Lyn Brown, MP for West Ham, is promoting Ofcom’s advice to parents and carers about child safety online during school summer holidays.  

The communications watchdog have issued a number of tips to parents to keep kids safe, including installing internet filters and talking about the wrongs of cyber-bullying.

A short guide and a video showing how to protect children from inappropriate or harmful content are available on Ofcom’s web site, www.ofcom.org.uk.

Lyn Brown welcomed the guidance, saying:

“The weather this summer has thankfully improved but at the beginning of the summer break it wasn’t great.  Many children will have spent quite a lot of time on the internet, playing games, watching videos, listening to music or using social networking sites.

For much of this time they will be unsupervised, so while computers provide lots of great opportunities for fun and learning, it is important that parents, carers and children have the right information to keep them safe.  Have a look at the advice offered, it may help us to keep our children out of harms way.”   

Robin Blake, Head of Media Literacy at Ofcom said:

 “Young people have a real appetite to explore and in doing so they learn about the world around them.  When they go out to play we set rules to help keep them safe; and it’s no different when they explore the online world.”

Ofcom’s top tips for online child safety:

•           Talk to your child and get to know how they use the internet. Ask to see some of their favourite sites

•           Install filtering software to restrict access to inappropriate websites

•           Make sure your children know not to share their personal details online, such as their address and phone number

•           Make sure your children know why cyberbullying is wrong

•           Encourage your children to let you know if something or someone online makes them feel uncomfortable or threatened.