CyberSafeKids invite local schools and families to take a ‘CyberBreak’

Ireland's online safety charity, CyberSafeKids, is delighted to be hosting its fourth annual CyberBreak, from 5pm on Friday, October 20 to 5pm on Saturday, October 21. CyberSafeKids is encouraging schools and families in the Midlands to get on board and sign up now to participate in taking a much needed 24-hour break from the online world at www.cybersafekids.ie/cyberbreak

Families should embrace the opportunity of having device-free time to discuss how they can find a healthy balance between their online and offline lives and to make it a fun-filled and memorable day for the whole family.

To help prepare for the day itself, schools and families can find the following resources at www.cybersafekids.ie/cyberbreak

Classroom Activities: short talks from Author and psychotherapist Richard Hogan on the benefits of taking a digital break for both primary and post-primary school aged children as well as some activity ideas to challenge pupils to think about life offline and what it was like in the olden days before smart devices.

Family Fun Guide: over 38 fun ideas and delicious recipes from Lilly Higgins to help families plan their time offline

Top Online Safety Tips: our top tips for parents and caregivers to help keep your kids safer online

Recent CyberSafeKids research found that 93% of children aged eight to twelve years old own a smart device and 84% are signed up to social media and messaging apps, despite being under the minimum age requirement of 13 for all of the popular sites.

Top tips for parents and caregivers include:

Start the conversation now! As soon as your child shows interest in your phone or tablet, talk about what's okay and not okay to do online in an age appropriate manner. Talk to your kids about what they do and see online as often as possible.

Do your research: Check out the apps and games that your child is using or wants to use. Download it yourself or watch videos on YouTube about it and see what functionality it has. Look, in particular, at whether it has a chat facility, how to apply safety/privacy settings and how to report abuse.

Agree the rules: Put appropriate boundaries in place and apply them consistently, e.g. where they can use their devices, who can be on their friends lists, what behaviour is acceptable, and not to share location. Most importantly keep an eye on what your children are doing online.

Check in with your child: Ask what your child did online today, what videos did they look at? what games did they play? who did they talk to? Check in to to see if they saw anything online that bothered them and reassure them that they can always come to you if they do experience or see something that upsets or scares them online.

Try to make sure that your phone is not the first thing that you look at in the morning. Make it an active choice to do something else. stretching, meditating, eating breakfast.

Avoid using your phone as an alarm clock: try to keep phones, iPads, laptops out of the bedroom so your device use doesn’t interfere with your sleep.

Device-free mealtimes: try and make mealtimes, especially if it's with children, a device-free time.

Switch on the 'do not disturb mode,' on your phone so you won't receive notifications, messages or calls for periods of time when you need to focus or switch off.

Create a family agreement that everybody signs-up to, which has identified device free times, such as family movie/pizza nights on a Friday.

For more information on CyberBreak visit www.cybersakekids.ie where you will find lots of helpful resources, top tips and advice.