Regular visitors to our parental control blog are now probably well aware of the many risks the internet can pose to children. We hope we’ve managed to provide parents with useful information to keep them aware of the different threats and how to protect their kids online.

But for those of you who want to get more involved with learning about e-safety, there are workshops available that provide training to parents, teachers and corporate organisations. We would particularly recommend i-PAT (Internet Parental Awareness Training), a group that runs courses in schools for teachers and parents.

We were kindly invited by i-PAT to attend one of their recent internet safety sessions in Bristol.  This particular talk was hosted by a primary school for the parents, and had obviously sparked a great deal of interest due to the high level of attendance.

The presentation covered four main topics surrounding internet safety for children: cyberbullying, inappropriate material, grooming and identity theft. The interactive nature of the talk was very engaging, with parents being questioned about various aspects of the web to test their existing knowledge and asked how they would respond in different scenarios with their children in mind . Parents were also asked to outline their key concerns with their children being online. These were identified as; viewing pornographic content, cyberbullying, having their email / social network accounts hacked into and being groomed by sexual predators. Many of the parents also expressed concern about being out of touch with the internet today, explaining that it was a struggle to keep up with its continually evolving nature.

i-PAT recommended that parents draw up a contract with their children about internet safety. For example, this could include a child telling their father when they are going to spend time on a site like Habbo Hotel, so he is aware if what they are doing. Parents are also recommended to sit with their child and get them to explain how the site works, watching whilst they use it. If the child sticks to the contract, then they can be rewarded with an extra 10 minutes on the site tomorrow. However, if they break the rules then parents can threaten to block the site as a punishment.

The session continued to outline the other topics, with an interactive quiz to get parents discussing issues and informative film clips to demonstrate problems such as cyberbullying.

There’s certainly a lot to fit in for a presentation that only lasts a couple of hours, but i-PAT covered a wide range of topics in a very informative, engaging manner. We would certainly recommend their workshops for schools, teachers and parents – in fact, anyone who has involvement with children. For further information about i-PAT and to contact the team, visit their website at: http://www.i-pat.org.uk/.