict who is able to send them messages, send requests and so on. This is something that you could explore together and help them set up across their social media.
Internet Safety – Monitoring the Content That Your Child Views
There’s no predicting what your child may come across online as people are free to post and share as they wish. However, you can monitor this to a certain degree and prevent your child from coming across harmful material. Using family content management tools, you may restrict the websites that your child has access to and implement parental restrictions on social media platforms and YouTube.
*Collaborative post