Collaborative post. Many of us couldn’t imagine life without the internet. It allows us to communicate with family, friends, and colleagues all around the world, carry out research for work or academic purposes, play games and stream TV shows, among many other activities. It sounds like a great tool but it does have hidden dangers. For this reason, it’s important for parents to teach their children how to use the internet safely. Internet safety is something that schools and international study centres will also cover but it’s best not to rely on them to do all the work for you. It’s important to explore internet safety with your child from early on.
Exploring Internet Safety with Your Child
Talk About Internet Safety
Once your child has access to the internet, it’s important to find opportunities to discuss safety with them. Keep an eye on the apps and websites they most frequently use and whether or not that involves meeting new people. It’s important to explain to them that sometimes people pretend to be someone they’re not online, hiding behind a screen, and they should never arrange to meet up with anyone they don’t know in real life or share personal information about themselves or their family.
This shouldn’t be a one and done conversation. Revisit the conversation about internet safety on a regular basis to identify messages that may be of concern. How much you choose to share with your child will, of course, depend on their age. It is important that they are made away of certain dangers regardless.
Establish Rules
Make sure your youngster is aware of what they can and can’t do online. It’s not a good idea to wait until something bad happens before you start creating guidelines. So, find out more about popular apps and websites for children and learn about their age restrictions, so that you can make it clear to your child what is and isn’t allowed.
Provide a Listening Ear
Make sure your child knows that they can come to you if ever they encounter a problem. Provide a home environment in which open communication is valued. It’s important not to be judgemental if your child does ever share any horror stories with you. If you react badly once, they will be afraid to come to you again in the future and hiding things will potentially make it worse in the long run.
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Minimise the Risks
No matter how many rules you instil or how many chats you have about safe internet use, you can’t rely completely on your child to avoid danger. Take the necessary steps to minimise these risks, like installing parent controls and antivirus software onto your family computer, or perhaps keeping the computer in a communal part of the home so you can keep an eye on your youngster.
I hope you found my post Exploring Internet Safety with Your Child interesting. It has the basics covered to help get you started thinking about their safety and to set things in place.
Are there any suggestions that you would add to this post?
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Internet safety is a must. I’m blunt with my kids and say that there’s a lot of nasty old men in their underwear who will try to seem like something they are not. We do have rules and I check their social media often.
It’s great to hear you keep on top of things Amber.
I think it’s important to keep the conversation going. It’s important to teach your children what information not to share and who not to respond to. But again, not banning or prohibiting them from everything to the point where they don’t learn how to use social media, so it’s important they feel safe coming to you should they come across something that troubles them.
I completely agree, they do need to learn to use the internet safely.
These are great tips and very important, seemingly more important every day
It really is which is a shame.
Internet safety is definitely something we have had to talk to my daughter about now that she owns a phone. I told her I trust her, I just don’t trust the rest of the world!
I know what you mean!!!
These are all very helpful tips, thanks for this post.
I’m glad you liked the post.
My kids and I talk about internet safety all the time. It’s not like when we were kids!
Not it isn’t. There are too many predators online these days.
No kids but I think it would be so stressful worrying about internet safety. Great tips here!
It can be especially with headstrong children that don’t want to listen.
This is such a really interesting topic, thanks for sharing this very helpful post.
Thanks Richelle. It is important to make sure we keep our children safe.
This was a huge concern when my daughter was younger, I must have sounded like a scratched record going on about all sorts of things. When she was about 7 she used to use an art app, and wanted to add a friend we asked so many questions, as did this other girls parents. They are still friends now and talk all the time
It’s important that they do understand that not everyone is who they claim to be. Best to be cautious.
The Internet is such a worry for kids. I have two teenage daughters who use apps such as WhatsApp but both have experienced bullying in group chats. My son is 10 and has asked if he can join a class group chat – I really am not keen as I find a lot of nastiness comes from things like this. It is really important to listen and keep an eye on them.
It is important to keep an eye on them. These things can sometimes get out of hand.
I totally agree with you on internet safety. All of our kids are grown now and have children of their own. They take advantage of the child’s parental controls. They also use the timing controls on the kid’s devices so that there is also a certain time they can and cannot be on their devices. I enjoyed reading your post on a topic that is important.
Timing controls can be helpful to prevent overuse. Kids do tend to over do it online.
I never thought of this although it is very very important! online safety is as important as health or real-life safety for sure if not more important.
It is something to consider!
Internet safety is such an important topic to discuss with the kids, great tips all around.
Thanks Becky, it is something we all need to consider when we have kids.
Establishing tules is important to have safe internet surfing for kids. I like to limit their time in front of the computer and it’s also good when you are there next to them to guide and support them,
It can help to be near them and keep an eye on what they are doing.
These are a lot of risks around us. We should be always careful and talk and talk a lot with our kids!
We do really need to look out for our children.
It can be difficult to navigate the ins and outs of parenting when it comes to internet safety. I try to give my daughter freedom as long as she doesn’t give me any reason to doubt her. Honesty has worked for us as she has gotten older but when she was little I monitored every single thing she did. I think it can be difficult to navigate because there are so many unknown variables that can come into play with internet safety. My best advice is to keep an open dialogue with your kids and stay informed about what they are doing online.
That is very sensible. Making them aware and talking is important.
With the proliferation of the internet and kids spending more and more time online, defining a code of conduct and safety measures is really very important.
It certainly is. Thanks for visiting Sandy.
Oh gosh I could never imagine navigating the internet with a child…that seems like such a daunting task for parents and I give you so much credit. I wouldn’t even know where to begin but these are good pointers!
Thanks Tammy. It is something to think about if you have kids.
An important topic which all parents need to address soon as kids start using mobile phone/tablet or any other form of gadget. I will be speaking to my kids about this too
It is something that all parents will need to address.
My nieces and nephews also can use the internet but it was very limited to avoid them going on unwanted websites. We always talk to them about the dangers of the internet. It’s important that kids should be aware of the harm that the internet may cause them.
It really is but we also need to be cautious about how we approach this depending on their age.
I think having rules and open conversation is so important. When we first had the internet it was still quite new that I was joining chatrooms and doing things I wouldn’t want my own kids to do so there has to be some level of communication, but also trust x
Having rules can make a big difference with these things.
My oldest plays Minecraft, and he often asks to play online with his friends. However, part of the agreement to letting him play computer games was that he would not be allowed to play online multiplayer. He’s not thrilled with that, but I’d rather be a mean mum and keep him safe. It’s difficult explaining the risks without scaring them too much.
It is difficult especially when children are younger.
This is so important. I think this post should be copied and given to every parent out there whose child uses the internet.
I know not all parents pay much attention. It can be quite worrying knowing some parents don’t monitor their kids to make sure they are safe online.
This is a really interesting post! It is so important to set rules on our children while they are using internet.
Rules will help keep them safe so are important.
What a timing! My sister and I just had this discussion this morning. They have a 10-year-old daughter and have set up parental control in her gadgets. The best part, my sister is quite frank with her daughter and listens to everything that my niece shares with her.
Parental control is important but you should still be cautious with anything online.
This is so important! We are very open with our children and they know the rules regarding using the internet and why we have them.
It sure is. It helps keep them safe x