When you are dealing with children there are no hard and fast rules. A child’s ability to understand safety rules and to put them into practice depends on many things; how old the child is, how the child has been educated; how confident the child is and many other factors. To help a child learn any set of rules it is important to go through them and explain why you want them to remember. There is no one size fits all but here are a few suggestions.
| S | SAFE – Staying safe online involves being careful and thinking about whether it is safe to give out personal information |
| M | MEETING – Meeting up with someone you have contacted in cyberspace can be dangerous. Only do so with your parent’s/carer’s permission and then when they can be present. |
| A | ACCEPTING – Accepting e-mails or opening files from people you don’t know can be dangerous – they may contain viruses or nasty messages. |
| R | RELIABLE – Anyone can put anything on the net and remember people can lie and not be who they say they are in chat rooms. |
| T | TELL – Tell your parent/carer or teacher if someone or something makes you feel uncomfortable or worried. |
