You should start talking to your child about keeping safe online at an early age. It’s easier to have conversations about online safety little and often, rather than trying to cover everything at once.
Online safety is becoming increasingly important for all of us and, just as we do for ourselves, we need to be mindful of the impacts that life online can have on our children. The internet can be an educational resource and an important part of your childs development if used appropriately so we've put together some useful tips and guidance to help get you and your child online safely.
Set boundaries from the start. It makes it easier than trying to play catch-up at a later stage. These might be limiting screen time to certain times of the day, for certain periods of time. or to limit the content your child has access to i.e. what games or videos they can play.
Check that websites are suitable before your child visits them. Look for websites that have parental pages that explain how the site works and how they keep your child safe.
Ensure your home page is set to a child-friendly website. You can do this in a variety of ways, depending on the application you are using.
Talk to friends about what websites their children use. There are usually common trends that lots of parents know about, so tap in to the knowledge of others. You can always add parental controls too for added peace of mind.
Play games with your child to get them used to being online. This will build the confidence of both parent and child and is a great way to see first hand how the child responds to being online.
Set ‘Safety Mode’ up on YouTube to help filter out explicit content. There is also a YouTube channel specifically for children called YouTube Kids which allows you to filter content for your child based on their ages and interests.
Most of us use Google, and if you do - turn on Google ‘Safe Search’ to filter sexually explicit content from your search results.
