Online safety - Advice for parents
What should you be doing as a parent?
- Always keep an eye on your child's online activity
- Read through our 'Advice for Children' page with your child
- Set up parental controls (see below) before giving a device to your child
- Check your child's privacy settings on their social media accounts
- Ensure your child is taking regular breaks from being online/gaming and has other interests and hobbies
- Ensure your child is aware of the CEOP button and knows when to use it (more info below)
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Parental Controls
Internet providers such as BT and TalkTalk are required to give all customers the option of turning on parental controls, meaning that all devices connected to your broadband/WiFi only show restricted content. This is designed to help keep your children safe online, please click below to find out more information.
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Social Media and Gaming Sites
NationalOnlineSafety.com has a range of guidance for various social media and gaming sites. Below we have listed some of the most popular social media and gaming sites and the guidance on how to stay safe whilst using them.
Facebook is a website which allows users, who sign-up for free profiles, to connect with friends, work colleagues or people they don't know, online. It allows users to share pictures, music, videos, and articles, as well as their own thoughts and opinions with however many people they like. Click here to see the Facebook help guide.
TikTok (formerly known as musical.ly) is a social media platform for creating, sharing and discovering short music videos. Tiktok is used by many young people as an outlet to express themselves through singing, dancing, comedy, and lip-syncing. Click here to see the TikTok help guide.
Instagram is an entirely visual platform. Unlike Facebook, which relies on both text and pictures, or Twitter, which relies on text alone, Instagram's sole purpose is to enable users to share images or videos with their audience. Click here to see the Instagram help guide.
Snapchat is a popular messaging app that lets users exchange pictures and videos (called snaps) that disappear after they're viewed. It's advertised as a "new type of camera" because the essential function is to take a picture or video, add filters, lenses or other effects and share them with friends. Click here to see the Snapchat help guide.
YouTube was originally created as a platform for anyone to post any video content they desired. It was hoped that users could use the site to upload, share, and view content without restriction. Click here to see the Youtube help guide.
Roblox is an online game platform and game creation system that allows users to program games and play games created by other users. Most of the content is user-generated however this game is appropriate for ages 7 and above. Click here to see the Roblox help guide.
Fortnite is a survival game where 100 players fight against each other in player versus player combat to be the last one standing. It is a fast-paced, action-packed game, not unlike The Hunger Games, where strategic thinking is a must in order to survive. It has a PEGI rating of 12 due to frequent scenes of mild violence. Click here for the Fortnite guide.
Minecraft is often described as a ‘sandbox game’. This means that it’s a virtual land where users can create their own worlds and experiences, using building blocks, resources discovered on the site and their own creativity. Minecraft has been described as a game with no rules. It doesn’t come with a set of instructions, or a stated objective – players can build and explore however they want. It’s often compared to virtual Lego. Click here for the Minecraft Guide.
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CEOP
CEOP (formerly the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre) is a law enforcement agency and is designed to help keep children and young people safe from sexual abuse and grooming online. It is part of UK policing and works with a variety of national and international agencies to investigate online wrongdoing. The button to the right has been developed for children and young people and is offered as a convenient and potentially less intimidating method of reporting these sensitive types of crime, alternative to face-to-face and telephone reporting to local police forces. It provides children and young people with access to an online mechanism for reporting known or suspected child sexual exploitation or child sexual abuse directly to CEOP.
