Online Safety: A Parent's Perspective

Online safety has never been more important than it is now. With a global pandemic that will continue to affect us for some time to come, we are relying on the Internet and our use of technology more than ever before. In 2018, we asked over 2000 children what their views and opinions were about online safety education. We felt it only fair to ask parents about their opinions too. As one may expect, there are of course stark differences in their opinions.

As educators, influencers and parents it is important for us to be able to recognise where the gaps lie and to work together to close them. Technology continues to develop at a rapid pace and it’s times like this that result in greater innovation. The landscape and dynamics of our children’s use of technology continues to shift at a rapid rate. Today’s trending tech is tomorrow’s old news. As difficult as it may be, we must try our best to understand it. At the least, enough so that we can help guide our children and help them to continue to make the right decisions online.

For this research we spoke to over 2,000 parents to get their views and opinions on similar issues to see if there was agreement between the two. Over 50 percent of our parents were aged between 30 - 44 years and had varying children at home. They ranged in their confidence in digital skills, with some parents working within the tech sector, and some parents having no interactions with digital technologies as part of their everyday work.