Technology is now – and even more so in the future – interwoven in our daily lives.
To enhance your child’s online safety parents are encouraged to use an internet filter or parental control safety software that allows you to block and filter content based on the age and maturity of your child. Additionally, parental control software also provides other features such as social network reporting and remote management to give families greater peace of mind. However, no parental control tool is 100% reliable and parents still need to be involved in their child’s online world.
Advise your child to:
- Never reveal personal information such as full name, age, address, phone number, birth date or place of school.
- Not to fill in any online forms or contests requesting personal information without checking with you first.
- Never click on pop ups or suspicious unknown files as this may lead to viruses, and other malicious software crashing your computer.
- Use privacy settings where possible.
- Never reveal their password to other online friends.
- Never arrange to meet someone they have met online as people are not always who they say they are.
- Don’t talk to strangers or accept anything from strangers online, as again, people are not always who they say they are.
- Refrain from opening unsolicited emails as they are usually spam containing sexually explicit offensive material.
- Quit what they are doing if they stumble onto something that looks wrong, inappropriate or makes them feel uncomfortable
- Never download something off the internet without checking with you first.
- Not to buy or order anything online without asking permission first
To teach children about responsible, safe and ethical behaviour, the most important thing we as parents can do is to be interested, involved and therefore informed in what our kids are doing online.
- Locate the computer in a central area of the house.
- Know what games your children are playing.
- Let them share with you the sites they are visiting.
- Help them discover learning tools that fuel their interest and passions.
- Manage their time on the computer with time limiting tools.
- Be familiar with who they are communicating online with – whether in chat rooms, via email or virtual kids play worlds.
- Facilitate open communication, where you talk about the good and bad things associated with the internet and technology.
- Accompany your child in chat rooms until you are confident they understand your safety rules – offensive language is not to be tolerated.
- Encourage them to think carefully about what they post online because it cannot be erased and can be circulated easily.
- Discuss what inappropriate behaviour is. Talk about cyberbullying and the stop, block and tell method of dealing with it (see separate cyberbullying sheet).
- Online secrets are dangerous so advise them what they should do if a problem arises. Reinforce that they will never be in trouble for revealing information or seeking help, for themselves or for their friends.
Surfing aimlessly on the internet is not productive, make sure there is a reason they are online, and if not, get them to log off and join the family.