Safer Internet Day is a great time to have a conversation with your child about staying safe online.
This years theme, ‘Lets create a better internet together’ recognises the balance between encouraging users to embrace and empowering them to make the most of the positive opportunities offered online, while responding to, dealing with and moving past the negative online.
For parents and carers this could mean maintaining an open and honest dialogue with your children about their online lives, supporting them with their online activity and seeking out positive online opportunities to share with them.
To help you get started the UK Safer Internet Centre has 5 tips:
- Talk to your child about their favourite websites. Starting a conversation on a positive foot can lead nicely into a chat about online safety.
- If your child loves to use social networking sites, teach them about protecting their personal information by thinking about what they are sharing and who they are sharing it with. Show them how to use privacy settings, and how to block and report – and advise them to only accept friend requests from people they know in real life.
- Remind your child that showing respect for others online is just as important as showing it offline. Encourage them to think before they post and encourage them to show positive behaviour online.
- There are lots of ways you can advise your child about cyberbullying, if they are worried remind them to save the evidence and to always tell an adult they trust if something upsets them online.
- There are ways in which you can help to prevent your child from seeing inappropriate content online. Have you considered parental controls and filtering in your home and also on your children’s portable internet enabled devices?
Use our resources to help you with these tips:
- Conversation starters http://www.saferinternet.org.uk/ufiles/Coversation-Starters-SID14.pdf
- Facebook checklist http://www.saferinternet.org.uk/ufiles/Facebook-checklist-Nov2013.pdf
- Parental controls on devices http://www.saferinternet.org.uk/advice-and-resources/parents-and-carers/parents-guide-to-technology
- Parental controls on your home internet http://www.saferinternet.org.uk/advice-and-resources/parents-and-carers/parental-controls
- Safer Internet Day Quiz http://www.saferinternet.org.uk/safer-internet-day/2014/quiz
- Vodafone Digital Parenting Magazine http://www.vodafone.com/content/index/parents.html
For more information about how to get involved in Safer Internet Day visit our Info for Parents and Carers page.
You can also join the conversation on Twitter via @UK_SIC and #SID2014
