A Parent’s Guide to E-Safety

In today's era, where the internet has become a crucial part of our daily lives, ensuring your kids' safety online is paramount. As a parent, it's natural to be concerned about the potential online threats your kids could face when using the internet. 

While the World Wide Web is an excellent venue for kids to learn, talk to friends, and play games, it also has darker sides. It could put your kids at risk of dangers like identity theft, cyberbullying, online predators, and more. Therefore, parents should prioritize online safety for kids. 

Check out this parent's guide to e-safety.

What are Parental Controls?

The internet gives your kids access to a vast amount of information. However, the scale of information available online also means that some content may be inappropriate for your child. Parental controls allow parents to block and filter content their child should not have access to. It can apply to your phone network, Wi-Fi, and individual apps or devices. 

With parental control, you can manage what time of day your child can get online and how long to use the internet. It also allows you to create content filters, which block apps that may be deemed inappropriate. 

Parental controls refer to software tools that allow parents to monitor and limit what their children can access online. You can set up the tool for accessing specific websites and apps. The tool can also filter different types of content, such as inappropriate ones like sexual and adult content. It also allows parents to block content that promotes self-harm, violence, and terrorism yet allow them to enjoy fun games such as connect 4 online. 

Some Wi-Fi routers have software allowing parents to set up parental controls across the entire network. The advantage of this is that the settings will apply on all the devices that connect to the Wi-Fi, from desktops to tablets, mobile phones, and game consoles. However, you will have a different level of monitoring and control from the parental control software installed on every device.

How to Implement Parental Controls

Parental controls are available in most internet-enabled devices, from desktop computers to laptops, tablets, mobile phones, and gaming systems. With parental controls, you can use age-appropriate settings to monitor, filter, block, and manage your kids' online activities. 

Most computer systems have parental controls that are easy to set up. They are also free to use and can differ between devices. On Apple devices like Mac computers and iPhones, there are features available for parents tied into a single account, allowing you to set privacy and content restrictions, activate or deactivate apps, and prevent purchases. 

Home internet providers offer parental controls for home broadband and Wi-Fi. Aside from the option to filter and control the content, it also allows you to set up control in every device connected to the home broadband. The process of doing this will depend on your provider. In most cases, your internet provider can set this up for you. 

If your kids use gaming consoles, you can set up the devices' parental controls to ensure they only have access to appropriate content. On some gaming consoles, you can deactivate the chat functionality to prevent your child from getting into contact with strangers. The parental control also offers the option to restrict games according to your child's age.

Understanding Safeguarding 

Parents should consider undertaking safeguarding training courses to be more informed in keeping their children safe online. The training provides parents with resources and tips to help their kids have a safer and more enjoyable online experience. 

The e-safety training course covers tips on how parents can ensure their child's safety online, including programs and resources that parents should know to prevent children and young people from accessing inappropriate content. It also includes resources on choosing appropriate games and entertainment content and tips to minimize the kids' overall risk in online gaming. 

More importantly, the training course allows parents to learn more about parental controls to safeguard their kids against online predators. It will have an overview of the different parental controls and how to set up each of them on computers and devices. 

How to Talk Digital with Your Kids

When discussing the digital world with your kids, stay open-minded and genuinely curious. That way, you can better understand the devices, websites, and online materials they use and access. Remember that your child uses the internet differently from you. Avoid being dismissive of the games, apps, and websites they love. That way, your child will not hesitate to talk to you about their digital life. 

Encourage your kids to open up and make them feel comfortable about talking about anything to you. If they see something upsetting and inform you of this, try not to react negatively. Instead, help them sift through their emotions and explain how they can avoid them in the future. If you want to directly address your concerns about their inappropriate internet use, choose a time when your child is relaxed and there are no distractions. 

Make your conversation age-appropriate. Your child uses technology differently as they grow older. For instance, if your kids are teenagers, you may discuss pornography and safe sex when talking to them about peers and relationships.

Putting Rules into Place

When teaching your kids safe and responsible online behavior, you must set rules for them to follow. For instance, you need to impose a time limit on what your child spends on their devices daily. Agree with your child on a reasonable time limit for their daily internet use.

Another rule is to prevent your kids from using the internet during meals. The internet can be addicting for your kids. So, teach them to use it responsibly by banning all devices at the dinner table.

Teach your kids about prioritizing homework and chores over gaming and internet use. They should enjoy screen time only after they accomplish their respective tasks.

When it's time to sleep, kids should be away from their devices. Therefore, establish a specific time each dine for them to shut off their devices. Late-night internet use could interfere with your child's sleeping habits.