How to effectively protect primary age children from online dangers
I’ve talked a fair amount about tier 2 digital safeguarding – those safeguarding issues that often get ignored but are actually extremely important to address – but I get asked a lot about the single best way to protect children. Teachers, children, parents; we all have limited time so sometimes brevity is the key.
The most important thing to do
Talk to children regularly about what they do and see online. Don’t punish or rebuke them for viewing inappropriate content. This will only lead to them not disclosing experiences in the future which might be more serious.
Expand on this please
Parents are the first port of call, but they are busy people. They get large numbers of emails and messages from school every week. In order for your school to be effective in getting through to parents (which is different from having a huge bunch of emails in your outbox that you can use to demonstrate to OFSTED that you “deal with” children’s online safety), you have to have a single coherent message that you can impart to them quickly and permanently.
You must still do your duty in informing parents about best practices, how to protect children using privacy settings and filters, as well as key details about specific apps and websites, but that comes after parents have absorbed your most crucial message. The primary goal is to ensure that parents get this one simple message by repeating it over and over again: Talk to children regularly about what they see and do online.
What about site blocking and parental restrictions?
While these are valuable tools, they are not the most effective tool. Not by a long way – and in some instances, they can actually have a detrimental effect on children’s online safety.
What? Child-friendly filters and restrictions are bad?
Actually, no, they are not bad. Not bad at all. They are very good tools that can safely prevent children from accessing damaging or inappropriate content before they are mature enough to make informed decisions themselves.
The problem comes when parents think that they have done everything they need to by setting and forgetting the right filters and restrictions.
The lines of dialogue close and children don’t learn about how to deal with unsafe content until they are old enough to have those restrictions removed (or they find a way to circumvent them) and they are exposed to the full, unfiltered internet. It’s a bit like releasing a tame pet into the jungle.
The most important thing parents can do is to talk to children regularly about what they see and do online.
So I should turn off the child-safe filters on my child’s devices?
No! That’s not the point. Child-friendly filters and site-blocking restrictions prevent children from accessing damaging and inappropriate content while they are not yet able to make decisions based on their knowledge and understanding of safe internet practices.
But my child does not have knowledge and understanding of safe internet practices!
Which is why just enabling filters won’t work. Parents – and teachers – must make time to take an interest in what children are doing online. Do not punish them if they tell you they have seen something inappropriate online as you will be extremely likely to push future disclosures into secrecy. What they disclose to you will tell you how much you need to work with that child to ensure they learn to make their own decisions informed by the guidelines you have laid out for them.
You said brevity was key and this is getting long
Yes, so let’s finish here. I want you to take two messages away from reading this blog post.
- If I have said anything you don’t agree with, please take some time to do your own research into this area.
Do it now: NSPCC ParentClub ChildNet Google - Talk to children regularly about what they see and do online.
James
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