Dear Parents,
Following our recent wellbeing morning I am following up with some resources which may be of use to you as a parent at home. These resources are invaluable and can be used as conversation starters which can help keep the conversation going about Online safety at home.
Following Dr Maureen Griffins visit to our school she provided feedback. These observations are consistent with schools across Ireland. Please find these observations below:
Parental Involvement. The majority of students indicated they are able to download an App onto their device with no code/password required from parents. As the digital age of consent is 16, parental involvement is central in ensuring the App is age appropriate, the privacy settings are activated and advice is offered to children regarding challenges a particular App may present. I have attached guides for parents explaining how to activate both Family Link and Family Sharing. Qustodio (a parental control App) is another very popular parental control App which has come highly recommended to me by many parents across Ireland. You can find more information here https://www.qustodio.com/en/
Location Sharing. The majority of students admitted sharing their location on Snapchat. When we spoke about why Snapchat wants to know their location, the innocence of some students was seen with some students saying “so they can tell you where your friends are”. Some students also indicated it can be hard to see all your friends together on Snapmaps and you are not there. We spoke about this, but further conversations on the impact social media can have on mental health would benefit students.
Passwords and lying about age. While very few students indicated they share passwords with friends, quite a lot indicated they knew someone else’s passwords. I reminded all students to keep passwords private, change regularly and activate 2FA (two factor authentication) to protect their accounts.
The majority of students in 1st/2nd (50-60% approx.) also indicated they are lying about their age online, pretending to be older than 16 years. We spoke about the increased risks this can place on them such as reduced safety features on the sites, age-inappropriate content, friends suggestions for people who are older. Further discussions around this and increased parental involvement when setting up Apps, would help here.
Screens and Sleep. Some students indicated they are using screens until 1/2/3am, with the majority of students indicating they have devices in their bedroom at night time. While there may have been a certain amount of bravado, discussing the importance of sleep in SPHE could help.
We briefly discussed “how do you know you need to take a break from technology?” It was really positive to see that some students were aware of their own signs e.g. bored, getting headaches, eyes sore, etc. Further discussion on this and recognising what our own signs are will serve to benefit the students in managing their online time and their wellbeing overall.
Finally, we discussed ‘exit strategies’ for leaving groups online. It was really positive to see some students had the confidence to leave groups they deemed harmful, however, others may struggle with leaving as they possibly feared they would miss out on what was happening in the group. Reminding students that we all play a role online and the role of bystander when we create the audience in group situations, could help. Also practicing exit strategies for situations they may find themselves online would help.
Please find a list of resources below, I have also attached two documents, Cyber Safe Kids and Parents Guide to Safer Internet for your convivence.
Kind Regards
Denise O ‘Callaghan
1.Parental Guides on various apps/ online issues available from the National Online Safety UK https://nationalonlinesafety.com/resources/platform-guides/ They cover a range of popular apps and issues such as social media addiction, grooming, sexting etc. The guides offer practical advice and are a great resource for parents. You could release one guide to parents every week/fortnight to keep the conversation going.
5. Another great website is Common Sense Media https://www.commonsensemedia.org/ It offers reviews, age recommendations and advice on a range of popular social networking sites/chatting apps etc. They provide good articles on a weekly basis, which again can keep the conversation going with parents.
6. When we spoke about screen time, I told students I would send information which helps them calculate how long they will spend on screens in their life-time. The following links may be a nice tool to use at home to help open up a discussion around this.
7. For parents, I have attached some digital parenting guides.
Pdf-1
Pdf-2
App 