How to keep kids safe online:
Set some rules

Kids these days are digital natives. They've grown up with the internet and have no concept of what life was like without it. They're completely at home with technology: using a mouse or touchscreen to navigate is as much a life skill as learning to read and write.

In fact, children tend to learn to use a touchscreen way before they can read or write, using colours, images and symbols instead of words to navigate around apps and websites in order to get to a video or game they like.

Whatever the age of your kids, it's important to keep them safe when browsing websites, using social networking services such as Facebook, and chatting with friends using instant messaging programs.

Although your children may know more about using a laptop, tablet and the internet than you do, it's your responsibility to ensure they're protected from the parts of the web that present a danger to them.

The dangers (see below) may sound bad, but the good news is that you can prevent most of them happening without too much time, effort or money.

Common sense plays a bigger part than you might think. For a start, we'd recommend not allowing children to use a device - laptop, tablet or phone - in their own room. Asking them to use it in a communal area should discourage

most inappropriate activities as it will be obvious what they're up to even if you only glance in their direction.

The most important thing to do is to talk to each child and explain (in a way appropriate to their age) the dangers that the internet could pose to them, and why they can't use their devices in their room.

Also, encourage them to tell you whenever they see anything that makes them uncomfortable or upsets them, or simply isn't what they expected. You can delete inappropriate websites from your browser's history, and add the site's address to a parental control filter list (we'll come to this in a minute).

Also encourage them to tell you if they receive any threatening or frightening messages or emails - you can add the sender's address to most email programs' blocked list.

You should also make it plain what is acceptable and what isn't acceptable online. That's something only you can decide, but you can't expect your kids to know they're doing something wrong if you haven't set any boundaries.

You might, for example, tell your child that they're not allowed to download apps or files without your permission first, nor share a file with anyone without your consent. You could also set rules about whether they can use any instant messaging services, tell them not to reply to unsolicited emails or sign up for free accounts without you first checking that it's ok.

How to keep kids safe online: 
The dangers Online gaming risks

While much of the media focus tends to revolve around the problems children can encounter on social media sites such as Snapchat, Facebook, and Instagram (all of which require account holders to be at least thirteen years old) recent research from security experts Kaspersky labs has found that online gaming is now a real source of concern.

In a study of 11-16 yr olds, Kaspersky discovered that 38 percent of children had encountered people pretending to be someone else on gaming platforms, while 23 percent had been asked personal or suspicious personal questions while online.

Perhaps the most worrying statistic though was that 20 percent of the children interviewed said that they trusted the gaming platform so much that they would see no problem meeting contacts from it in real life. This is compounded by the fact that nearly a third of the children in the study said that their parents had no idea who they talked to when they played games online.

Setting boundaries

In the end, you are still the parent, and thus remain in charge. If you feel your child is ignoring warnings, or actively seeking out the wrong sites, then you can remove their internet privileges, or move them back into the centre of the house where you can observe their behaviour. While some software does allow you to monitor the internet activity of your children, we feel it would be best to tell them in advance that you are using these techniques. It could be quite damaging to the trust of a child to find out that you were secretly spying on their every conversation.

Again, and we really can't stress this strongly enough, talk to your children rather than rely on a software solution. With all that being said, here are some ways in which you can use settings and applications to help you protect your young family.

How to make YouTube and Facebook safer for kids

Two of the most popular websites for kids are YouTube and Facebook. Facebook is something of a mixed bag when it comes to content. There are no obvious filters that can restrict explicit content, although the friends you follow obviously have a great effect on the kind of material that appears in your newsfeed. You can block individual users and apps in the settings options, but that's about the extent of your controls. It's worth remembering that the minimum age requirement of a Facebook account is thirteen years old, so it's not really intended to be entirely child-friendly. Many of the family security software packages available now often include social media features, so if your child is a regular Facebook user then it would be worth investigating some of these.

YouTube is another huge draw for younger users, especially due to the huge amount of music videos on the site. Google does provide a safe mode option, and once applied it covers any instance of YouTube that logs in with the same account. On your PC all you need to do is navigate to the YouTube site, scroll to the bottom of the page, and click on the 'Safety' box. Here you'll see an explanation of how it works, and the restrictions it applies. To set the safe mode up on a tablet is slightly different.

On Android devices launch the Youtube app, then tap of the three dots in the top right hand corner. This opens the settings menu, where you'll need to choose Search and then tap on the Safesearch option. If you have an iPad or iPhone launch the app and you'll see the cog icon in the top left next to the account name. Tap on this and then select the Safesearch option. It's not foolproof of course, but it will at least limit the amount of unsuitable material that might otherwise get through.