Internet safety
· Help your children to understand that they should never give out personal details, to online friends they do not know offline.
· Explain to your children what information about them is personal: i.e. Email address, mobile number, school name, sports club, arrangements for meeting up with friends and any pictures or videos of themselves, their family or friends. Small pieces of information can easily be pieced together to form a comprehensive insight in to their lives and daily activities.
· Make your children aware that they need to think carefully about the information and pictures they post on their profiles. Inform them that once published on-line, anyone can change or share these images of them.
· It can be easy to forget that the internet is not a private space, and as a result sometimes young people engage in risky behaviour on-line. Advise your children not to post any pictures, videos or information on their profiles, or in chat rooms, that they would not want a parent or carer to see.
· If your child receives spam or junk email and texts, remind them never to believe their contents, reply to them or use them.
· It is not a good idea for your child to open files that are from people they don’t know. They won’t know what they contain—it could be a virus, or worse—an inappropriate image or film.
· Help your child to understand that some people lie on-line and therefore it is better to keep online friends on-line. They should never meet up with any strangers without an adult they trust.
· Always keep communication open for a child to know that it’s never too late to tell someone if something makes them feel uncomfortable.
· There is a lower age limit to have a Facebook or Bebo account, this is 13 years of age, MySpace has a lower age limit of 14 years . Any employee of Essex County Council who becomes aware of an underage person using one of these social networking sites is obliged to report them to the site operator and their head teacher. (Essex County Council Code of Conduct Policy)
Useful websites
www.youtube.com has some useful videos to watch. Once you have logged into ‘Youtube’ search for internet safety for children and a selection of clips will be available.
www.nspcc.org.uk really good advice on how to discuss issues with your children.
