The internet is now a major part of children’s lives at home and at school, so knowing how to keep our kids safe online is an essential skill for modern parents – just like being able to teach them how to cross the road or ride a bike safely.
But having spoken to our customers we know that many of them with children don’t feel they have the necessary understanding or skills to be an effective "e-parent."
That’s why today we’ve launched the Brighter Sparks campaign with Prof Tanya Byron, an expert in how children behave online (you can read the review she wrote about this subject for the government here).
The Brighter Sparks Guide is designed to help educate parents about the rapidly evolving online world, explain how children are using the internet for play and learning, and dispel some of the myths (which might be scaremongering or overly optimistic) about the internet itself. Tanya also gives some pointers on how best to ensure your children benefit from the internet’s riches while using it safely.
We know that there are many different ways of bringing up your children, online as well as offline. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution and we know that absolute online safety can never be guaranteed, just as in the real world. So what we’ve focused on providing is a set of e-parenting principles and guidelines that, we believe, can be applied to your own family, regardless of the age of your kids or how tech savvy they are.
We’ve also worked with Tanya to develop an eParent Test that allows you to check your internet knowledge and see how you would respond to a series of internet-related parenting scenarios. The test will tell you what kind of e-parent you are and, if relevant, give you some tips on how to sharpen up your skills.
We’re very proud of the Brighter Sparks Guide and the eParent Test, and I hope you find both of them useful. We think it’s important for us, as the biggest provider of broadband to Britain’s homes, to give our customers support and information on how to better look after their children online. The Brighter Sparks campaign, along with the Magic Desktop product we launched recently, demonstrates our continuing commitment to this important issue.
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