Technology Tips
Why internet safety matters
Children aged 9-11 years often have their own devices and go online by themselves. They use digital media and the internet for doing schoolwork and homework, playing games, listening to or downloading music, and general browsing.
They might be communicating with other people through in-game chat, messaging apps like Discord and social media.
Because pre-teens might be online more independently, including with older children, they might come across new internet safety risks.
Internet safety risks for pre-teens
There are four main kinds of internet risks for pre-teens.
Content risks
These risks include coming across material that some pre-teens might find upsetting, disgusting or otherwise uncomfortable, especially if they see it accidentally. This material might include:
- sexually explicit content in music videos, movies or online games, or pornography
- real or simulated violence
- things that are designed to shock or scare
- harmful user-generated content, like sites about drug use, self-harm, suicide or negative body image
- fake news that seems believable.
Contact risks
These risks include children coming into contact with people they don’t know or with adults posing as children online. For example, a child might be invited or persuaded to meet someone they don’t know, share personal information with strangers, or provide contact details after clicking on a pop-up message.
Conduct risks
These risks include behaving in inappropriate or hurtful ways, or being the victim of this kind of behaviour. Examples include:
- cyberbullying
- sexting
- impersonating others online
- creating content that reveals information about other people
- buying something without permission
- having trouble regulating online time.
Contract risks
Contract risks include children signing up to unfair contracts, terms or conditions that they aren’t aware of or don’t fully understand. As a result, children might:
- be open to identity theft or fraud
- get inappropriate digital marketing messages or scam emails
- have their personal or family data collected from apps and devices like fitness trackers.
Protecting children from internet safety risks: tips
Although your child is becoming an independent internet user, there are still some basic things you can do to protect your child from internet safety risks:
- Create a family media plan. It’s best to create your plan with your child and ask them for suggestions. Your plan could cover things like screen-free areas in your house and what online behaviour is OK. If you follow the family media rules too, you’ll be role-modelling good online behaviour.
- Talk with your child about ways to restrict the content they can see, like using safe search settings on browsers. You might need to show your child how to do this.
- Check that games, websites and TV programs are appropriate for your child. You can do this by looking at reviews on Common Sense Media.
- If you use TV streaming services, set up profiles for different household members. This can make it less likely that your child will come across inappropriate programs.
- Encourage your child to use child-friendly messaging apps like Messenger Kids.
- Ask your child to ‘friend’ you on social media. Friending your child means you can follow what they’re interested in and who they’re connected to online.
- Find out how to make complaints about offensive or illegal online content.
It’s best to avoid using surveillance apps that let you secretly monitor your child’s online activity because this sends the message that you don’t trust your child. It’s better to talk openly about your own internet use and encourage your child to do the same.
Technical internet safety tools like internet filters don’t necessarily reduce online risk for children in this age group. Using filters at home might encourage some children to go online in unfiltered environments away from home. Also, children might feel they can’t talk to you about a negative online experience because they’re worried about getting into trouble for not using a filter.
Source:
The Australian Parenting Website; 'Internet Safety: Children 9-11 years' (25th of August 2022) https://raisingchildren.net.au/pre-teens/entertainment-technology/cyberbullying-online-safety/internet-safety-9-11-years