New Primary Pages – Guidance for parents and carers
Childnet has created a brand-new resource for children aged from 8 to 11. Parents and carers can use the information to support their family on a range of subjects from staying safe online to advice about online bullying and gaming.
What are the Primary Pages?
Inspired by the most frequently asked questions we hear directly from young people in schools, we have created eight new information pages for primary pupils aged 8-11 years old.
Each page answers one of the following questions:
- What should I do if someone online is mean to me?
- What should I do if an online friend wants to meet up?
- What do I need to know about online gaming?
- How much time should I spend online?
- What does the report button do?
- What do I need to know about sharing things online?
- What makes a good online friend?
- How old do I need to be to access social media?
How can parents and carers use the children’s section of the website?
The pages have been written specifically for children to access if they have questions about staying safe online and include top tips, videos and short quizzes. This also makes them a fantastic resource for parents to use with their children to help support their family’s internet use. Some of the key things you can do are:
- Share them with your child! For younger children, reading the pages together means you can support them if there are words or concepts they don’t understand, but for older children you may prefer to give them the opportunity to read them independently.
- Start a conversation. Use the ideas introduced on the pages to start a conversation about your child’s internet use. If you have read the pages together, this process may begin naturally as a result, however you may also want to use our conversation starters to explore some ideas in greater depth.
- Create a family agreement. Once you’ve got the conversation started, a family agreement is a great way to decide with your whole family how you all use the internet in a positive way whether at home, at school or at a friend’s house. Our family agreement template provides a framework that will help families set clear expectations for positive and safe internet use.
- Return to the pages when needed. The new information pages are a handy way to get conversations started, but remember they can also be useful for reminding you and your children of what to do in a particular situation. If your child starts talking to a new online friend, review the page What should I do if an online friend wants to meet up? Or if your child is interested in opening a social media account, then read the page How old do I need to be to access social media?
This content is delivered as part of our work in the UK Safer Internet Centre and is co-financed by the Connecting Europe Facility of the European Union.