(Sponsored Post) Children are increasingly be finding a lot of their resources on the Internet, and as younger generations are becoming more exposed to the online world, so are the risks of being online. Home learning encouraged schools to embrace online activities in a big way and they are continuing to explore these resources for homework so you can't easily avoid your children being online. It is so important to speak to your children about being safe online and how to employ security measures to ensure they’re protected, with the help of this guide from this private school in London.

How to discuss Internet Safety With Your Child

Educate Yourself

To begin, it’s probably wise to do some research for yourself. Web threats and methods change a lot and have got pretty sophisticated, so it’s good to have a refresher before you speak to your child about them. For example social media has grown exponentially and changes each year, so there will different challenges as well as more protection for children than there was a few years ago.

Get involved with what your child enjoys

If your child really enjoys video games for instance, they may be spending time online speaking or interacting with strangers. Check out the games they play to see what chat functions they have, some allow you to turn this function off or have safe chat with set phrases only. If they enjoy hobbies that require the internet for research or for fun then you should see what websites they like to visit regularly and see what regulations these websites have. Make them aware that not everything they see online is true.

Have a series of rules

At a younger age, children won’t have the access that older people would for security reasons. Conversing with strangers online, for example, is not recommended for younger children, so have barriers in place to ensure this doesn’t happen. Curfews or an allocated time of day for children to use the Internet is a common practice, as well as using the Internet for specific purposes.

As children get older however they will begin to need the Internet more for studying or revision purposes. This is when you should begin to be lenient with your child, but also ensuring they are safe online.

Encourage them to have safe chats with their friends and not with strangers. Discuss why they shouldn't ever share their real name, school or address with people they don't know and encourage an open approach so they share with you if they see or get any inappropriate content. Sadly it's not just strangers, but other children can use apps and messages as a way to bully so talking about internet safety needs to be just part of a larger conversation about what behaviour is and isn't appropriate.