Today is Safer Internet Day and an opportunity for us all to consider how we can ensure the internet is a secure and rewarding experience for us all, especially for children. WoodenToyShop supports all efforts to promote the “safe and responsible use of online technology and mobile phones for children and young people" and so we have taken the opportunity to highlight some of the important messages and ideas put forward by the UK Safer Internet Centre and related organisations.
The internet offers unlimited positive and educational experiences and opportunities for our children and is now firmly established in most of our lives at home and in schools. Children can undertake a dizzying range of educational, creative and social activities online and in order to ensure they do all of these things safely, the Safer Internet campaign has produced a list of tips which we have summarised below:
1. Parent and grownups should talk to their children about their favourite websites. Beginning a conversation in a positive manner will smooth the path towards discussing online safety.
2. Children who enjoy using social networking site should be taught to protect their personal information and to think about what they are sharing and who they are sharing with. Adults should familiarise themselves with privacy settings and should show children how to use them and how to block and report other users. Children should be advised only to link up with people they know in real life.
3. Children should be reminded that having and showing respect for others is as important online as it is offline. We should encourage children to behave online as they should offline and to always think before they post.
4. All children should be shown how to and reminded to save evidence of cyberbullying and to always tell a trusted adult if they are upset by something online.
5. Grownups and parents have many options available to them to prevent children from seeing inappropriate online content. Adults should consider using parental controls and filtering in the home and for all portable internet enabled devices owned by or accessible to children.
As the organisers say, let’s create a better internet together.
We encourage all of our customers to visit http://www.saferinternet.org.uk/ for a full range of information and advice on how to keep children safe online as well as ensuring the internet is a positive and life enhancing part of their lives.
