A quarter of primary school children have been exposed to upsetting or harmful material online while more than 75%of primary school children have been contacted by a stranger during an online game.
The most common platforms for these incidents were YouTube, at 37%, and Roblox, at 23%.
A survey from CyberSafeKids has found that parents are becoming less involved in their children’s activity online, with 77% of 8-12 year-olds saying that their parents can’t see what they do online.
Trevor Murphy CEO of Wexford based Cyber School says that education is the key for online protection for children:
“We heard earlier statistics that children were continuously getting exposed to internet negatives. Our best advice that we can give is that education is key. We implore that all schools should have cyber safety and digital health embedded in their curriculum and that parents should understand how to set very simple rules especially at the primary sector. Stick by the rules, know what they are and be consistent.”
When asked how schools and parents can join together to ensure that children are protected, Trevor outlined the key ways that they can engage:
“Schools should be leading programs annually also ensuring that parents become involved through parent talks and sending information home. The fear is that parents can go down many rabbit holes online with misinformation so it is imperative that the information comes from the schools.”
He went on to say that monitoring from parents is imerative:
“The internet is one of the greatest inventions we have with so many positives with the negatives coming from social media and that’s where monitoring has to come in from parents understanding the platforms their kids are on”.
Trevor finished off by saying that parents should set aside time to enjoy with their children online:
“The best method for protecting your child is continuous education and communicating with your school ensuring that there’s a school program running and enjoying time with your child online.”
For more information visit: https://cyberschool.ie/
