‘Inspiring Change’ – Safer Internet Day 2024
6th February is Safer Internet Day. This year the theme is ‘Inspiring change? Making a difference, managing influence, and navigating change online’.
Staying up to date with the online world can be challenging, especially when this involves keeping up with what your child is doing, understanding what the risks can be, and how to help keep them safe. However, we can all contribute to making the internet a safer and kinder place to be. That’s why this year, young people in the UK have identified the following themes as part of focusing on change online:
- Young people’s perspective on new and emerging technology
- Using the internet to make change for the better
- The changes young people want to see online
- The things that can influence and change the way young people think, feel and act online and offline
The day is coordinated by The UK Safer Internet Centre and they have brought together a range of resources to help you and to explore with your child. This includes some top tips for parents such as:
- Inspiring change by modelling how to be safe online.
Our children learn by seeing what we do and how we manage ourselves when we encounter both positive and negative experiences.
Some questions you might want to consider include:
- What are we showing them about how to engage and stay safe online?
- How much time do we spend online and how does this impact on our time and relationships offline?
- How do we manage privacy and password security?
- How much do we share and with who?
- How kind are we when communicating online and when talking about other people’s content or experiences that have been shared online?
- How much are we influenced by others and how do we check what information is reliable?
- Recognising when we may be more susceptible to being influenced or impacted by others and taking steps to look after ourselves and improve our self-esteem and wellbeing. How we feel about things and hear messages can be very different depending on how we are feeling.
- Make a difference by having regular discussions about the online world.
Talking about things that your child enjoys doing, or is interested in, is a great way to connect with each other and enjoy positive time together. Equally, it provides an opportunity to explore anything that they are not sure about or worries them – whether this is online or offline.
It’s also a good way of understanding what they know and how equipped they are to deal with it. It might be a case of listening, reinforcing and praising how they have managed a situation safely and effectively or you may identify that more support and guidance or controls are needed. Like any aspect of parenting our approach needs to change and grow with our children appropriate to their individual needs and strengths.
- Manage influence by finding out more about the content and games your child enjoys the most.
This may also include any content that they may see navigating to a game or site, or from others while they are playing a game.
What is the age rating of the game?
Does it allow your child to connect with other users/players, or other players outside their friends group to communicate directly with them?
- Know where to go for further support.
Do you know how to block and how to report issues?
Other resources and sources of information that you and your child/young person may find helpful include:
- BBC This includes interactive content for 7-11 year olds and for young people
- Devon and Cornwall police. There are sections for 6-10 year olds and 11-14 year olds on online safety.
- NSPCC
- National Crime Agency’s CEOP Safety Centre (ThinkUKnow) There are sections for parents, 4-7 year olds, 8-10 year olds, and 11-18 year olds.
- Parentzone
- Childnet
