There’s no doubting how useful the internet can be, especially when it comes to entertaining our kids and helping them study when they get to school age.
But as internet users all know, there are some sides to the world wide web that can be scary, and as parents, we want to shield our children from this harmful content as much as we can.
That’s where child-friendly search engine for kids, Kiddle comes in. While we’re all very familiar with search engine, Google, Kiddle is made specifically to only show child appropriate search results, hiding bad words.
Read more: The best kids films that you'll actually enjoy, too
Powered by Google and written specifically to be kid friendly, each search result is checked by Kiddle editors to make sure the results pages only show safe sites and appropriate content, making it a safe visual search engine for children.
It works just the same as Google with a search bar to type into and is a great tool for them to use if they’ve been asked to do a project at school, or if they’re just learning to use the internet. It works on all web browsers, but there is currently no Kiddle app.
Read more: 13 parenting podcasts to download for the 4am feed
According to Kiddle, the most safe and reliable results show at the top of the results page.
-
Safe sites and pages written specifically for kids. Handpicked and checked by Kiddle editors. Typically, results 1-3.
-
Safe, trusted sites that are not written specifically for kids, but have content written in a simple way, easy for kids to understand. Handpicked and checked by Kiddle editors. Typically, results 4-7.
-
Safe, famous sites that are written for adults, providing expert content, but are harder for kids to understand. Filtered by Google safe search. Typically, results 8 onwards.
Other ways to search safely
Kiddle isn’t the only way that parents can ensure their children are surfing the web safely. On regular Google, you can do what is called a Google safesearch where you can filter out results that may not be appropriate or may be written for adults.
To set this up, head to Google on your device, search for something so that results show up. Under the search bar, click the ‘settings’ option. This will give you a drop down menu where you should select ‘search settings’, you can then check a small box to ‘turn on SafeSearch’ here.
Louise Pentland opens up about internet safety for children
Mum Louise Pentlandhas recently joined forces with Google for their Google Family Safety campaign, to help get parents and kids to have a healthier relationship with their screens.
‘Darcy, my nine year old obviously is now getting into tablets and computers and screen time. But you've got to be so careful because obviously, just having an Instagram has its highs and lows, and there are dangers to the internet. I want her to be able to enjoy the internet without being frightened, to have really great digital wellbeing and a good attitude to it and understand it. So I partnered with Google, which was amazing.
'They have a game which teaches you all about online safety and boundaries and limits and little tips like you know, who would you give your password to. We also have a family link app, which is the best if you’re a mum or dad or carer because it links their tablet activity to your phone. So I can be on my phone and I can be like, right, you've had an hour of screen time this morning. That's enough and I can switch off a screen from my phone. It just helps you have a bit more control to help them have a really, really great level of digital wellbeing, and to use the internet safely and healthily.
'I feel nervous about the day they ask for social media accounts because having been so involved in social media, I have the seen dark side. Every social media platform does have static safety settings so you can put restrictions on and you can block things, you just have to spend a bit of time getting to know them or working out what you need to do. The important thing is just have communication open all the time and not make children feel embarrassed to talk about anything that they’ve seen. Just keep that communication open and talk about it like it's the real world because for children the online world is the same as the real world – they've never had a time like we have where we can remember what it was like before the internet.'
If you're concerned about your child's relationship with their tablet, you can find more guidance from Google here.