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Russell Lower School

Online Gaming

Setting boundaries around online gaming

SAFE ONLINE GAMING FOR SCHOOL AGE CHILDREN

How can you make sure your child plays safely online?

Read our parents' guide to safe gaming for primary-school children for expert tips to help you manage the risks.

Many of us despair at how much time our kids spend on screens. But for the 81% of children who play games online, there are bigger risks than going square-eyed – and it’s up to us to help them manage these risks.

Children can get deeply immersed in online gaming, but they haven’t always got the life experience to assess what’s safe and appropriate.

Schools and parents both have a responsibility to upskill children to handle risky situations while gaming.

 

What are the risks of online gaming?

There are many risks that children may encounter while gaming.
Some of these include:

  •          Playing age-inappropriate games
  •          Privacy and sharing personal details
  •          Interacting with others, including cyber-bullying and grooming

Of course, online gaming also has many benefits, including:

  •          developing logic and critical thinking skills
  •          learning to communicate with others
  •          improving working memory, concentration and multi-tasking.

 

But helping our children understand how to stay safe while gaming is vital now and for their future.
 

Risk: age-inappropriate games

Despite the fact that the media loves to equate violent gaming with violent behaviour, no direct link has been found, according to Internet Matters.

Nevertheless, there are risks involved with children playing age-inappropriate games, from encountering violent, profane or sexual content to interacting with much older gamers.

Parents often feel under pressure to let their children play games that are not suitable for their age, and it can be very difficult to say no.

Offline games for PCs and consoles have Pan European Games Information (PEGI) age ratings that provide guidance about the suitability of games, but age ratings are hard to apply to online gaming platforms, as much depends on who children are interacting with and how they play the game.

If your child wants to play a game and you’re unsure of its suitability, you can look it up on askaboutgames.com.

‘This doesn’t just tell you whether a game is appropriate based on your child’s age, but it also talks about the type of content, so you can assess whether it’s suitable.

If you’re unsure whether to give a game the green light, spend some time playing it with your child.

This gives you the opportunity to see what it’s actually like, to teach your child how to use functions like privacy settings, and, if you decide it’s not age-appropriate, to explain why you’ve made that decision.

As children get older, peer pressure steps up, and before you know it, your nine-year-old is claiming that ‘everyone else’ is playing the 18+ rated GTA V.

Bear in mind that children do exaggerate: it’s not uncommon for them to say they’ve played a game when actually, they’ve just watched clips on YouTube.

Ultimately, though, you have the right to put your foot down, even if it makes you unpopular with your child. Parents sometimes feel they have to back down, but it’s part of your role to know what your child is playing and have the final say about whether it’s appropriate,
 

Risk: privacy and personal details

Many children are naturally trusting, and while it’s lovely to see their innocence, it can lead them into trouble online. One way in which this can happen is by sharing private and personal details with others.

This can be a difficult area to negotiate. Kids might know that they shouldn’t share their details with others, but are unsure where to set the boundary.

They may feel safe giving information to a friend, for example, without thinking about what that friend might do with it – intentionally or unintentionally. We often hear kids saying they’ve “been hacked”, for example, when actually they gave their password to a friend, they fell out, and their friend then shared it on.

It’s also important to teach your child about what information can and can’t be shared, and with whom. Children often can’t tell the difference between who’s a good person and who’s a bad person, but they need to recognise that stranger danger exists online, and that they are simply not allowed to share personal information. This is covered in school each year and reiterated on Safer Online Day.

A vital task for any parent is to familiarise yourself with the privacy, safety and parental control settings of your child’s games, and use them.

But don’t just set rules: be present and get involved with your child’s gaming, let them talk about what they’re doing online, and use those teachable moments to talk about why privacy is important and how to protect it.
 

Risk: interacting with others

Whereas in the past, children sat together in front of a console, they now game remotely, interacting online with people they know – and people they don’t.

This can be a real worry for parents: It’s natural to worry about inappropriate language or topics of conversation, cyber-bullying and even grooming.

Creating a culture of openness where your child can talk to you about who they’re gaming with.

We need to have conversations regularly, and encourage children not to be secretive. Chat to your child about who their online friends are, why it’s important to be cautious, and that not everything people say is real.

As well as helping your child think critically about who they’re interacting with, educate yourself about the apps they’re using. Many games, for example, have the facility to only add people that your child knows to chats, whereas some popular apps that gamers use to communicate are unrestricted and can host very adult conversations.

There are also certain practical steps you can take to oversee and control who your child interacts with while gaming:

  •          Insist that your child asks you before adding anyone to a group or conversation (especially important for younger children).
  •          Set up your child’s gaming accounts for them, so you know their login details.
  •          Set up in-game parental controls that will limit who your child can chat to. For example, you can create groups of real-life friends.
  •          Keep devices in family spaces – not bedrooms – so you can keep an eye on what’s going on.
  •          Discourage the use of headphones so you’re able to listen in on your child’s chats.
  •          Familiarise yourself with gaming slang and acronyms so you can understand your child’s conversations,
  •          Turn on notifications for consoles like PlayStation and Xbox so you’re notified of any direct messages to your child’s account.
  •          If need be, turn off the chat feature within games.n there are problems

No matter how vigilant we are, children do get things wrong while gaming.

They might encounter interactions that feel uncomfortable, be unkind or offensive themselves, or even find themselves targeted by others.  It’s vital that you check in regularly with your child and make sure they know that if something happens, or if someone says something unpleasant or is acting strangely, they can tell you.

If your child has used unacceptable language or been unkind to others online. Remind them that the effect of their behaviour is the same as if it had happened in real life.

More worryingly, some children will find themselves in gaming situations that make them feel uncomfortable or unsafe. If you discover your child is in a risky situation, don’t panic. Take a deep breath and calm yourself before you react. Teach your child that there are strategies that they can take themselves, including muting or blocking the person who is causing offence, or using the Report function in a game.

Don’t, however, expect your child to handle the situation alone – but do trust your instincts in terms of how serious things are. It’s also a good idea to inform the school.

Every school has a member of staff responsible for safeguarding, and they can be a great support for both you and your child.

Taken from the SchoolRun.com

The Safeguarding Lead at Russell Lower School is: Mrs Sarah Knight

There are a number of resources to pull from, which come from the below and platform holder websites. 

You may find these useful:   https://www.askaboutgames.com/ & https://uk.pcmag.com/migrated-84555-gaming/94257/what-every-parent-needs-to-know-about-video-games  

Understand PEGI age rating: https://www.askaboutgames.com/pegi-age-ratings   

Setting ground rules for device use: https://www.askaboutgames.com/play-setting-ground-rules   

Platform specific information:

Video game guides, more specific to individual games: https://www.askaboutgames.com/category/video-game-guides   Roblox: https://www.askaboutgames.com/news/set-up-roblox-for-under-13s-and-over-13s & https://corp.roblox.com/safety-civility-resources/?section=Families&article=customizable-parental-controls  

Minecraft:https://www.minecraft.net/en-us/article/parental-controls & https://help.minecraft.net/hc/en-us/articles/4408968616077-How-to-Manage-Parental-Consent-Family-Settings-and-Realms-Multiplayer-Access-for-a-Child-Account  

A guide for finding family based games and board games: https://www.familygamingdatabase.com/   

Additional paid options for additional tools and software to manage parental controls generally vs. anything gaming specific: https://uk.pcmag.com/parental-control-monitoring/67305/the-best-parental-control-software https://uk.pcmag.com/parental-control-monitoring/79219/the-best-parental-control-apps-for-your-phone