Recently I was looking for some online resources about e-safety, partly to share with my children and I discovered some interesting sites and videos.
E-Safety Kit has been developed by Insafe and Liberty Global for children aged 6-12 years. On this site, children can explore safety issues like security, communication, cyberbullying and entertainment. They can easily learn by games and tasks to safeguard themselves. It also offers parents and teachers some advice on how to overcome these issues, a parent’s guide and an activity-based guidebook, situation cards and a family certificate and stickers.
On the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) website called thinkuknow, you can find information about the sites children like to visit, mobiles and new technology. Sorted for the different agegroups, there are resources that can be used in the classroom or at home. And very important: there is also a place which anyone can use to report if they feel uncomfortable or worried about someone they are chatting to online.
Please share this video with you child (age 8 upwards). It is an assembly from CEOPs Thinkuknow education programme. This video enables children “to understand that they need to be just as protective of their personal information online, as they are in the real world. It also directs where to go and what to do if children are worried about any of the issues covered”.
Jigsaw: Assembly for 8 -10 year olds (© youtube CEOP)
I also found a very good video for parents, carers and teachers called „The Parents’ and Carers’ Guide to the Internet“. It is also from CEOP and gives a “realistic look at what it takes to be a better online parent”. “The show covers topics such as, talking to your child about the technologies they use and the things they might see (…) With interviews from leading experts such as, Professor Tanya Byron, Dr Linda Papadopoulos and Reg Bailey, as well as key industry players from Facebook, Club Penguin and Moshi Monsters , this online guide aims to equip you with the tools to have those tricky conversations with your children and keep your family safe online.”
Related articles
- Risks children face online: Cyberbullying [CEOP Education Video] #SID13 (olliebray.typepad.com)
- Risks children face online: Grooming [CEOP Education Video] #SID13 (olliebray.typepad.com)
- Parents warned over online abuse (bbc.co.uk)
- Promoting E-Safety on Edmodo (simonhaughton.typepad.com)
Categories: Children and the internet, Parenting
Expat Since Birth – A Life spent "abroad" 
Thanks so much for some very much needed information! I will pass this along. 🙂
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I’m glad you liked. There are many more ressources, but I found that these ones are a great start. And on the CEOP site you can find all sorts of informations and help. These sites are more interesting for European countries. Maybe someone knows similar sites for other countries? It would be interesting to know also how schools all over the world handle this “problem”.
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Thanks for this very useful information.
Here in Brazil most schools, and dare I say a lot of parents, deal with the problem by ignoring it.
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I’m glad you found it helpful, Stephen. Here in Europe most of the schools do approach this topic, some early (with children around 10 years) and some a bit later (when they’re 14-15), but I know that there are still some who are not there yet… I think it can’t be early enough, or let’s say, when a child starts using internet etc. he should be told how to use it. Many parents I know don’t know exactly how to deal with it. Not all of them use social networks, and some of those who do use it exactly the way we would teach our children NOT to use it (putting dubious pictures online (when they’re drunk etc.) and telling exactly where they will meet with friends and when etc.). – Therefore I even think that some parents should be better informed. And as for the children, how can you help your child if you don’t know the world he lives in online?
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