These handy tips will help to keep your children safe when they’re online

Most primary school-aged children have access to the internet.

Where once parents only worried about what their teenagers were getting up to online, now they have to consider how their younger children are using their screen time too. With many small children accidentally finding their way onto adult content on YouTube and being invited into X-rated gaming rooms, parents need to be more vigilant than ever. Online safety for younger children is something I've researched quite a bit, having a six-year-old who's well able to navigate the internet himself. The internet is a great resource for children but like most things, it comes with a downside. I often wonder how I can keep my son as safe as possible while he's watching his favourite videos (seriously what is it with kids and those Kinder egg reveals) or playing games like Minecraft. Recently though, I came across a really handy cheat sheet of tips for keeping our children safe on everything from YouTube to iTunes. Posted by Oh Mummy on Facebook this guide gives you a straightforward step by step instructions on how to implement internet safety in your home. It also shows you how to turn off in-app purchases which have caused many a parent to cry after they realised their child has run up their credit card bill accidentally. We're raising a generation of tech kids and that can't be helped the same way our parents couldn't help our video game and TV obsessions. With a huge amount of IT companies calling Ireland home having children well adept in technology is actually a good thing but as parents, our priority, of course, is always to make sure that they are safe. It's impossible to keep an eye on our children 24/7, but with this handy cheat sheet, we can at least have some peace of mind. Protecting your child online is incredibly important and if you would like some more tips on how to look after their safety you can read my previous article here.