This week, our ‘Wednesday for Parents’ post deals with an issue that worries many parents out there – Internet safety. Sometimes talking about technology with children can be like trying to speak a language that the adult is only learning and that the kids are already fluent in! It can be difficult to talk about keeping themselves safe online, when they seem to be the experts.
The resources we’ve picked out this week will help you to open the discussion about what your child knows about keeping him/herself safe online!
First, a website! Webwise is a fantastic resource. There’s an excellent parents section – with plenty of advice on how to keep your family safe online. This parental guide is particularly useful if you have any specific questions about web safety. Also good for answering any questions you might have about social networking, such as Snapchat and Ask.fm. Also useful for handy tips, such as how to toddlerproof your tablet and how to prevent in-app purchases .
Also worth a mention is Scoilnet.ie. They have a list of resources related to web safety – some for children, some for parents, some for teachers.
Finally, we really recommend NetSmartzKids. It has a variety of videos, with great graphics, that are up-to-date and relate to real problems and issues that kids face online. We’ve picked out a few videos to show you how they can be used, but you can check them all out here.
This one can be used with younger children to discuss telling someone if they see something online that upsets them or makes them uncomfortable:
This one can be used to discuss what your child or teenager puts on their social networking profile and how it could impact them in the future:
We’ll focus on these videos in more depth over the next few weeks in posts aimed at students as well as parents, but we really think that they’re worth taking a look at. We’d love to hear any other suggestions you have regarding online safety. Let us know in the comments!
7:33 pm on November 6th, 2013
They were so funny.