As you may already know, today is Safer Internet Day (SID) and this year's theme is 'Connecting generations and educating each other', with the slogan "Discover the digital World together...safely!"
As a parent of primary school children, I'm very aware that we have a responsibility to not only keep our children safe online, but to ensure that they become responsible, enabled digital citizens. As tempting as it sometimes is, we really can't just bar our children from social networking altogether with the excuses that attempting to control it would ask too much of us, of our knowledge, of our time.
Social networking is going to be a major part of their lives as today's BBC report emphasises, and one that very soon we will have little or no influence over. So we need to start exploring it together now (whilst they still let us)- but which networks, where? I don't need to remind you that Facebook is for over 13's, and in any case, doesn't offer the educational and safety resources of a 'Social Learning Network' aimed at pre-teens.
There are an increasing number of social networking sites aimed at children, and it's hard to know how to choose, especially if your child is coming home demanding to be a member of the one his friends are in. So I talked to Carole Hart-Fletcher, Director of KidsOKOnline, experts in child online safety and eModeration's preferred online safety consultants, and asked her what to look out for. Here's what she told me:
You need to know just 4 things to help your children get the very best from Social Networking:
- What can my children do in Social Learning Networks?
- What can my children learn?
- How can I help to keep my children safe?
- Where can I find a safe Social Learning Network?
1. What can my children do in Social Learning Networks
Children have fun sharing their interests and learning from others. Social Networks help them to develop personal skills - communication, self expression and digital citizenship. These are some of the things they can do:
- Email friends - They can email their online friends and learn how to express themselves. In developing relationships with others they become more empathetic towards others
- Home pages - They can sometimes build their own home pages about their interests, engaging others who have a similar interest.
- Discussions - Take part in discussion forums on fun and important topics - daily news, topics like films, games or campaigns.
- Games and Quizzes - They can participate in games which are collaborative or quizzes that test their knowledge.
2. What can my children learn?
The most important thing children need to learn in any online community is how to be safe and in good Social Learning Networks this is a strong focus.
- How to be safe online - Look after their passwords, what personal information is safe to give out and what to hold back.
- How to behave - To be respectful online, for example: no swearing, no bulling and no sex talk. Good online communities like good schools create a friendly atmosphere and a positive, mutually respectful ethos and they have mediators who look after the children.
- How to understand others - Children make friends and work with others from all religious, cultural and economic backgrounds and every one is equal online!
- How to communicate - Communication is a really important skill for adult life and children learn how to communicate in different ways.
- How to do - Children learn best by doing and in online communities they learn a host of useful IT skills like creating images, formatting text, using html codes on their home pages and a whole lot more.
3. How can I help to keep my children safe?
In a good Social Network your children will be safe, but you need to help them select a safe network. Before they join, you can ask a few important questions:
Who runs this community? Make sure the organization running the community is one you can trust and has a good reputation for child safety. Ask these questions:
- Do they publish their telephone number and address?
- Do they have a good track record of running online learning communities?
- Do they have any awards for child safety?
- Are they endorsed by people you trust - the government, child safety organizations?
- Are they approved by your child's school or other parents?
How are members validated? If just anyone can join a children's community, then unauthorized adults could join and possibly try to harm your children. So there must be a validation system to make sure applicants are real children of the right age. If pupils join through school the teacher can confirm they are genuine. If children join from home they should have their parents permission and the parent should be asked for full contact information that should be checked by the community organizers to make sure it's reliable.
How is communication monitored? - All communications between all members of the community should be automatically scanned for bad language and alerts to a moderator when anyone tries to insult, bully or find out personal information that could make a child vulnerable.
How are members looked after? - There should be trained human mediators online during the times when the children can communicate live - to keep them safe, to make sure they are behaving well and to help them with any questions. Make sure there is an emergency button your children can click if they see anything that worries them - it should send an urgent alert so that your children's needs are dealt with immediately.
After your children join - here are a few things you can do to keep them safe.
- Be on call
- Be on hand - Encourage your children to use the computer in a room where you can keep an eye on them and engage in conversations about their activity and can turn to you for help.
- Be on guard - As a family protect each others passwords ensuring others respect your children's privacy, encourage your children to keep passwords safe (not lying around on a scrap of paper) and make sure they "log out" every time they leave the computer.
- Get help - If you have any worries - contact the community helpline.
Social Networking can be such fun for children and really helps to build their self esteem, so better for children to be engaged in a community with a parents blessing. This will make it easier for children to talk to parents about their activity and not be active in secret.
Thanks Carole. And if you are finding it difficult to know where to start talking to your children about their internet use, Safer Internet Day has published this handy 'Conversation Starter' to give you a few ideas about what to discuss and good activities to do together with your young netizens.