Tuesday 5 February 2019

Safer Internet Day With Project MC2

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Today, Tuesday the 5th of February is Safer Internet Day and in today's digital world it is something that all of us parents need to be aware of. When I was growing up there was no WI-FI - just super slow dial-up, so children never really went online very much. Nowaday's children, like my own, are growing up from a young age being able to work tablets and smartphones and watch YouTube videos of children opening surprise toys and making slime. It is all new and us parents need to ensure that we keep our children safe online, as a parent to a 4,5 and 16-year-old myself keeping my children safe online is something that I do worry about and try and be aware of especially as my teen uses social media herself. 

With this in mind Project MC2, who you may be familiar with from the Netflix show or from the great range of S.T.E.A.M toys have produced some top tips for keeping children safe online. Something I think all of us parents should read and familiarise ourselves with. 



The tips are 


  1. Connecting with your children online so you can keep an eye on their social media profiles. This is something I do with my own teenager and was the condition she had for getting accounts in the first place. 
  2. Monitor who they are friends with and sending messages too. Again this is something I used to do a lot when she was younger, I would always check her DM's and go through her friend's list to make sure they were all people she knew in real life. 
  3. Talk about their favourite sites with them. My teen uses sites such as snapchat which I don't personally use or really understand much, I actually set up an account just to see what my teen is up to and got her to show me how to use it. 
  4. Talk about the importance of not sharing personal information such as your address online. Again something I have made sure we talked about and encouraged her to never mention. 
  5. Add parental locks to Youtube, with my younger children they have parental controls on their tablets so they don't end up watching something unsuitable online. 
To stay safe online the tips are 


  1. Keep social media channels privates. With my teen I made sure all her social media channels are private, Facebook and Instagram are all set to private with only friends being able to see her photos and message her. 
  2. Only accept friend requests from people you have met in real life. This is something I had to talk to my teen about as she would often add friends of friends online without meeting them herself, so we talked about the danger of this and now she only accepts people she knows. 
  3. Keep passwords secret. For obvious reasons, so people don't access your account and find out personal information, add people you don't know or hack your account and cause problems. 
  4. Don't message people you don't trust. This is something that crops up a lot, people screenshotting things and trying to cause problems or people who you are not sure who they are messaging you. 
  5. Tell someone if something happens online that you don't feel comfortable with. Luckily my daughter does tell me when people have been mean online, we had an incident a couple of years ago that upset her but luckily she told us and it was dealt with quickly. 
You can find out more about keeping your children safe online at www.saferinternetday.org.uk

How do you ensure your children are safe online? 

Disclosure I received some Project MC2 products in exchange for this post, however, all opinions are my own. 
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6 comments

  1. This is something I do worry about now that my youngest two are showing more of an interest in the internet. You've listed some really helpful tips, some I had never really thought about before so thanks x

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  2. Some great tips there! my two are really into internet and Imogen now has instagram after much nagging. I can access her account on my phone though which is working for now....but sure that might change! Hopefully she will have the sense though to keep safe

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    1. My daughter has Instagram too, I still check it every now and then and she is 16 x

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  3. Omg this is so important, so many parents do not monitor what their kids are doing! They have no idea what they are seeing and who they are talking to, its scary x

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    1. It really is scary, I worry about it so much and I am always making sure my teen is aware of internet safety. You read so many horror stories don't you x

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