Keeping students safe online

Dear community, we want to encourage you to discuss internet safety with your children - of all ages! You should agree with your children what they can do online including sites they can visit and appropriate behaviours while online including:

• setting boundaries around sensible amounts of screen time; optometrists recommend that students do not spend more than 30 minutes in front of a screen before they take a 30 minute break from all screens - this is important for eye health
• reviewing and approving games and apps before they are downloaded
• reviewing privacy settings of sites and applications
• checking children’s profiles and what they are posting online
• check the sites your child is accessing
• reminding children that anything that is posted online will be permanently on the internet
• taking the time to understand what sites they are visiting and who they are talking with and check in regularly
• some social media sites have age restrictions to join, check these before letting your child use them or join them
• monitoring a child’s use of the internet and consider having them use it in an open, common area of the house
• making sure your children know to report any activity they don’t feel comfortable with to parents and caregivers straight away.

Here are a few helpful places to start:

• CommonSenseMedia's Ultimate Guide to Parental Controls: https://www.commonsensemedia.org/blog/parents-ultimate-guide-to-parental-controls
• CommonSenseMedia's Family Media Agreement: https://www.commonsensemedia.org/family-media-agreement
• 7 Tips for Family and Whānau from Netsafe NZ: https://www.netsafe.org.nz/online-safety-for-parents/
• The Best Online Safety Tips for Lockdown from Netsafe NZ: https://www.netsafe.org.nz/the-best-online-safety-tips-for-lockdown/
• CommonSenseMedia's Ultimate Parent Guides: https://www.commonsensemedia.org/parents-ultimate-guides

Ps. Parents, if your children want to resist your attempts to teach them healthy digital technology habits, please remember that you are the parents: remind them that you are, with God's help, providing for their needs, i.e. shelter, food, electricity, Internet access, devices, etc, and you know what is best for them. It is important that they learn that there is a difference between what they need and what they want ... may God bless you with wisdom as you have these important conversations with your children.