How to Support Your Child to Stay Safe Online

A version of this blog first appeared on I Am Expat on 25 May 2022.

Do you feel overwhelmed when you think about the dangers that exist for young (and not so young) people in the online world? The landscape of our social media and virtual lives is constantly developing and changing, and even for the most tech-savvy of parents, it can be hard to keep up with the new platforms and how our children are using them. We are the first generation of parents and teachers to navigate this world of ubiquitous smartphones and social media with our young people, and feeling we are doing enough to keep them safe is tough.

As Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) at Senior School Voorschoten, The British School in The Netherlands, I see online safety coming increasingly into the work I do because, just like for adults, young people’s lives are increasingly online. We want to empower our young people to use technology confidently whilst keeping themselves and others safe at the same time.

This year we have run more workshops and discussion groups to support our parent community in keeping their children safe online at home. I would like to share our current approach, tips, and some resources that our community have found particularly valuable on this topic.

Start Conversations about Online Safety

Just as you taught your child how to safely cross the street or wear a seatbelt in the car, talking to your child about staying safe online is essential. Similarly to when a child is learning to read and is encouraged to read for short periods on a daily basis, it is a topic that you will want to come back to regularly for brief check-ins.

In the student assemblies, we ran some activities that drew on classic metaphors to show how you lose control of your words once they are online. The idea is that even on platforms where messages disappear like Snapchat or WhatsApp, if someone takes a screenshot of the message, that message can get shared in unintended ways.

To visualise this, we sprayed deodorant into the air and showed the students that it was impossible to put it back once it was out of the can. The scent from the deodorant, just like messages or images that are shared online, disseminated around the hall – a clear representation of how fast and how far these can travel once we have lost control of them – and that we can never predict who may see them and what their intentions may be.

Use the Opportunity to Connect

As a parent, it is likely that screens and time online are some of the main sources of conflict in your household. If so, you are not alone. However, it’s also possible to use this challenging topic to connect and strengthen your relationship with your child. The Senior School Voorschoten Counsellors have shared some advice on how to do this.

Create a Family Agreement

Many families find it helpful to create a family agreement regarding devices, screentime and the internet. While it may sound overly formal to have a contract in place, it forces you to clarify and specify your expectations for how your child uses their devices and be consistent and predictable in following through. Furthermore, by working on the agreement with your child, they have a voice and are less likely to feel that these guidelines are arbitrary.

Model Behaviour

The truth is that it is not only our children and young people that are increasingly engaged and drawn to screens, social media and spending time online. Many of us needed to be online more for work in the last two years. During lockdowns, devices, social media, online messaging and video calls were how we connected and communicated with people outside of our houses. Devices and this online world are engaging (precisely what they are designed to be!). When you consider how much time is appropriate for your child to be online, you may want to think about what behaviour you are modelling in this area.

Talk to your child about how you interact with others and how you decide what to share and post. Students learn about the dangers of fake news and using reliable information sources, but this message can be reinforced by seeing examples of what appears in your social media feed.

Inform Yourself about Staying Safe Online

The data and statistics can be scary, but coming to grips with invasions of privacy, identity theft, persuasive design, and dangerous online behaviours is the best way to protect yourself and your family. For example, there are some simple ways to keep your data more secure:

Beyond increasing your awareness, you can find out how online safety is addressed at your child’s school. It will likely be covered in the curriculum, so ask for the topics covered, and you can build on these at home. You should also find out which staff member oversees safeguarding and who students or parents should speak to if they have a concern.

If you have an older child, it is also helpful to find out where the boundaries lie between schools’ and families’ responsibilities. Is the school likely to get involved if a young person does something on their family’s device, out of school hours and off-campus, using the family Wi-Fi? At Senior School Voorschoten, we decided that we should work in as close a partnership as possible with our families and the local community and deal with any difficulties as they arose.

Helpful Resources for Online Safety

As we have been developing how we can best support the young people in our care and their families, these are the resources that we consult when it comes to online safety.

Online Safety is an Ongoing Area of Work

How people use social media and the internet will continue to evolve, which means supporting our young people to stay safe and take precautions is an ongoing area of work. There are very real dangers for young people online, and understandably, it is an area of concern for parents. However, I believe that by schools and families working together, we can equip our young people with the knowledge, skills, and resilience they need to navigate the online world.