Online Safety
Is this you? “My kids know more about the internet than I do…”
he internet is an amazing place and research shows that the outcomes for children are better is they benefit from connected technology. Technology can:
- add to the child’s store of knowledge.
- online games can enhance teamwork and creativity.
- improve both visual intelligence and hand-eye coordination.
- households with computers perform better academically.
However, we must be mindful that technology can affect children’s development. Research has shown that it can:
- affect sleep cycles due to the blue light from screens.
- become a target or a perpetrator of cyber bullying, racist abuse or grooming.
- expose children to games which are becoming increasingly more violent and aggressive and younger children are beginning to play them.
- expose children to games which are now using clever marketing techniques to get children to spend vast amounts of money to improve characters within the game.
What can you do?
- set parental controls on home broadband.
- safe search on Google (& other browsers) & YouTube; child –friendly search engines.
- if your child is using social media then set up safe social media profiles that won’t share personal information.
- turn off geo location settings on devices.
- use the strongest privacy settings on social media.
- learn how to report / block/ mute.
- report inappropriate posts/content to the social media providers.
- think carefully about using monitoring apps that identify inappropriate behaviour.
- set time limits for using devices, especially on a school night.