GARDEN ROUTE DISTRICT NEWS - The Covid-19 lockdown has seen home schooling become the norm, much to the distress of many parents, children and teachers struggling to manage a new and unfamiliar remote teaching experience.
If you are lucky enough to have internet access at home, especially fibre internet connectivity with its stability and great bandwidth, the online learning experience becomes a lot easier and there is a plethora of excellent content to make your child’s education experience interactive, exciting and manageable.
Many children have access to a smart device of some sort - a phone, tablet or laptop, all connected to the internet.
While online security has always been a concern for parents, the changed circumstances have amplified the need for greater security awareness not only on how much screen time children spend online, but most crucially, what they could be exposed to.
“As important and powerful as the internet is, and as fundamental as it is to our daily lives and tasks especially during lockdown, it also has a dark side. For any parent, the biggest concern is that children don’t have the necessary grasp of the privacy issues and any potential threats that could put them at risk. Two of the most important aspects of protecting your child online come down to opening the lines of communication between you so that your child shares any concerns with you, and secondly, putting the necessary security and monitoring measures in place to keep them safer online,” says Jacques de Villiers, Head of Fibre-to-the-Home of Metrofibre Networx.
Tips
De Villiers says the following tips could help parents to keep their children safe:
Open cards and straight talk: before you allow your child to access any digital platforms, have the talk. Make sure that your children understand the risks and all the potential content that they could be exposed to, and what is appropriate and not appropriate.
Make rules with your children such as never uploading or downloading photos of themselves or friends, never divulging any personal information whatsoever (age, gender, address and so on) and never talk to strangers online.
Your children should always clear any downloads and apps to be installed on their devices with you first.
Have an honest discussion and let them know that they can talk to you about anything that concerns them.
Controlling online content and browsing: With the right online app and parental controls on your favourite browsers such as Google and Youtube, you can block inappropriate content and pop-up ads. -Google has a child-friendly version - https://www.safesearchkids.com/ - not only is it a safe search engine specifically designed for children, but there is loads of excellent material for parents and children on how to keep safe online. - Youtube kids provides a version of the service oriented towards children, with curated selections of content, parental control features, and filtering of videos. You will need to set this up on your child’s devices and manage the settings, so find out how on Youtube’s Parent Guide.
"At no time in our history have we ever been this reliant on internet connectivity to work, learn, play, connect and communicate. The Covid-19 lockdown has amplified our digital reliance in unimaginable ways. Have the all-important talk with your children about the online world, and all its benefits and risks," says De Villiers.
'We bring you the latest Garden Route, Hessequa, Karoo news'
