Tips and Strategies for Parents and Caregivers

Tips and Strategies for Parents and Caregivers

From a parental standpoint, there are a number of ways in which you can be involved in order to support SEAS in educating your children about responsible, safe, and ethical use of ICT. Below are just some of many strategies you may be interested in:

• Establish clear rules around appropriate and safe use of technology at home. Set up clearly what is appropriate and what is not, both in regards to time and type of ICT use.
• Model positive digital citizenship to your child. This means maintaining a presence online, whilst ensuring that you remain discerning in making choices about viewed content, modeling respectful behaviour and communication online, and ensuring privacy is maintained and respected. Needless to say, it is also important to obey all online laws when engaging with ICT in the home.
• Actively teach your child what to do if they come across unsafe or inappropriate content online. Some great tips on this can be found here.
• Engage with your child's activities online and have knowledge about controlling privacy settings and any age restrictions that exist on social networking applications.
• Keep an eye out for signs of cyberbullying, and speak openly with your children about it. The Australian Government e-Safety website is a fantastic resource which provides support and guidance for parents if you feel that your child may be involved some way with cyberbullying. Likewise, it is important to speak to your child and ensure they understand that you are there for support and that it is of the greatest importance that they come to you if they are ever the victim of cyberbullying. 
• Ask your child what they have been learning at school regarding safe, ethical, and responsible use of ICT. Much of the lessons that we teach at SEAS is directed to be lifelong skills for ICT use - your children may even teach you something!
• Model ethical use of online resources to your children by making full acknowledgements whenever using someone else's material.
• Construct a family value of trust when it comes to ICT use and digital citizenship. Like anything, keeping open and effective in communicating can often be the best way to maintain a positive involvement in any area, including ICT.