E-Safety

Please see the information below on how you and your children can keep safe online. 

Artificial Intelligence - AI

As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes a part of daily life, parents must play a proactive role in ensuring their children’s safety when using AI technologies. Clear guidelines need to be set on the types of AI tools and platforms their children can use, with parents ensuring that AI tools being used by chil;dren are age-appropriate and designed with privacy and security in mind.

Parents should monitor their children’s online activities and educate them about the potential risks of AI, such as data privacy concerns, exposure to inappropriate content, and the dangers of interacting with unverified sources.

Talking to your children about their safe use of AI is so important as by fostering a safe and informed environment, you can help your children navigate the growing digital landscape responsibly and safely.

Cyber Resilience

Criminals continue to find new and devious ways to attempt to hijack our online transactions and harvest our private information. To them, the smart devices that many of us now use as standard at home are simply a convenient back door into our lives – and our networks. Click on 12 Top Tips for Building Cyber Resilience at Home for advice on beefing up your household’s cyber resilience. In the guide you'll find tips on a number of potential risks such as how to use a password manager, how to back up your data and how to check for breaches.

Online Safety and Digital Lives

Most families frequently chat with their child about how things are going at school or what’s happening in their friendship groups – but those discussions often doesn’t extend to children's online activities. In fact, National Online Safety conducted a recent survey which found that only slightly more than half (54%) of parents regularly talk to their children about staying safe online. It can be an awkward topic to broach and, of course, it needs not to feel intrusive. However, just checking in with your child about their digital life can get them thinking about online safety and alert you to any issues they might be having. 

Setting Up Apps, Games and Software

Millions of new phones, tablets, laptops and games consoles will be nestling under Christmas trees this year. However, even if parents and carers have gone to the trouble of setting up these new devices and enabling the safety features, there are still potential hazards in the apps, games and software that children will want to install and use. Knowing what to look for and discussing those risks with your child may help avoid any nasty surprises. Read the top tips for setting up apps, games and software to help you keep your child safe on their devices.

Gaming  

The Positive Impact of Gaming

The negative effects of gaming on young people’s mental health (when the compulsion to play begins to interfere with regular activities like homework, exercise or socialising) are well documented. In recent years however, there’s been a groundswell of research making a contrasting point – that safe, healthy amounts of gaming can actually help to improve mental wellbeing. Read the 10 Waya Gaming can Support Positive Outcomes leaflet for tips on how safe, healthy gaming can offer more than just an enjoyable leisure activity for children.

Social Media and Mental Health

An estimated one-third of children have a social media account, so it’s important that trusted adults know what content young people are consuming, what they’re posting and the interactions they’re having. On social media, it can be easy to go down a rabbit hole that isn’t beneficial to our wellbeing. As platforms grapple with managing ‘legal but harmful’ content, lives are being impacted – sometimes to tragic effect. We might be daunted by the scale of the tech giants and their content which enthrals young people, but we can still help children to be mindful of their mental wellness: recognising when something isn’t OK … and knowing what to do about content that upsets them. Use the links below to find tips such as how to hide content, setting daily limits and discussing what children have seen online.