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/.

I read an article this morning by Sirena Bergman on the Guardian website, entitled ‘when online privileges are abused.’  Bergman identifies how hiding behind a computer screen enables people to feel they can post anything they like online, including abuse, insults and opinions that all wouldn’t normally be expressed face to face.

“The nature of online communication allows one to hide behind a screen, to play a character, have fun with the facelessness of what is written. But if adults are very often indulging in this kind of childish and abusive behaviour, I can only imagine what could go on in places such as secondary schools. If a vulnerable and self-conscious 13-year-old were to become the target of even less restrained abuse it could create a terrible situation that may never have arisen in a face-to-face confrontation.”

One of the key reasons that lies beneath cyberbullying is the anonymity offered by the internet. In school, kids can be caught and punished for bullying peers. But outside of the school grounds, they can insult others without having to see the pain they cause or worry about a teacher standing behind them. They can even do it completely anonymously, and create hate groups – a large number of pupils cyberbullying someone via nasty groups on social networking sites is not uncommon.

The poor victims of traditional bullying can at least escape it when they get home from school and shut the door on the rest of the world. Today’s children can’t. Even in the safety of their family home, they can continue to be plagued with abusive texts, emails and online messages.

Bergman states that being able to hide behind the safety of a computer or a false identity means, ” users can remain relatively anonymous in order to deceive, defame, insult, bully, and – in extreme circumstances – commit violent and deplorable crimes against innocent users. Perhaps we need to decide just how far we want an online community to bleed into our real, flesh-and-blood daily lives.”

Children need to be educated that cyberbullying is just as serious and upsetting as bullying in real life. There have been various incidents where children have taken their own lives because of cyberbullying – just because it’s not face to face doesn’t mean it won’t hurt someone. Children should also be taught to report any issues of cyberbullying that are victim to or witness online – an anonymous method of reporting can significantly help people to come forward and prevent incidents from having tragic consequences.

CNN reports that the latest public figure to tackle cyberbullying is US talk show host Dr. Phil McGraw, who described the issue as “out of control.”

McGraw spoke during a House Education subcommittee hearing examining safety concerns for children and teens using the internet, social networking and other technology.

McGraw told the subcommittee that kids who are cyberbullied are 1.9 times more likely to attempt suicide than the general population.

“I get tens of thousands of letters at ‘The Dr. Phil Show’ of kids asking for help about this,” said McGraw. “It is a serious crisis – 42 % of kids say they have been bullied on the internet, 35 %of kids say they have been threatened.”

Cyberbullying has increasingly been in the public eye as high-profile cases surface in the media and the courts. McGraw said children often do not talk to their parents about the issue, because they feel ashamed and embarrassed about it.

“We have to give educators, administrators and parents the tools that they need to prevent this and to intervene once it happens,” said McGraw. “I really hope we add language to address cyberbullying to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, because we can raise awareness and give teachers the tools they need to tackle this problem.”

The talk show host said he believes discussing cyberbullying is overdue within schools and American families and that he does not think enough adults are literate about what children are discussing on the internet. “We need to know who is talking to our children and who our children are talking with,” he said.

Safety experts and other witnesses are also speaking to the congressional committee about the issue.

Access the original article and a video online at: http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/06/24/McGraw.cyber.bully/index.html

The Daily Mail has published an article about a mother who secretly tracked her daughter’s Facebook account for a week. The piece makes an interesting read for parents, who may well discover many things about their child that they weren’t aware of.

Children need to be 13 years old before they can have a Facebook profile – although to bypass this rule, all they have to do is enter a false date of birth. The author of the article, Anne Graham, caves in to her 11 year old daughter’s persistent nagging and allows her to create an account as long as she promises to tell her about any bullying and doesn’t accept friend requests from strangers.

After logging into her account on her mother’s phone and accidentally leaving it open for her to access, Anne discovers her daughter is a victim in a cyberbullying incident – but not an innocent one. The language she uses in retorts to the many teenagers sending her nasty messages leaves her shocked and uncomfortable - especially when she discovers some unkind words about her. Anne also learns that her daughter accepts any friend requests, regardless if she knows the person or not. She even actively approaches strangers herself, trying to increase the amount of Facebook friends in order to look popular.

