How parents can improve child online protection

The draft report has recommended a raft of safety tips to help parents, caregivers and educators improve on child online safety and protection.

It has recommended safety tips for children, as follows: beware of who you trust because some are pretenders); choose your friends wisely; keep your personal details private by, if possible, using a nickname; set your profile to private; always keep your password secret; if someone writes something rude or scary tell an adult/parent; don’t post anything you wouldn’t want others to know or find out about; and be respectful of others’ content that you post (other people’s photos are not yours).

To parents, caregivers and educators, it has suggested the need to make YouTube safe for children.

SAFETY FEATURES

YouTube is the new children’s TV, but the site does have some safety features. Activating the “Restricted Mode” setting will hide videos flagged as containing inappropriate content.

They should also help children set privacy controls on their social media accounts; and install anti-virus on computers and mobile devices to prevent children from clicking on bad links and downloading malicious software.

There is a need to set up separate accounts for children on shared computers, and in their account customize security and privacy settings, as well as block specific apps, games, websites, or set screen time limits.

SEPARATE ACCOUNTS

Also set up separate accounts for your children on your mobile devices, “tablets and smartphones allow multiple user accounts on the same device. On Android tablets, you can create a restricted account for your child, with limits on which apps they can use.”

Parents, caregivers and educators should secure gaming systems since children can download games and make in-game purchases, and even surf the Web. For added control, they should consider installing a child-safe web browser.

CHAT ROOMS

Care should be taken to ensure children are only using safe chat rooms. Some child-friendly platforms offer chat rooms where children can talk to other children.

Vet the sites first to make sure that someone monitors the chat rooms. Children should be taught not to share their real identities on such platforms.

Communication is important and the children should be talked to early and often about e-safety. The conversation should be keep short but regular, rather than long and occasional. This will make it much easier for young children to digest, and means that online safety has a better chance of being accepted as "normal" and something that they won’t feel sensitive about. They should be encouraged to remember the lessons taught.