Tips for keeping kids safe

Tech Savvy Mum Adele Jennings has a passion for helping parents navigate the online world. Her two children, Amber, 16 and Jacob, nine, inspire her blogs at ourfamilylife.co.uk. She’s also an Internet Matters vlogger, teaching others how keep their kids safe. Here’s her top tips...

1. Get involved and talk to them about their online world. Be interested, and ask them to teach you how to play the games or the apps they like to use. Kids love to tell parents how to do things that they don’t know.

2. Encourage your child to tell you or a teacher if they have seen something inappropriate or upsetting online. Don’t tell them off as they are likely to not mention things in future. Try and react in a calm manner and tell them it’s really good that they have told you.

3. Tell them not to share personal information, or their location, with anyone they don’t know in person. They should not share their school badge in photos if shared online, either.

4. Learn how to block and report any inappropriate content and then encourage your child to do the same.

5. Mention to them that not everything they see online is real.

6. Parents are going through this for the first time so they need to learn about the dangers themselves.

7. Learn how to set parental controls on the devices used.

8. Encourage children to be kind online. If they wouldn’t say it to someone’s face, they shouldn’t say it online.

9. Remind them that everything posted online can be there forever. People can save and screenshot messages and pictures.

10. Create a family contract which enables you as a family to have screen-free time.