Eventually Anne notices that the bullying incident is seriously affecting her daughter and informs her that she’s had access to her account. The problem between the two girls is soon resolved online and Anne enforces new rules for her Facebook account. She even mentions a couple of benefits that the site’s provided - it enabled her daughter to make up with her friend again, has helped her when looking for help with homework and given her support via online friends on occasions.

Although the situation ends on a fairly positive note, it’s clear from the reader comments that most people are outraged that Anne let her 11 year old on Facebook in the first place. Anne argues that her daughter would have probably have done it without her permission anyway, and wanted to set ground rules in order for her to use the site. But there’s no denying that social networking sites for teenagers and adults aren’t suitable for children to use. From behind the safety of their screen, they can use it for all the wrong purposes – and at such a young age, they just aren’t emotionally mature or sensible enough to think about the consequences.

You can read Anne’s full account of what happened at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1289070/Facebook-pressure-The-horrifying-week-I-spent-spying-11-year-old-daughter.html

The charity BeatBullying has reported that 44% of teenage suicide cases stem from bullying incidents.

In just eight years, 2100 children killed themselves, with almost half of these tragedies occurring because of tormenting from other kids. Many victims were pursued by bullies online, via email or on social networking sites.

The statistics are released this week to mark the second anniversary of 13-year-old victim Sam Leeson’s suicide, who was driven to suicide after relentless cyberbullying on the social networking site Bebo.

Professor Tanya Byron, president of CyberMentors, told the News of the World: “It is unacceptable for so many young people to still be at risk online. The figures covering child suicide released in our report today, although unlikely to reflect the full scale of the problem, are shocking. Government must take notice – we know prevention is possible.

The new coalition has stated their ambition to tackle bullying. We invite them to release the figures on child suicide in future, to ensure that a strategy can be developed and further suicides prevented.”

The US Online Safety and Technology Working Group has released the findings from its ‘Youth Safety on a Living Internet’  report.

The report found that cyberbullying is a bigger issue that perceived and can start as early as the first few years of primary school, stating that, “bullying and harassment, most often by peers, are the most frequent threats that minors face, both online and offline.”

Between 9 – 35% of young people report being victim to “electronic aggression.”

The research also looked at other risks such as, identity theft (children and teens are often targeted because of typically clean credit histories), obsessive use of technology and loss of reputation from posting things online that could be embarrassing later.

It states that teaching children civil, respectful behaviour online and offline is the key to fostering a safe Internet environment. It urges the government to promote nationwide education in digital citizenship and media literacy and specifically recommends that the government create a Web-based clearinghouse for youth-risk and social-media research.

It also recommends that “the government avoids scare tactics and promotes an approach to risk prevention based on social norms. Dangerous online behaviour mirrors unsafe offline behaviour and similar notions of etiquette and safety should apply.”

The reports concludes that parents, teachers, government agencies and other organisations should promote online citizenship and media-literacy education, actively encouraging the participation of children in the process.

Larry Magid, a technology journalist for CNET and internet safety advocate, has written an interesting article on a new social networking site designed for children called Togetherville…

Thanks to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, social-networking sites like Facebook and MySpace are off-limits to kids under 13. That’s not to say that preteens aren’t using these sites–many are–but they have to lie about their age to sign up.

Aside from being “against the rules,” there are some real problems with younger kids using sites designed for teens and adults. For one thing, signing up requires lying, which is bad in itself. But, as many adults are finding out, knowing how to protect one’s privacy on a site like Facebook can be daunting and most young children are not developmentally ready to use these services. There are other issues as well; including how easy it is for kids to cyberbully each other on social-networking sites.
Finally, sites like Facebook just don’t have the resources for younger children, including the types of videos, games, and experiences that 6- to 10-year-olds find compelling.

Enter Togetherville.com, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based company that has built what founder Mandeep Singh Dhillon calls a “neighborhood” aimed at “kids and their grownups.” The site is set to come out of beta Tuesday evening.

