As a parent, you have the dual responsibility to protect yourself and your family when online. A digitally mature family can be cyber safe.
Cyber safety is the safe and responsible use of online information. How and where you keep your personal information and who has access to it is important as most of us and our children spend a lot of time online whether it is for work, school or social purposes.
Being online allows us to learn and socialise, but it opens us up to risks. These can be financial (scams), physical (grooming) or emotional and social (cyberbullying).
We can mitigate these risks by learning how to be cyber safe.
One step to being safer online is by knowing how to identify scams. These have the potential to steal your identity with the intention to cause harm. We need to be able to easily spot a scam, so we don't respond to them.
Another step is to understand what not to share online. For example, when you or your child post your photo, phone number, home address, or car registration plates on social media, these details could end up being 'harvested' or misused by others.
Being aware of what, where and how your personal information is available online is the first step to keeping it safe. Some key points to remember are-
Families can find videos, podcasts, webinars, and device safety resources to help them keep themselves and their children safe online.
Register now for this 30-minute webinar for parents and carers of young people in secondary school. It will cover:
Date and time: 18 Oct 7.30 – 8.00 pm
Developed by ySafe and Interaction Disability Services, this is a program for parents and carers of vulnerable young people to help you with the tools to understand what you can do to keep them safe when online. There are 5 modules in this course and includes:
Families can sometimes find it hard to guide their children in using social media technologies safely. We have collated a few resources below for Social media day which is on 30 June 2022 to help guide you in having these conversations with your children and possibly setting some boundaries.
Understand the basics of online safety, educate your child and set some rules with them
Think about and get help to decide if your child is old enough to use a certain device and apps such as social media
Build good digital habits in your child from a young age
Learn how you can have hard-to-have conversations with your child (both 5-12 and 13-17 years old) about their privacy and security online
Learn about online privacy, what the risks are and know what to share and who to share with online
Parents of high school-age children can take them through learning about digital tracks left online due to sharing content or engaging with others and how to be mature and respectful about this.
Parents and carers can use our collection of resources below to improve their understanding of online safety at home and what are some of the important considerations.
From the eSafety Commissioner:
Learn to protect your child’s device with this parental controls video and fact sheet
Read about parental controls for social media, games, and apps
From the Office of the Australian and NSW Information Commissioner:
Top 10 tips to protect you online
Start to have conversations with your child about online privacy
From Google and Microsoft:
Keep your children safer online with the Microsoft Family Safety app for Windows devices
Information Microsoft collects from families.
