Member News
8th February 2011To mark 'Safer Internet Day', Donald Findlater, director of research and development at the Lucy Faithfull Foundation and Stop it Now! details why parents have a vital role to play in child internet safety.
This year the 'Safer Internet Day' (Feb 8th) slogan is "It's more than a game, it's your life!" – a slogan designed to raise awareness of the risks associated with virtual worlds, online games and social networking sites. Organisers hope to make children and teenagers realise that their actions in the virtual world can have an impact on their real lives, and with many young people hiding their real identity behind an avatar or nickname, it's true that their sense of responsibility can diminish and they may do things online that they would never dream of doing in the real world.
This is where parental guidance and supervision can really help children stay safe online. Parents and carers have a vital role to play in making sure their children are equipped with the life skills needed to navigate the internet safely. A child whose parent takes an interest in their online activities; talks to them about what sites they are using, games they are playing and who they are talking to, is immediately safer than a child whose parent gives them free rein on the web without any attempt at supervision.
Today, Stop it Now! UK and Ireland (part of The Lucy Faithfull Foundation) will deliver internet safety seminars to 225 Surrey school children and their parents. The children's sessions will focus on managing their online behaviour; sharing personal information (from names and address to what they plan on doing at the weekend); the difference between real friends and people they only know online; privacy settings; cyber-bullying, and the importance of talking to a trusted adult if something happens online that upsets them or makes them feel uncomfortable.
Their parents will receive practical advice and information on how to keep their children safe including: suggestions on how to start important conversations with their children (and other parents) about their use of the internet, strategies they can implement immediately to help their child be safe and responsible when online, and where to go for advice and support if they need it.
The seminars are supported by the online resource www.parentsprotect.co.uk– a website dedicated to helping parents and carers protect children from sexual abuse. The site is continually updated and, along with holding a learning programme addressing key issues around child sexual abuse, it features an expanding 'internet safety' section.
In order to get the best out of the internet and developing technologies, children and adults need to be aware of what the risks are and how they can be minimised. There is much that children can do at different ages to help keep them safe; but parents have a critical role to play and many still need help to recognise the sensible precautions they should take. That's where government can help. We have seen a lot of progress over recent years, through the work of the UK Council for Child Internet Safety (UKCCIS), the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP), Childnet International, and other organisations who work nationally and locally. But the importance of child safety is no less now than it was a year ago, or five years ago or ten years ago. Children are going online at increasingly younger ages.
Applications on smart phones update with location information and games consoles allow children to play with other children, and adults, across the world. Technology is increasingly used by some children and young people to bully one another; and both schools and the police have to respond to the growing problem of young people involved in 'sexting' – sending (illegal) sexual images of themselves and each other to others' phones. So as risks shift, and technologies develop, our responses need to keep up.
With funding support from a number of charitable sources, Stop it Now! UK and Ireland delivers over 60 internet safety seminars to parents and carers each year. Whilst it is always disappointing that some parents don't attend, for the vast majority who do, what they learn is a real eye-opener.
A parent who attended one of these parents' seminars summed the issues up nicely by saying: "You cannot put your head in a sand bucket". Below, she talks about why parents like her need to take these issues seriously and what steps they need to take to show they care.
http://www.lucyfaithfull.org.uk/
http://www.parentsprotect.co.uk/
Dods Parliamentary Communications Ltd