There has been much media coverage over the past few weeks on the topic of internet safety for children, chiefly as a result of the recent serious and very disturbing incident involving the exploitation of young children online by a Dublin man. Parents and guardians, being the first educators of children, are best placed to help young people become aware of safety issues online and can hugely influence the online behaviour of young children. Parents might be interested in reading the following article on the topic.

https://www.rte.ie/news/analysis-and-comment/2018/0127/936460-parents-online-safety/

To read why it’s ok to look at your kid’s phone   Click here

Webwise, Ireland’s Internet Safety website, has a parents’ portal with a downloadable guide and interactive chat providing support and advice for parents in this important area. https://www.webwise.ie/parents/

Another online resource for parents is www.zeeko.ie. Zeeko is an Irish company based at Nova UCD, which works to support parents in keeping children safe online.

Zeeko publishes a free internet safety guide, which can be accessed below, and weekly blog posts on matters of internet safety.

http://zeeko.ie/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Zeeko-Internet-Safety-Guide.pdf

This week’s blog is an interview with the Head of Research at Zeeko, Dr. Marina Everri.

With Safer Internet Day approaching (Tuesday, February 6th) we will be addressing internet safety issues in school. The Theme for Safer Internet Day 2018 is “Create, connect and share respect: A better internet starts with you”.

Safer Internet Day might provide an ideal opportunity to start a discussion with your child, a discussion which, if started early, could have far-reaching consequences for your child’s safety online.

Our ICT committee helps make pupils aware of internet safety and last year drew up a list of protocols for responding to blogs online. This was forwarded to the Board of Management and approved for use by the pupils.