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Yellow App: What Parents Need to Know

  Yellow, to most people it denotes a colour but it is also an app, an app that there is much talk about and one that parents certainly need to be aware of. The Children’s Rights Alliance and the Special Rapporteur on Child Protection in Ireland made a statement recently on the Yellow App and…

The Language your Child is Speaking Online: What you Need to Know

Language is the key to communication from the earliest stages of childhood, however there is now a brand new language being spoken online by kids and teens and the vast majority of adults know very little about it. At the parent seminars we deliver to parents associations throughout the country, we regularly hear that parents…

Screentime: How Best to Manage it

  When we visit schools throughout Ireland and during our parents digital crash courses one question that comes up consistently is in relation to screentime, how best to manage it and how to encourage a healthy online offline balance for children. The reality is that in this digital age screens are everywhere. Children could potentially…

Musical.ly App: What Parents Need to Know

  The Musical.ly app reached number 1 in the app charts a few weeks ago. So why is it so popular and what do you need to be aware of to ensure that your child stays safe, when they are using it? Musical.ly is essentially a way of sharing music videos with friends. While this…

Dangerous Apps: What Parents need to Know

  Today’s parents are well aware of the dangers lurking on popular social media sites. We often read or hear horror stories about cyberbullies, online predators, and identity thieves. In response to these threats, many of us have followed our kids’ lead and joined the major sites and apps, like Facebook or Twitter, to keep…

The Positive Effects of Social Media on Kids and Teens

  It was a challenge coming up with a title for this blog, as it seems strange to be highlighting the positive effects of using social media, but there are some! As we regularly say at Zeeko the Internet is a fantastic resource, but it is something that has to be navigated. Our children and…

Live Streaming Apps - What Parents Need to Know

  Live streaming apps like Facebook Live and Periscope are becoming increasingly popular among teenagers. Apps like these offer an opportunity to immediately share what is happening in a teenager’s life via video with friends. Live streaming apps are bringing communication to a whole new level, but what do parents need to be aware of…

A Digital Detox - Has Your Family Tried It?

One of the questions we get asked most by parents when we speak with them at seminars in their schools or at our Parents Crash Courses focuses on ‘ how much time is too much time online and how to manage this?’ At a time when there are so many digital devices available and children…

Selfies: How to Ensure that Your Child Stays Safe

  The selfie, it’s certainly a new concept and was named word of the year by the Oxford Dictionary in 2015. Taking a photo of yourself and then sharing it via a social media network or via your smartphone with friends, is certainly something that parents can be unfamiliar with, but their children certainly aren’t.…

Google Allo App: What Parents Need to Know

  One of the most common concerns parents raise with us during our seminars at schools throughout the country is worry about what kind of apps and online games their children are accessing. With a growing number of messaging apps available parents can feel overwhelmed and it can undoubtedly be a challenge to keep up…

Snapchat Spectacles: What Parents Need to Know

Snapchat has just announced the release of it’s newest product, later in the Autumn- a pair of glasses that enables users to film videos and then upload them to the Snapchat app. Between 2009 and 2013 the amount of people who had uploaded a video to the internet had more than doubled, according to a…

Children and the use of Smartphones

  Not so long ago the only way that the internet could be accessed was on a personal computer or laptop but today people can use a wide range of devices to access the internet, from iPads and tablets to smartphones. When we talk to children about staying safe online, we hear from them that…

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