Information about online safety.
Information about online safety.
Information about online safety.
Computers, the internet and social media have become a large part of daily life. This technology is to be embraced but it brings potential risks and harm to young people. Parents need to be fully aware of the risks in order to manage them.
- Talk to your children about online safety. Students should never share their passwords, talk to someone online who they do not know, or arrange to meet someone who they have met online.
- Young people can be asked to post pictures of themselves to others. This is extremely dangerous and can lead too other issues such as online bullying. Once an image is shared it cannot be retracted. Parents should talk to their children about this.
- Check through your child’s phone/devices. What is their internet history and what sites have they visited?
- Limit online usage to certain times of the day. Monitor this on a daily basis.
- Look to acquire Apps that enable you as a parent to filter sites that are above an appropriate age – see further advice on this.
Further information
As a parent or carer, there are tools available to help keep your child safe whilst accessing the internet. These include:
- Parental controls – Both Apple and Google provide free to use tools that allow adults to monitor their child’s access to their personal devices. This also includes the ability to turn on approval for app purchases or free downloads, screen time usage quotas, age-related restrictions for content in apps, books, TV shows, and movies. You can also restrict who your child can communicate with along with many other useful features. For further information please see the following links:
For Apple devices, click here.For Google devices, click here.
- Online gaming – Gaming is a popular pastime for children, and whilst it is enjoyable their safety online should still be priority. Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony all provide free to use tools for parents to manage their children’s usage on their respective games consoles. This includes, communication controls, time restrictions, age restrictions to games and the management of digital store purchases. For further information please see the following links:
For Microsoft Xbox, click here.
For Nintendo Switch, click here.
For Sony Playstation, click here.
For students, click here for specific information about staying safe online.