Safer Internet Day: Wiltshire parents urged to act to keep kids safe
It comes as the Government's Online Safety legislation is ready to become law
Wiltshire parents are being urged to ensure their children are safe online.
It comes on Safer Internet Day in the UK and with the Government's online safety bill ready to become law.
But research by tech giants Apple found that only a quarter of parents have educated their children on how to behave and be safe online.
Their study also found more than half of parents feel keeping their children safe online is becoming increasingly difficult.
'A number of different risks'
Greatest Hits Radio spoke to Ian Soars, CEO of family support charity, Spurgeons, who have Family Hubs across Wiltshire. He told us children are more relaxed around the risks and issues of being online, while parents worry a lot more.
"Nevertheless, there are a number of different risks and all kids face or experience some of them at some point," he said.
"Probably the number one issue we're finding is bullying and that comes in a lot of different formats and abuse, so that can be cyber abuse, which has just become illegal.
"But actually the old school bullying, but just done in a new way, and the stuff we worry about as parents is violence and pornography and some of the more dark elements of life as a teenager."
Parents holding back the tide, but encouraged to have open conversations
Ian, a father of three teenagers himself, says it's almost impossible mitigate for everything children see online, saying parents a "just trying keep back the tide", but there's still things we can do to keep our children safe.
He recommends engaging a conversation that allows them to open the conversation up about what they've been looking at, in a similar way as we would with other aspects of life.
However, the 'holy grail' could be keeping phones out of a part of the home.
"Get the phones out of the bedroom," he said, "that is where they're most vulnerable, hat is where they are doom scrolling, that is where they're seeing things."
Ian does admit that achieving a phone-free bedroom is tough, but by setting ground rules about what should and shouldn't be viewed online, we can make our children aware that there are risks lurking online.
"If we don't set a ground rule, they don't know what's dangerous."
Parents can find more support from Spurgeons here.