What is E-safety? And how do you go about keeping your children safe online? What do you need to know about the online activities, and how do you keep up in a world that is only becoming more and more digital? These tips may be able to help you.
What Is E-Safety?
E-safety simply means staying safe while you’re online. It can also mean ways of staying safe while using any form of technology. E-safety is about making sure that you and your little ones know how to keep up with the internet, and the changing technology.
E-Safety Tips For Your Children
Here are some tips that can help keep your children safe while they’re online.
Talk Openly With Them
The first thing you can do to keep your children safe online is to talk to them openly. Ask them about what they’re looking at, reading, watching or talking about on the internet. Talk to them about what sites and apps are appropriate for their age group and explain that other parents may have different rules. It can help children to understand that you have your own rules and that you have these rules because you love them and want to protect them. You can work with your child to come up with rules on their internet use, and it can help to reach an agreement together.
You should also think about talking to your children about online reputations. The internet isn’t a private forum, and they need to be aware that anything they post online will stay online and could be viewable in the future.
Screen Time In Family Areas
It can help to have a rule that all devices and internet access only happens in family areas. This is especially important for younger children, who maybe aren’t as aware of the potential dangers of the internet. You can also set up a timer on some devices, or you can use an app that limits the amount of screen time the device allows.
You may want to make it part of your agreement with your children that you will check their internet browser history on a regular basis. This may not work for older children, which is part of the reason why it’s important to have open and honest dialogue.
E-Safety And Parental Controls
Sometimes a perfectly innocent search term can return some less-than innocent results, but parental controls can help limit this. As an example, Google offers SafeSearch filters. This means that when the filter is turned on, it will filter out any search results that are violent, or sexually explicit. Parental controls can help you to limit your child’s access to inappropriate material online, but they are not 100 percent accurate at all times.
Online Friends
It’s important to make sure that your little ones know that not everybody online is who they claim to be. It can help to have a rule about who your children speak to online, and what information they share. For social media, you should be part of your child’s friends list and contacts.
Protecting Privacy
Your little ones should be aware of the risks of sharing or posting personal information and pictures online. Before posting anything online, ask your children to think about whether they would give out this information to strangers on the street, and if they wouldn’t, then they shouldn’t be posting it online either. Teach your children to be aware of how to protect their own digital footprints, and how to make sure that their personal information is kept private. Another idea may be to make sure that your little one’s device location services are turned off, and that geo-tagging is turned off for any digital photos.
Teach Them To Keep Safe On Social Networks
Social networks can be a wonderful way to communicate, but they can also be a minefield for children. You might want to consider joining any social network that your child is on, so that you can get to know the platform and how it works. Pay close attention to things like how to block someone, how to report a post, and how to make your profile private. You’ll also need to talk your children, and make sure that they know how to keep their settings private, and what cyber-bullying is, both as a victim and as a perpetrator.
Be An Example For Online Safety
It can help your children to learn e-safety if they see their parents practice e-safety. Keep the conversation open and explain to them the rules that you use to keep yourself safe.
Limited Personal And Professional Information
Keep your own information private and limited. Explain to your children that you are keeping your own information limited, and that you are trying to ensure that your employers or future employers find nothing online that would jeopardise your career or reputation.
Practice Safe Browsing
Turn on your own safe settings to avoid visiting sites that are unsafe. Let your children know that you want to avoid the sites that cyber-criminals use to get your personal data.
Keep Your Internet Connection Secure
Remember that you can set up the security of your home internet connection, but when you use Wi-Fi in public areas you have no control over the security. Avoid any pitfalls by making sure that your own device is secure, and if you have any doubts, just wait until you return home. This is especially important if you’re inputting any of your financial information. Explain to your children why you’re taking these steps.
Downloads
Always check anything you download. Suspicious apps or files may contain malware designed to capture your information. If you have any doubts about a download, don’t download it.
Strong Passwords
Always choose the strongest password you can. Avoid things like ‘password’, or ‘1234’, or anything that could be easily guessed. It can help to have a password manager that will remember passwords for you, especially if you use a random combination of letters and numbers.
Pay Attention To Your Online Purchases
If you’re making purchases online, make sure that the website you use is secure. Before you enter any of your credit card information, look at the address bar, it should have a padlock symbol, or the web address should start with https: and not just http: The S stands for secure.
Watch Your Own Posts
Once something is on the internet, it cannot be taken back. There are numerous examples of people who have lost their jobs, or had a job offer withdrawn because of things they have posted online. Explain to your children why you think carefully about your own social media and online posts and have conversations about how inappropriate posts can come back to haunt you.
Anti-virus Programs
Anti-virus programs protect against malware and viruses, however, unless they are kept up to date they won’t be as effective. You should also make sure that all operating system updates are up to date, and any apps you use should also be kept up to date.
E-safety and talking to your children about e-safety is not about scaring you or your children. There’s plenty of benefits to the internet, but it is important that they understand the best ways to keep themselves safe and to get the best out of the internet.
