Help your children to have a safe and happy time online this summer holiday

Children and young people across the UK are getting ready to have more free time as the summer holidays get into full swing. After a period of home learning and a busy year at school, we look at the ways in which parents and carers can help keep their children safe in the online world.

The summer holidays are a great chance to sit down with your children and find out about all the things they like to do online. Together you can visit their favourite sites and join in with their favourite games. This is a great way to stay up to date with their online lives and show them that you’re interested in what they are doing.

The holidays are also a good opportunity to have positive conversations about the internet, so if something ever does upset your child online they would feel more confident in talking it through with you. 

Sometimes young people may not want to speak to an adult about their online lives, or may simply find it difficult to start this conversation themselves. It’s important to reassure them that no matter what the issue may be, you are there to listen without judgement, help them and refrain from confiscating their devices or punishing them.

Our conversation starters are a great tool to help encourage an open and honest dialogue with your child.   

Although it can sometimes feel like young people are the experts when it comes to different apps and games, it’s important to remember that as an adult you are the expert in keeping them safe.

To learn more about the apps, games and services children are using, you can spend some time on them, familiarise yourself with their reporting and blocking features and ensure that you have the knowledge to help them face a problem over the summer holidays or in the future.

As you and your children will be spending more time together, why not find some fun and engaging ways to use technology and talk about keeping safe:

During the summer holidays, young people may want to keep in touch with their friends through social networking sites or games. It’s a good time to ask them about what sites they use and do a privacy check-up.

Encourage them to use the privacy tools on the services they use, so that the content they post is only available to people they know and trust in real life.

To help set these up, the UK Safer Internet Centre has a guide to the privacy settings of different sites.  You can also download the UK Safer Internet Centre’s safety checklists for popular sites such as Instagram, Tiktok, Snapchat and Facebook.  

Some children may want to share photos and videos online of what they are getting up to in their summer holidays. Talk to them about what types of photos are appropriate to share, and who they are okay to share with. Photos can hold clues that give away personal information. For example, when sharing a selfie, are there any landmarks or street signs that give away your location?

This is true for photos you might want to share of children as well! It’s always worth asking children if they are happy with an image you want to share online.

A family agreement is a great way to start a conversation with your whole family about how you all use the internet and discuss together how to behave in a positive way when online at home, at school or at a friend’s house. 

The agreement involves generating promises, these are positive statements about how your family wants to look after each other online and how you should treat others online. The summer can be one of the best times to sit down as a family and agree these promises together. We have created some handy guidance to help you put the family agreement into practice.

And most importantly: enjoy the summer holidays!