In an interview (scroll down to listen to podcast) Dhillon called Togetherville “the first platform that really integrates young children’s ability to use the Web with their grownups close by.” Unlike some virtual words aimed at children, Togetherville uses the child’s real identity. Anonymity, said Dhillon is not allowed. The site encourages parents “to create neighborhoods of the real people in their child’s life to be around their kid as they grow up online.”

The free site, which does not display advertising to children, lets kids play games, watch videos, and create and share art. There is a “chat” function but neither kids nor adults can type in text. The only way to say something to another Togetherville participant is to select a prescreened “quip” as the site refers to text that has been approved by Togetherville staff. This greatly reduces the chances of cyberbullying and abuse and eliminates the ability for a child to reveal personal information other than what is already available on the service.

Videos, which can come from a variety of sources including YouTube, are also prescreened by staff to make sure that they are age appropriate. Although most of the activities are free, later this summer the site will add an “allowance” feature which will enable parents to give their kids real money to spend on games and other virtual goods. Kids will also be able to earn virtual money to spend on the site.

Unlike most spaces for young children, Togetherville isn’t designed to separate children from all adults. Instead it encourages parents to interact with their children on the site and to enable other trusted adults–such as grandparents and other relatives–to interact with the kids in their lives, under the control of the child’s parent. Also unlike other “worlds” for kids, there are no avatars. Kids really are who they are, which I find refreshing.

Another unique feature of Togetherville is that parents must be Facebook members to sign up their children for the service. Parents sign in with their Facebook user name and password. Children’s information is never sent to Facebook so the only way information about a child can get onto Facebook is if the parent or another adult enters it–just as is the case with offline activities. Parents can also chose to allow adult or teenage Facebook friends to interact with their child but all of the interaction takes place on Togetherville, not on Facebook.

As a disclosure, Togetherville is working with ConnectSafey.org, the nonprofit Internet safety organization I help operate. To that end, we have vetted their safety and privacy features and provided them with a customized version of our Facebook privacy video to help Togetherville parents protect their own privacy on Facebook.

Access the original article online at: http://news.cnet.com/8301-19518_3-20005284-238.html

The function for adults to sign into Togetherville doesn’t seem to be quite ready yet, but once it is we’ll be sure to check out the site in more detail and report our findings here on the parental control blog.

Emma Mahony of The Telegraph provides some help to parents who feel they are ‘digitally divided’ from their children.

She describes how after attending the Government’s “Click Clever, Click Safe” campaign launch earlier this year, she learnt that it’s possible to set up a password on her sons’ Xbox console to stop them “adding friends” without her authorisation.

We certainly agree with Emma’s her statement: “Talking to your children is rule number one in protecting them from perils online. The home is no longer a refuge from the outside world; every winking screen or mobile phone carries a potential intrusion from adults.”

We’ve looked at and added to some of her advice, which we feel should be reinforced to all parents…

Stranger danger – The best way to safeguard children is to set up the family computer in a central part of the house, with the screen facing into the room. Be aware of any built-in webcam on the computer.

Social networking – Children under 13 are not allowed to set up Facebook accounts, although it’s very difficult to control false ages being used to sign up for accounts. If banning your child is not an option, ask to be added as a “friend” on their profile. (See our top ten tips tips for safe social networking for further detailed advice.)

YouTube – Accounts are not open to under 13’s, but little heed is taken. With preteens, you can block access to YouTube and other specific sites using parental control software. YouTube also includes parental control features once you’ve signed up with an account too.

Mobiles - Smartphones enable inappropriate photos to be taken and within minutes posted on YouTube or “bluetoothed” to other phones. If you have concerns, block access via the service provider. Children can still listen to music, but will have to download songs via their (protected) home computer.

Gaming - The new Digital Economy Bill at last makes it illegal to sell video games rated 12 or over to an underage buyer, and gives games classification to the stricter Video Standards Council. If your child is playing video games online via Xbox, PlayStation 3 or Wii, set up passwords to restrict strangers playing them in public games.

Cyberbullying - The Byron Review showed how people often alter their moral codes on the internet due to “the lack of gatekeepers and visual cues from others”. With 2009 figures showing that one in three 11-16 year-olds report being bullied via the internet or mobile phones, the problem is widespread. If you suspect something similar going on with your child, contact the Beat Bullying charity (beatbullying.org).

