9 online safety mistakes even the most tech-savvy parents are making — and how to fix them

Because of how quickly technology use is changing, it’s more important than ever that parents make sure their children have the skills to navigate the online world early on in life. And although some of those skills will be learned at school, lots of kids spend more time online when they are home — so it’s up to parents to make sure they are doing so safely.

Here's a list of habits, behaviours, and mistakes that even the most conscientious, tech-savvy parents could be making.

Not having regular conversations about online safety

Having regular conversations about what your children are doing online and how they feel about their internet use is the best way to keep them safe online. This way, you can monitor what they get up to and think about if any settings or restrictions need to be changed or put in place.

Having open conversations and making your child feel comfortable to tell you anything about what they come across online is also key to their safety. This way, if they come across anything inappropriate, they will feel confident to come and tell you so you can solve the problem together.

“If a child does encounter something that upsets them online, the first thing you want them to do is to come and talk to you about it so that you can therefore help out and help resolve the situation. It’s about the trust and the confidence that they need to have in you as parents at all ages,” David says.

“Conversation breeds trust and confidence, and you'll get a much better outcome.”

The UK Safer Internet Centre recommends asking questions like the following when having these conversations:

• What sites do you visit? Can you show me the websites you visit the most?
• What do you like doing online?
• What games do you and your friends like to play online? Shall we play your favourite game online together?
• How do you stay safe online?
• What is OK and not OK to share?
• Do you know where to go for help if you come across something you don’t want to see?
• Do you know how to report or block on the services you use?
• Are there activities that you could enjoy as a family?

Not using parental controls and safety tools available to them

There are plenty of parental controls and safety tools inbuilt to the biggest platforms, websites, and devices these days — but it’s up to users to turn them on.

David recommends using the Family Sharing feature on Apple devices, Family Link for Google/Android devices, or Microsoft 365 Family. These all allow parents to group their family’s devices and institute privacy and safety setting across them, as well as monitor usage and purchases.

You can also apply features like time limits, content restrictions, and communication limits on things like Xbox, PlayStation, Fortnite, Roblox, and Instagram that children commonly use. Just make sure to do this for every platform/device/app, David says — more on this later.

Similarly, understanding how to report problems is important, he says, because “platforms don't necessarily know that there's abuse happening unless you actually tell them.”

We have included a handy article on how to use the parental controls of lots of the most popular platforms and tech among children in this issue.

Assuming that parental controls have it covered

Parental controls are important, obviously, but they can’t cover everything.

“Don't just assume that because your children are in their bedroom on a device that you’ve checked out, using filtered internet, that they can't access content that you don't want them to,” David says.

Lots of parents “confuse a child's confidence with their capability,” he says.

“Yes, they have no fear with devices. They can pick up any device and can navigate their way around, looking like they know what they're doing. But that is confidence. It does not necessarily equate with capability. They’re still children,” he says.

For example, lots of children are confident that they can identify misinformation online, but that doesn’t mean that they actually can, he says.

Plus, some parental controls aren’t the best choice for families. Sometimes using them can affect how games and websites work, leading to tension between children and parents, or sometimes they force binary choices that don’t suit certain families’ rules.

And if parents don’t combine their use of parental controls with explanations, children can be left unaware of the dangers they are being protected from, leaving them more vulnerable if they are exposed to them, researchers say.

You might want to reconsider your use of parental controls as kids get older, too. Stephen Balkam, CEO and founder of the Family Online Safety Institute tells MadeForMums: “We recommend taking advantage of the many parental controls that most age-appropriate platforms offer rather than actually monitoring a child’s conversations, especially the older ones. You don’t want online safety concerns to veer into surveillance, which can lead to a break in trust.”

So, it’s important to keep having conversations with children and checking up on their tech usage and settings, to make sure their confidence isn’t meaning they are putting themselves in danger and that your safety choices are working well for your family.

Forgetting some devices and platforms

We all have a lot of devices these days, so you’re bound to miss a few when thinking about online safety.

It’s all about “understanding where access happens,” David says. He recommends walking around the house with your child and identifying all the devices that are connected to the internet.

“It's not just a laptop, a phone, a tablet, a games console,” he says. “It could be a TV, a camera, a smart watch or fitness device, a printer, a storage device, central heating systems, smart speakers. There’s a huge variety of different devices.”

And then, once you’ve identified all the devices, he recommends looking thoroughly at each one and the services kids can use on each one.

“Scroll screen by screen through a child's device with the child, looking at the various different apps that are installed on the device,” he says. “It's the ones where you log in and you have an account which are the ones I would suggest that parents particularly need to know about.”

Don’t forget that devices are all separate, and just because you’ve applied safety settings to one, doesn’t mean that they work together.

Being a bad role model

Children will model their behaviour on that of the adults in their lives, so David says it’s important to “be acutely aware about how you as a parent demonstrate constructive digital use.”

David quoted 2019 guidance from the UK Chief Medical Officers for healthy habits to model for children:

• Screen-free meal times
• No screens before bedtime — and even better if there are no screens in bedrooms overnight
• Not using phones when crossing a road
• Taking breaks from screens every two hours

Banning certain devices

“As an organisation, we don't think that banning devices, particularly banning smartphones is the answer,” David says.

“The problem is not the device. The problem is actually the content,” he says.

“Granted, smartphones have a are clearly smaller and more mobile. But children can equally access the same content on an iPad or a tablet or a laptop. It's the content that is harmful, not necessarily the piece of hardware.”

Plus, “children are incredibly adept,” he says, meaning that they may be able to get around device restrictions.

It’s most important to teach them about online dangers and how to stay safe around them, so that if they do come across them, they are equipped with the tools to deal with them.

Forgetting about device encryption

David says that many devices and apps are encrypted these days. This means that the data coming from devices is unreadable — a great feature to avoid your personal data from being viewed or compromised, but which can get in the way of parental controls.

Encrypted browsers and apps don’t allow Wi-Fi networks to view what users are doing on the, so if you have parental controls on your internet network, they can be bypassed.

Using in-app or in-browser parental controls and safety settings can help with this.

Making assumptions about what your children can access

“Don't assume that because you've applied parameters and parental controls that children can't get around them. It may be unlikely that they can get around it, or they may not want to get around it, but just don't assume that because you're using safety tools that they're necessarily completely infallible,” David says. “You can't just install the controls and forget about it.”

Whether it’s accidental or intentional, you can’t assume that children will be completely safe from inappropriate content or other threats.

Instead, see the controls as part of a combination of things — most importantly cultivating your child’s trust and confidence in you so that they can come to you and work out problems together.

Not acknowledging the benefits of being online

Despite the dangers of tech and the internet, they can be really positive for children, David says.

“There are some extraordinary support mechanisms and services that that are available to children online that they wouldn’t ever have known about 20 years ago,” he says.

And being better connected is a fantastic opportunity for children to learn and find new things to be passionate about.

Since our world is only ever becoming more digitised, it’s important to embrace that and simply make sure that children are best prepared to face it.