Today marks the 19th edition of Safer Internet Day which is held to promote a safer world for children online.
In recent times the likes of cyberbullying, phishing and other dangerous activities have surged.
With most children having instant access to the internet on their mobile phones, keeping them safe online has never been more important.
According to the latest data from the CSO, 97% of students use the internet every day.
Here are some tips to keep you child to keep your child safe and help them avoid abuse such as racism, hate crimes and malicious scam attempts when using the internet.
- Passwords are crucial to staying safe online. Encourage your child to have a strong password with a mixture of capital letters, small letters and numbers/special characters.
- The internet is no place to give out personal details so advise your children against it. Tell your child to not give out any information about where they live or their phone number.
- Let your child know what is and isn't acceptable to do when on the internet. Set a time limit for how long they can spend on the internet each night
- Set up your own social media accounts before allowing your kids to so that you can become accustomed to all the safety features so you know what to turn on once your child has created an account.
- You should turn on safesearch. this helps filter out explicit images and search results. Various websites also have their own parental controls which make those sites safer to browse for kids.
