Online safety tips for parents of pre-school children

25% of parents of 4-5 year olds are concerned about the time their children spend online.

(Internet Matters Screen Time Report 2018)

Put yourself in control

Make use of parental controls available on your home broadband and any internet-enabled devices.

Check your broadband providers website or visit internet matters.org

Search safely

Use safe search engines like swiggle.org.uk or kids-search.com. 

Safe search settings can also be activated on Google and other search engines, as well as YouTube. 

You can lock theses settings so that they cannot be removed.  Find out more by visiting the Google Safety Centre.

Set boundaries

It's never too early to start setting rules about when and for how long you child can use devices.

Encourage your child to use devices in shared spaces like the lounge or kitchen.

Explore together

Set your homepage to something child-friendly like CBeebies.

Gove your child a user account which only allows access to sites and apps you have chosen.

Help them learn through games

Choose a variety of safe and educational online games and apps to play with your child.

Tips to share children's milestone moments safely

Review privacy settings on social account

Get control of who can see your photos by applying the right privacy settings.

Check your network of friends

Make sure you are happy that all your 'friends' on social media are actual friends.  If not, consider only sharing with a select group of people.

Remember profile pictures are public

Make sure your picture doesn't reveal any personal details like your road, house number of school name.

PEGI Ratings

Check the suitability of any computer games your child plays.  PEGI ratings are there to help you decide.