Keeping your child safe on the Internet

Posted on January 11, 2012 by

It’s normal now for children to be using the internet from a very young age. With such joy available from learning games featuring their favourite characters – such as the activities found on the cbeebies website attracting children as young as 2 years old.For any age the internet can be a daunting place – yet a place full of knowledge and excitement at the same time. It’s therefore important for parents to know how to safeguard their children online. Here you will find useful tips on Internet Safety for younger and older children / teenagers, some useful links and advice on agreeing some important family computer rules.

Before we begin on the rules for children, here are a few important rules for parents:

  • Prevent Viruses on your Computer – Use an Anti-Virus Software to protect your computer from Viruses, Spyware & Malware, make sure it is regularly updated. There are many on the market to choose from, we recommend Microsoft Security Essentials which is free to download.
  • Put Parental Controls in place.
  • Give your child their own log in for the family computer and turn off all ‘adminstrative rights’ on this log in.
  • Talk to your child about safe computer use and safety on the internet as soon as they begin to use it – there’s no need to bombard younger children with information but they will learn from the way you practice and talk about your decision making online when enjoying the internet together.
  • Set up the Google Safe Search function or use a child friendly browser such as: Ask Jeeves for kids – Yahoo for Kids – Kids Click or DibDabDoo. Alternatively or for younger children use software such as Kidos, Kido’z, Kidzui or Buddy Browser that have full child friendly interfaces for learning, email and visiting websites that have been pre-approved by you.

Internet Safety for Younger Children:

  • Ideally internet use should be with adult supervision however you can promote independent use by using specialist software like Kidos, Kidzui, Buddy Browser or Kidoz on your family PC – these ensure your child will only visit your pre-set websites and will also ensure great fun learning!
  • Try out any software before handing over to your child – that way you can be sure that you have found the right one for your family.
  • Download ‘Hector the Protector‘ to your computer – if your child sees something they don’t like they can click Hector. You should also encourage open speech about anything that occurs whilst using the computer.
  • Talk to your child about decisions you make when online – why you didn’t click the pop-up box or why you only open emails from people that you know in real life.

Internet Safety for Older Children and Teenagers.

  • Talk about why rules are needed for internet use and agree some that work for your family – see example below.
  • Agree which sites you feel are suitable before use – add these to your bookmarks for ease of use. Check the history in your browser regularly. Set up Parental Controls and Google SafeSearch.
  • If you have agreed for your child to use any social networks, blogs or youtube then make sure that all privacy settings and sharing controls are set to ‘private’ or ‘friends only’ – regularly check these settings. Advise your child not to accept ‘friend requests‘ from anyone they don’t know in the real world.
  • Advise your child about the dangers of clicking on pop-up boxes or advertisements (even if they are causing them a distraction), agree that if they appear to ignore them or to call a responsible adult to help. These are especially a distraction if your child enjoys playing online games.
  • Promote responsible communication – advise not to say in a message anything which you would not say directly to the person.
  • Ensure your child is aware that not everything that they read online is accurate – especially for homework ensure that they know to check the facts before using them – also advise your child that copying and pasting from a website is breaking the copyright agreements.
  • Talk about strangers – advise your child that strangers on the internet are still real strangers! They should not accept a friend request from a stranger or respond to a message or email from a stranger. Help them to understand that a person could be someone different from who they claim to be.
  • Talk about the dangers of arranging a meeting with someone they met online – if they insist on meeting ‘a friend’ go with them!
  • Advise your children against opening unknown attachments in emails or file sharing with anyone (eg music ) – these could contain viruses.
  • Explore programmes like MSN with your child and become their ‘online friend’.
  • Talk with the parents of your childs friends – discuss their rules and your rules and see how you can work together.
  • Limit your childs time online – encourage them with non-computer based activities.
  • Encourage an open relationship with your child – ask them to talk to you if they fear that someone they know is being bullied online.
  • Have a rule that webcams may only be used in family / communal rooms.
  • Set up a family email address for registering with websites or shopping online, encourage your child to use this instead of personal email.
  • Advise your chid to never indicate their age, gender or full name in their chosen screen names. Make sure your child knows what personal information they should not give out online – name – address – school.
  • Promote the safeguarding of passwords – advise your child to always unclick the ‘remember me’ box when entering log in details and to always ‘log out’ of sites after use – especially on shared or public computers eg at school or at the library.

Internet Safety – Example Family Rules:

  • The computer is to remain in the family room / communal area with the screen facing towards the room.
  • We do not register to join a website without first discussing it with our parents.
  • We use our family email address when joining websites.
  • We do not put our age or gender in our screen name.
  • We stick to agreed time limits when using the internet.
  • We do not give out our personal details online – these include; our name, our school and our address.
  • We remember that online strangers are still strangers – we do not accept their friend requests and we do not respond to their emails.
  • We remember that not everyone is who they say they are on the internet.
  • When we log in we remember to unclick the ‘remember me’ box and to log out when we are finished.
  • We do not open unknown attachments in emails and we do not share files eg music, movies.
  • We only visit websites that the family have agreed are safe.
  • We do not click on pop up messages or advertisements.
  • We always check if what we read on the internet is true before repeating it. We do not ‘copy and paste’ from websites.
  • We don’t write anything online which we would not say to a persons face.

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