Shopping - The UK Council for Child Internet Safety urges all parents to have their own passwords for computers and online shopping accounts and to “zip it” at all times.

Internet addiction – A survey of secondary school “screenagers” revealed that more than a quarter are spending more than six hours a day on computers. The Capio Nightingale Hospital in London has started a dedicated therapy programme for children addicted to the internet. The first step is to limit screen time to an agreed daily amount of one or two hours. (Brightfilter Parental Control will enable you to filter internet access for set time limits and depending on the time of the day.)

Tweets and apps – If your children use Twitter, check that their musings only go to their followers by ensuring they are in “private” mode. Encourage them to turn off the location mode, so strangers don’t know where they are.

Access the original article online at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/family/7714843/Online-security-Become-a-cyber-savvy-parent.html

Kingston University has released the results of a survey into young people’s internet safety knowledge.

The survey was conducted amongst 1,700 11- to 16-year-olds in the UK, revealing that more than one in five young people are sharing personal details with strangers online.

The research showed that more than 20% of respondents have shared their full name, where they go to school and photos of themselves, with people they only know online.

Professor Julia Davidson of Kingston University, who led the study, also found that one in five children have been bullied or threatened via the internet.

“A significant proportion of teenagers engage in behaviour that adults would consider risky, such as posting personal information and photos of themselves,” she said. “This is often viewed as acceptable by young people. We need to better understand teenagers’ online behaviour in order to develop more effective policy and safety practices.”

The full report and detailed results can be accessed at: http://cats-rp.org.uk/pdf%20files/Internet%20safety%20report%204-2010.pdf

Guardian writer Christina Meredith backs up Byron’s comments that despite significant improvements for protecting children online, much more still needs to be done, especially when it comes to cyber bullying. She outlines the case of Phoebe Prince, a 15 year old US girl who committed suicide after relentless bullying by a group of pupils at her high school.

The bullying she endured was both face-to-face during school hours as well as online on her Facebook page. After her death, the hounding did not end and malicious messages were posted on the Phoebe Prince Facebook memorial page.

Meredith writes that, “the more insidious form of online abuse – or cyberbullying as it is known – is more covert and difficult to challenge. With the rapid growth of new forms of communication and social networking technology comes the potential growth of abuse perpetrated on such systems.

Experts define cyberbullying as a young person being repeatedly tormented, threatened, harassed, humiliated, or otherwise targeted by another child or teenager using text messaging, email, instant messaging or any other type of digital technology. The practice is not limited to children but distinction in age groups is usually marked by a different choice of words: the adult experience of online abuse is usually referred to as cyberstalking or cyberharassment.”

She also writes about the study on cyberbullying undertaken by The National Centre for Social Research in November 2009, involving 15,000 children. The study examined the characteristics of bullying victims in secondary schools in England between the ages of 14 and 16, and found that cyberbullying was the most common form of abuse endured by children along with name-calling. In other words, online abuse happens more often than being threatened with violence face to face, being socially excluded and being subjected to actual violence. The complete results of the study, due to be published in May, also found that vulnerable pupils and girls were more likely to be bullied, and that parental awareness helped to reduce bullying.

Professor Tanya Byron maintains that the UK is the world leader in child internet safety, but also stated that the government and industry need to make faster progress in delivery of policy and actions because the issues may have profound consequences for young people.

Meredith goes on to say, “raising young peoples’ awareness about social skills, group mechanisms, motives for bullying, being effective bystanders and how they may be drawn into the bullying process is crucial, and I believe the causal factors of cyberbullying should be included as part of a whole-school response to bullying.”

In the US, Prince’s death has received national attention and instigated the legislature to act. On 11 March, the Senate approved an anti-bullying bill requiring an anti-bullying curriculum and authorisation for school principals to report bullies to the police. In Prince’s case, the school authorities knew she was enduring brutal bullying yet they did nothing to intervene.

Access the original article online at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2010/apr/02/phoebe-prince-cyberbullying-schools