By tailoring your home internet security and setting restrictions on your children’s accounts appropriate to their age and maturity – you can partially control what they are exposed to and help secure their personal information. Use the points below when considering how to stop your child seeing or accessing unsuitable content online.
When your children first start exploring the internet they will get tips (good and bad) from people about the different websites and platforms available for fun, games and education. Whether or not your child can read or write, this is the point to start introducing them to privacy settings and passwords. You could set these accounts up yourself if your child is very young, or you can do it with them. Not enough emphasis is put on teaching young children to respect the importance of strong passwords – and we are trying to change that! Develop a system to create and remember strong passwords with your child so that they do not start off their digital lives with a ‘throw away’ password mindset.
Allowing your child the freedom to explore the internet and benefit from such a diverse and information rich environment is now more important than ever. Many parents read horror stories of exploitation and cyberbullying related suicide in the media and are understandably nervous about their child having unrestricted access to the internet. Each parent needs to find their own balance between controlling their child’s internet access with allowing them to learn and grow through technology.