Keeping kids safe online is mostly common sense and communication

The internet has opened up exciting possibilities, with new ways of communication and a wealth of information at our fingertips. During the worst of the pandemic online networks were a lifeline to people as the ability to meet family and friends in person was drastically curtailed. For adults, the internet facilitated remote work; for children, remote learning.

But it has also opened a Pandora’s box of concerns, particularly when it comes to how much access we should give younger users and how closely we should monitor their interactions.

With all the tools at our disposal, online safety should be easy but it’s not. Parents and carers of children are faced with an increasingly complex online world, and as fast as you get to grips with one threat, another rears its head.

From cybersecurity and privacy to the proper way to behave online, there are many things to consider that online tools fall short of. How much time is too much online? And what type of online activity should you be encouraging children to take part in?

“Parenting in this digital age can feel overwhelming and sometimes scary,” said National Parents Council chief executive, Áine Lynch. “However, parents should reassure themselves that by working on having a good open relationship with their children and by ensuring that they listen to their children when they talk about the big things and the small things, they are doing the most important thing to keep their children safe.”

According to research from online safety charity CyberSafeKids, half of children aged 8-12 said they spent too much time online, and 25 per cent find it hard to switch off from their apps or games.

Safer Internet Day, held on February 7th, highlights the advantages and the pitfalls of the online world. CyberSafeKids launched its new online safety parental awareness campaign, aiming to draw attention to the similarities for parenting for the offline world and the online world.

[ The Irish Times view on internet safety for children ]

At the heart of the “Same Rules Apply” campaign is one message: giving your child access to the online world unsupervised means you’re also giving the online world unsupervised access to your child. If you wouldn’t allow that offline, why is it acceptable online?

“I would say that there is quite a lot of naivety there in terms of the potential for things to go wrong,” said Alex Cooney, head of CyberSafeKids. That certainly seems to be reflected in the charity’s research. Almost a third of children said they could go online whenever they want.

You don’t have to be an expert on cybersecurity to keep your child safe. There are basic tips you can follow to help you keep on top of potential threats, and keep your child safer online.

Talk

Although you may not be considering giving your child unfettered access to the internet just yet, the earlier you can start talking to them about online safety, the better. You can make your child aware of the risks of going online without scaring them, by talking to them about the importance of knowing who they are speaking to, and be careful about what they are sharing.

Cooney says it is important for parents to realise that, despite its positive attributes, the internet is not a toy.

“You wouldn’t give an adult bike to a toddler and say ‘off you go’. We know that there’s a process that you have to go through to get them ready for that,” she said.

Be willing to listen

Keeping the lines of communication open is important, especially if your child sees something that they shouldn’t, or if something happens that makes them feel uncomfortable or scared.

More than a fifth of children in the CyberSafeKids survey admitted they had seen something online in the last year that they wouldn’t want their parents to know about.

Educate

Online privacy and staying safe aren’t skills that will come naturally to children, even with the current view of them as “digital natives”. Treating every screen as touch enabled is one thing; knowing the difference between phishing, ransomware and how your internet connected fridge became part of a botnet carrying out DDoS attacks is quite another.

Make sure your child knows about the dangers of giving away too much information online, and that once it is out there, it is difficult, if not impossible, to erase it.

But it’s not just about educating children. Parents need to start by educating themselves about the risk. We’ve all handed devices to children of all ages without too much thought, linking them in to Netflix, Disney+ or YouTube just to get five minutes uninterrupted when dinner or another child’s homework needs to be tackled.

Know what platforms older children are using, and make it your business to know what is going on with them.

Establish boundaries

The clearer everyone is on the rules for access to technology, the easier it will be to stick to them. For example, while playing some games online may be fine, adding strangers to your friends list may not. This is one area where some parents have got on board. Some 43 per cent of children surveyed by CyberSafeKids are not allowed to chat or game with strangers, and more than half – 56 per cent – said they were not allowed to add friends they didn’t know.

How long they can go online and when is another thing to make clear. A quarter of children said they were not allowed online before bedtime. But only 18 per cent of the 8-12 year olds surveyed in the study said they weren’t allowed devices in their bedroom. Access in such a closed off manner can leave them vulnerable to stumbling across inappropriate content or being contacted by strangers.

“If a child is in their bedroom with the door shut on their device, you as the parent or carer are excluded from what’s going on, what they’re looking at, the content they’re encountering and who they might be talking to,” says Cooney.

What children are allowed to do online is something you should be clear about. For example, the importance of not sharing personal details or photos with strangers should be stressed. Only accept requests from people you know and, depending on the age of the child, you may have to police that to make sure the person is who they say they are.

Also, not clicking on links to websites without knowing what they are – and even then, be wary that the sites may be faked.

Familiarise yourself with the different tools such as Digital Wellbeing on Android, and Screen Time on iOS. It is also worth learning about the different parental controls and filters on the services your child is using.

If you intend to monitor the device, be upfront about it; you don’t have to watch everything they do online, but being able to access the device when needed is important. As they get older, you will have to loosen the reins a bit and give them more responsibility for their online activities.

Resist the urge to ban

Given the potential for things to go wrong, it can seem easier just to ban all devices and be done with it.

While having boundaries around acceptable use of technology in place is advisable, Cooney said it is unrealistic to expect to keep children walled off from the online world, despite the comments from tech executives about keeping technology from their own children – something Cooney says only shows how disconnected they are from ordinary people.

“We do live in a digital age and I think we have to embrace it,” says Cooney, dismissing the “privilege bubble” of Silicon Valley.

Instead, have ongoing conversations with your children about their online lives, and to regularly monitor what they’re seeing and doing online.

Model good behaviour

There is no getting around it. The best way to teach your child responsible use of technology is to demonstrate it yourself. Be what you want to see.

If you have a rule about no phones at the table for children, then it is a good idea to implement it family-wide. In other words, there’s no point in telling your child to put the screen down while they eat if you are keeping a sneaky eye on the match yourself.

Likewise, using your own experiences online – including coming clean about the time you accidentally gave your credit card number to a scam site, however embarrassed you may feel about it now – to spark a conversation with your child is a good tactic.

Take security seriously

The HSE was taken down by a link clicked on by an adult; it stands to reason that a child may inadvertently click on the wrong thing or fail to recognise the dangers of phishing.

Make sure you have up to date antivirus software where needed, and enable two factor authentication on accounts where it is available. That will go a long way towards keeping out unwanted intruders to your online services.

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