Online Safety Top 10 Tips for Parents!

1. Using internet filtering software, walled gardens and child-friendly search engines. Use your browser's controls as some offer differing degrees of security for each family member.
2. Check out what child protection services your Internet Service Provider (ISP) offers - do they filter for spam, forinstance? If not, ask them why.
3. Keep the computer in a communal area of the house, where it's easier to monitor what your children are viewing.
4. Tell children not to give out their personal details. If they want to subscribe to any services online, make up a family email address to receive the mail.
5. Children love to chat, but make sure they only use moderated chat rooms and encourage them to introduce you to their online friends.
6. Encourage your children to tell you if they feel uncomfortable, upset or threatened by anything they see online. 
7. Involve your children in writing your own family code of acceptable internet use. Remember that what's acceptable for a teenager isn't necessarily OK for a primary school-aged child, so get their input.
8. Computer kit is expensive so bear in mind that a child with a laptop may be vulnerable when carrying it to and from school.
9. The web's a great resource for homework, but remember to use more than one site in research to get broad, balanced information and always reference your research sources.
10. Surf together. Go online with your children and become part of their online life. The key to safe surfing is communication.

If you would like further information on safe browser to use for your child then please click on the link below:

CommonSenseMedia

Parent Guide to Technology

We get a lot of questions about particular devices that children are using or asking for. The link below is a guide that has been created to answer these questions and introduce some of the most popular devices, highlighting the safety tools available and empowering parents with the knowledge they need to support their children to use these technologies safely and responsibly.

Parent Guide to Technology

YouTube

YouTube is the second most popular site behind Google’s homepage- your children will be aware of the site even if they aren’t already using it. As with any site where anyone is able to upload content, there are issues around appropriate content and your child’s safety.

View commonsensemedia’s video  ‘5 ways to make Youtube safer for kids’:

Making YouTube Safer For Kids

If your child is keen to upload their own videos or start their own channel, then there can be issues around what private information they may inadvertently share. The following tips and digital citizenship advice can help you to protect them:

YouTube Advice

Roblox

Roblox is designed to be an accessible site for children. But whilst the games are aimed at 8-18 year olds, there are no age restrictions for users. This means both adults and young people can play and communicate with each other on the platform.   

All games are multiplayer and include a written chat feature, which is visible to players within each individual game. Users can also make and receive friend requests during gameplay and this means that they can chat to each other outside of the game.

There is also a section where players use their imagination and skills to create their own games and share these with others. The ability to create and play games can be very appealing to young people who like to create the content they see. However, because content is user-generated it can mean that some games might not be appropriate for young children.

For example, whilst the graphics are not very life like, some of the games feature weapons and blood, and recently, sexual violence. The game has become increasingly popular and we would like to make parent/carers aware of the risks of accessing it.

Things that you should be aware of include:

1. Teach children to speak about anything they see online that is disturbing or upsetting.
2. Make sure you and your children know about block and report functions on the site and can use them.
3. Find out about parental controls and use them, including additional settings for the under 13s.
4. Consider blocking access the site altogether.

Here is some detailed advice on the matter from the UK Safer Internet Centre:

Roblox Guide For Parents