Internet Safety

One of the things you may not know about me is that I am passionate but learning how to keep children safe on the internet, however this is not an easy task. Technology moves on so fast that sometimes we struggle to keep up with it.

 

 

 

Today our local police force sent out a poster raising awareness of apps that have hidden features or are being advertised to children but are not suitable.

 

 

 

It was quite scary to see how many apps were on the list and it certainly wasn’t an exhaustive list either as I have been informed about apps that include characters such as Blaze, Peppa Pig and Paw Patrol where adults are using them to talk to children or show them images which again are not suitable.

 

Facebook states that you must be over 13 years old to join, however children themselves and sometimes parents agree to their child having a Facebook account at a younger age but they forget they have lied and the adverts are shown according to age so children under the age of 18 years are seeing restricted adverts.

 

People also think that Snapchat is safe as any pictures disappear, however they don't realise that once something is online it doesn't ever really disappear, its on a server somewhere or someone has taken a screen shot. Young people especially get caught out, they send out a sexy picture (a sext) and they think its gone but unfortunately not :(

 

Ali and I gave in at Christmas and bought Sam an Amazon Kindle. We had been asked by the School to download an app for Sam to do his maths homework. Now after much thought we have downloaded a couple of apps for him too but it wasn’t without investigation first. We chose the CBeebies app and a Thomas The Tank Engine app. 

 

I still don’t stray to far from him when he is on the Kindle and the parental controls are well and truly switched on, so much so, we couldn't remember how to switch them off recently when Ali wanted to download an app!!! Lol

 

This Easter Sam’s homework has been to look at technology and see how and why we use it, so Sam has been looking at everything asking if it’s technology!! However one of the questions on the sheet asks about what apps they have access too and it makes me wonder if children do access apps without their parents or without the parents investigating them first. 

 

What’s the protocol in your house? Do you look at the apps first before allowing your children to use them? Does your child have their own device?

 

#keepthemsafeonline #keepuptodateonline #internetsafety #themummymonster #knowtherules #agelimitsforareason #blog