24% of 6-year olds have their own smartphone

Over half (52%) of parents in Ireland do not feel confident about teaching their children how to stay safe online, according to research carried out by Amárach on behalf of Ireland’s online safety charity, CyberSafeKids.

The survey results of 900 parents of children aged 5-17 years, was published on Tuesday, to support the launch of the charity’s ‘Same Rules Apply’ awareness campaign, as part of Safer Internet Day.

The research reveals that more than 80% of parents believe it’s their responsibility to keep their children safe online with over a quarter of parents extremely concerned about the risk of online grooming (29%), cyberbullying (26%) and the risk of accessing pornography (25%).

Accessing disturbing content relating to self-harming (25%) and addiction to social media (16%) were also cited by parents as concerns.

Supervision of internet access reduces with age and is lower during weekends and holiday times. Worringly, 80% of parents of children aged 11 with smartphones said their child’s internet access is only sometimes or never supervised. 

Only 28% of parents are using parental controls to protect their children, with the data showing that 24% of children as young as 6 own a smartphone. One fifth (21%) of all parents of children aged 5-17 said their child has been purposely excluded from a group chat or online event and 18% said their child had been called offensive names.

‘SAME RULES APPLY’

To support parents, CyberSafeKids’ campaign ‘Same Rules Apply’ highlights the need to approach parenting children online in the same way that we approach parenting them offline – emphasising that the same parenting rules should be applied to both worlds.

With support from Accenture and Community Foundation Ireland the online safety charity created a video (watch youtube video) which challenges the arbitrary distinction between ‘offline’ and ‘online’ worlds.

CyberSafeKids is asking the Government for fundamental changes to keep children safer online, including introducing a mandatory online safety education programme in schools so that the conversation at home around risks and opportunities online is supported in schools and vice versa.