{"id":9856,"date":"2018-07-25T16:21:54","date_gmt":"2018-07-25T15:21:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ounews.co\/?p=9856"},"modified":"2018-07-25T16:21:54","modified_gmt":"2018-07-25T15:21:54","slug":"supporting-your-child-online-pointers-for-parents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/education-languages-health\/education\/supporting-your-child-online-pointers-for-parents\/","title":{"rendered":"Supporting your child online &#8211; pointers for parents"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_9635\" style=\"width: 173px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9635\" id=\"longdesc-return-9635\" class=\" wp-image-9635\" tabindex=\"-1\" src=\"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Professor-Peter-Twining-e1531496753705-400x600.jpeg\" alt=\"Professor of Education (Futures), Peter Twining\" width=\"163\" height=\"245\" longdesc=\"https:\/\/ounews.co?longdesc=9635&amp;referrer=9856\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-9635\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Professor of Education (Futures), Peter Twining<\/p><\/div>\n<p><em>Professor of Education (Futures) for the Faculty of Wellbeing, Education, and Language Studies (WELS), <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/PeterT\">Peter Twining<\/a>, explores about the benefits of the internet and the way parents can support young people to be safe online.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>It is clear from talking with parents that they are often torn between a recognition of digital technology\u2019s importance in their children\u2019s lives and concerns about excessive screen time, internet safety, online bullying, and a myriad of other potential \u2018dangers\u2019. Often, parents look to their children\u2019s school for advice. However, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.np3.org.uk\">my research<\/a> has found that the ways in which children use digital technology outside school are very different from the ways in which they are expected to use it inside school. Educational consultant, <a href=\"https:\/\/educationtechnologysolutions.com.au\/2018\/06\/digitally-connected-families\/\">Mal Lee<\/a> describes this as the laissez-faire approach to learning adopted by \u2018digitally connected families\u2019, which he claims is both universal across countries and very successful.<\/p>\n<h2>Developing advanced digital skills<\/h2>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-10047 alignright\" style=\"font-size: 14px; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/shutterstock_764058778-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"child using phone\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/shutterstock_764058778-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/shutterstock_764058778-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/shutterstock_764058778.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The sophistication of children\u2019s use of digital technology varies considerably between families, depending upon the support (or constraints) provided by parents, siblings, and other family members. The instances where children appear to develop the most advanced digital technology practices all shared the following characteristics:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The child has access to digital devices that are connected to the Internet<\/li>\n<li>The child is pursuing an interest that they have \u2013 they are doing something that is personally important and intrinsically motivating for them<\/li>\n<li>Parents actively support the child in pursuing that interest, without taking over \u2013 at times this requires stepping back and giving the child the opportunity to explore and make mistakes<\/li>\n<li>The child is allowed to communicate with \u2018trusted others\u2019 over the internet who shares their interest<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><strong>&#8220;Value the learning they will gain&#8221;<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Families where children appeared not to be developing such sophisticated digital practices lacked some of those characteristics, and in particular were often severely restricted in their access to the internet. Here are my top suggestions about how to support your child\u2019s learning with digital technology outside school:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<div id=\"attachment_10046\" style=\"width: 210px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-10046\" class=\"wp-image-10046 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/shutterstock_536550871-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"Mother and child using phone\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/shutterstock_536550871-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/shutterstock_536550871.jpg 667w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-10046\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Help your child from a young age to use technology competently<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Start young \u2013 help them to develop competence in using digital technology appropriately whilst you are still the most important influencer in their life<\/li>\n<li>Model appropriate use of digital technology \u2013 if you use your phone during meal times or interrupt a conversation with your child to answer your phone, then don\u2019t be surprised if your child also anti-social in their use of technology<\/li>\n<li>Agree family rules about digital technology use \u2013 if your child feels ownership of the rules and that they are fair (e.g. they apply to you as well as your child), then enforcing them will be much less of a challenge<\/li>\n<li>Provide your child with access to digital technology, ideally that they have ownership of \u2013 but think about where the technology is situated (e.g. if you put a computer in their bedroom or ban the use of tablets in the sitting room then they might spend more time in their bedroom than in the sitting room)<\/li>\n<li>Talk openly with your child about using digital technology \u2013 be interested and supportive rather than controlling \u2013 they need to feel trusted and that they can tell you if things go wrong<\/li>\n<li>Help your child link up with trusted others who have shared interests (e.g. other Minecrafters) \u2013 initially this group will only consist of people you know and trust offline such as family members<\/li>\n<li>Recognise and value the learning that will inevitably happen as your child engages with digital technology \u2013 look past the surface features of what they are doing with digital technology. What looks like \u2018just playing games\u2019 may be helping them develop their ability to be creative, collaborate, communicate, and to\u00a0solve problems; those are all incredibly useful things to learn<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>For additional advice on supporting your child\u2019s digital technology use at home, the UK National Crime Agency website provides advice about child exploitation and online protection.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/PeterT\">Professor<\/a><em><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/PeterT\"> of Education (Futures), Peter Twining<\/a>,\u00a0is passionate about developing education systems that are fit for our rapidly changing world. Much of his research has focused on the use of mobile devices, including children\u2019s use of digital technology outside school, and digital technology strategies inside schools in the UK and Australia.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Follow\u00a0<em>The Open University Future of Education<\/em> campaign on social media with #TomorrowsEd<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Professor of Education (Futures) for the Faculty of Wellbeing, Education, and Language Studies (WELS), Peter Twining, explores about the benefits of the internet and the way parents can support young people to be safe online. It is clear from talking with parents that they are often torn between a recognition of digital technology\u2019s importance in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":10045,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[862,942,1581,1823,2181,2242],"class_list":["post-9856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","tag-faculty-of-wels","tag-future-of-education","tag-online","tag-professor-peter-twining","tag-technology","tag-tomorrowsed"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9856\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}