Invaluable advice at an FDYS internet safety seminar for parents
WEXFORD parents were taken on a tour of the deepest, darkest parts of the Internet during a special presentation at the Ferns Diocesan Youth Service (FDYS) last week.
But rather than cause alarm and dismay, this educational exercise sought to provide answers to the questions concerned mothers and fathers had about their children’s internet use.
The Parent Internet Safety seminar, hosted by Lesa Allenden of Zeeko - an Irish company which specialises in child internet safety - looked at ways to promote openness and honesty with children and teenagers and explored issues such as online gaming, excessive Internet use, appropriate content, legal implications, digital health and digital footprints.
One of the key messages related to the type of content children share online and the possibility of it being seen by parties it wasn’t originally intended for.
‘It is imperative to stress the importance of how easily content can be changed and how what is posted cannot be easily deleted or permanently erased,’ said Lesa Allenden of Zeeko. ‘Encourage your child as much as is practical to take a step back for a moment before they post on social media. With younger children we get this point across by asking then to think of the following scenario: Don’t post anything online that you wouldn’t be willing to wear on a t-shirt for a day.’
Citing examples of ‘catfishing’, in which people assume a false identity online and engage in conversation with an unsuspecting party, Lesa said that she had seen, first-hand, the impact this could have on a victim.
‘We saw one girl who was catfished by another girl posing as a boy she liked. The victim ended up sending this ‘ boy’ revealing pictures of herself, which were then shared throughout the school,’ Lesa said.
Discussing popular apps like Snapchat, and the hit game, Fortnite, Lesa advised parents that talking to strangers online, even those who appear to be harmless, can have worrying consequences.
‘People may appear online as a 12-year-old, a kid, but in reality the person behind the computer is a grown man who specifically plays games like Fortnite to target young children,’ she said, adding that the more determined predators will go so far as to use a voice-changing device to mask their identity.
And in Fortnite, where par
ticipants play in groups of up to 100 people, the possibility of your child interacting with one of these people is significantly higher. Lesa’s advice was to ensure that your children only play Fortnite with their friends, their ‘real-life’ friends, not those they’ve met on the internet.
With regards to Snapchat, an app which, according to Zeeko, is by far the most popular among teenagers and young children, Lesa highlighted a particularly invasive feature of the multimedia messaging app.
‘It contains geo-location tracking which allows users to see the exact location a ‘snap’ was taken,’ she said. In order to combat this, Lesa urged parents to ensure their children’s setting was switched to ‘Ghost mode’ which ensures their location is kept private at all times.
Accepting that it is next to impossible to constantly monitor a child’s online acitivty, Lesa said there are applications available which will do much of the heavy lifting for you.
The iKydz parental control app allows adults to manage and supervise their children’s online usage and can be used on both WiFi and mobile phones.
However, she was also quick to remind the adults that their own online activity is likely to be mimicked and emulated by their offspring and that children are now picking up many bad habits from their mam and dads.
Relating the story of a child playing ultra-violent videogames with its father, Lesa said that it is incumbent on parents to read the certificate rating on games and prevent underage children from playing 18-rated games.
Commenting on the seminar, FDYS Chief Executive Officer Kieran Donohoe said, ‘ The way we parent and support children and young people now has changed dramatically.
‘We are faced with adult problems online and it is very hard to know how best to support young people to avoid falling into the pitfalls associated with the internet. We hope that this evening in FDYS will be a help to parents and young people”.
In addition to its seminars for parents, Zeeko also travel to schools throughout the country, using the information acquired to further their research and highlight the issues most likely to affect children online.
So far it has delivered seminars on Internet Safety to over 100,000 children, 9,000 parents and 6,000 teachers in Ireland alone.