10 tips to help keep your child safe online

I have created a series called Tech Savvy Mum (that’s me) and here are my top 10 tips to help keep your child safe online.

I have a passion for helping parents navigate the online world. My two children, Amber, 16 and Jacob, nine, are my inspiration and they both use the online space very differently.

Tech Savvy Mum Adele Jennings and her son Jacob

I am also an Internet Matters vlogger on their YouTube channel, teaching others how keep their kids safe from everything like how to set parental controls to tips on cyberbullying.

Tech Savvy Mum Adele Jennings helping parents keep children safe online with Internet Matters

Internet Matters are a not-for-profit organisation that has a simple purpose – to empower parents and carers to keep children safe in the digital world.

Let’s face it, being a parent can be tricky at times never mind with this new world of online. So I am on a mission to help parents while learning myself.

Have a look at these tips to help keep our kids safe online and I would love it if you could do just one of them today.

If you would like to get in touch with any questions or problems you are having, I would be more than happy to try and help out.

Best place to chat to me is on Instagram @ourfamilylifeuk or twitter @OurFamilyLifeUK I look forward to speaking with you.

Here are my top 10 tips to help keep our children safe online

1. Get involved and talk to them about their online world. Be interested, and ask them to teach you how to play the games or the apps they like to use. Kids love to tell parents how to do things that they don’t know.

2. Encourage your child to tell you or a teacher if they have seen something inappropriate or upsetting online. Don’t tell them off as they are likely to not mention things in future. Try and react in a calm manner and tell them it’s really good that they have told you.

3. Tell them not to share personal information, or their location, with anyone they don’t know in person. They should not share their school badge in photos if shared online, either.

4. Learn how to block and report any inappropriate content and then encourage your child to do the same.

5. Mention to them that not everything they see online is real.

6. Parents are going through this for the first time so they need to learn about the dangers themselves.

7. Learn how to set parental controls on the devices used.

8. Encourage children to be kind online. If they wouldn’t say it to someone’s face, they shouldn’t say it online.

9. Remind them that everything posted online can be there forever. People can save and screenshot messages and pictures.

10. Create a family contract which enables you as a family to have screen-free time.