Online Safety
As a parent or carer you play a key role in helping your child to stay safe online.
You don’t need to be an expert on the internet to help keep your child stay safe online and here are some resources to support you as you support your child to use the internet safely, responsibility and positively.
Safer Settings
If you share a phone or device with your child that you also use for social media, please take the time to check your settings are up to date and secure.
Please note, this alone will not ensure your child never encounters inappropriate material online. Talking about their use of technology and monitoring it is so important.
The website below is invaluable to parents. It will tell you all you need to know about new games, apps, movies, etc that your child may have or want. You can then decide if they are suitable.
Parental Controls & Privacy Settings Guides | Internet Matters
Reporting an issue on social media
Reporting any issues on social media sites and common apps (such as Tik Tok & YouTube)
This site has links and advice as to what to do if inappropriate content is found / seen on some common sites / apps.
If there’s a problem with something you or someone else has posted on social media, or you are worried about anything you see or hear about on these sites, one way to get help is to contact their reporting centres directly. Most sites and platforms have staff who review posts that are reported and decide whether to take them down.
If you’ve seen something that scares, upsets or worries you, there are people you can speak to and get help from. This could be a person you trust at home, at school or someone from one of the organisations we’ve listed here. You can find our guide on what to do when you’ve seen upsetting content here.
There is a lot of support available to keep your child safe online. Below are some useful links to help parents and carers:
- Thinkyouknow (advice from the National Crime Agency to stay safe online)
- Internet matters (support for parents and carers to keep their children safe online)
- Parent info (support for parents and carers to keep their children safe online)
- LGfL (support for parents and carers to keep their children safe online)
- Net-aware (support for parents and careers from the NSPCC)
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BBC WebwiseA fantastic site which offers lots of information on how to use the internet and social media sites.
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Common Sense Media Reviews on games, TV and media- trusted ratings created with families in mind