Keeping children safe online is one of the biggest challenges for modern parents and with so much focus in the media we wanted to share some learnings from our Huddl Parent Talk on this topic.
We gained a huge amount of knowledge from this event with three professional speakers to educate us. Here are some of their key messages:-
Lorin LaFave said, “No-one can watch their children 24/7, especially when they become teenagers, so we need to teach them to recognise the dangers. Breck was confident, he had friends and a loving family. He and his friends did not see themselves as being at risk, but they were.”
Lorin is adamant that it’s not just children who need to know how to stay safe online – parents, carers, teachers and even grandparents need an awareness of the dangers too.
Advice will change, according to the age of a child but generally, she says, parents, carers and schools should follow age restrictions that apply to social media, games and apps. Children are meant to be at least 13 to use many social media sites, for instance, but often that age restriction is ignored.
Lorin’s 14-year-old son Breck Bednar was murdered by an online predator. After his death, Lorin set up the Breck Foundation to educate others about the risks of the internet.
Another Huddl speaker Professor Emma Bond from the University of Suffolk, and author of Childhood Mobile Technologies and Everyday Experiences said:
“If you live near a fast road you teach your child to cross it safely. If you live near a river, you teach them to swim.” If parents aren’t talking to their children about their life online, aren’t taking time out to play games with them or learn about the latest app or chatroom they will be in no position to help if and when their child finds themselves in danger of being bullied, groomed or trolled.
Emma went on to state that many parents assume that it is the responsibility of schools to educate children about using the internet and how to keep themselves safe online. However, whilst schools do indeed have an important role to play in raising children’s awareness of internet related risks, most of the time that children are online is actually at home especially in their bedroom.
Children are far more likely to see something that frightens them, post a sexualised message, receive a message that upsets them or bully another child outside of the school environment. It’s, therefore, vitally important that parents talk to their children about the internet, social media and mobile technologies.
According to Jonathan Taylor, the third Huddl speaker, who spent ten years in the Metropolitan Police investigating online grooming, children are most likely to post an image or video of themselves online or set up a fake profile for the first time, at the age of 11. “Or try Twitter and message a stranger at 12, and try services like SnapChat and Ask.fm before the age of 13.” Risk-taking behaviour is inevitable, but there are practical things parents can do to protect their children.