Online safety top concern for australian parents new survey reveals

The online poll, conducted by Life Ed in partnership with Hyundai Help for Kids, revealed that an overwhelming 95% of the more than 2200 Australian parents surveyed rated online safety as “very important”, with 5% rating it as “somewhat important”. No parents considered it to be “not important” or “not an issue”.

Australian parents from all states and territories were asked to rate a number of issues including online safety, illegal drugs, smoking, alcohol, misuse of medicine, obesity and learning and resilience.

While online safety was top of the list, illegal drugs came a close second, with 93% of parents rating it as “very important” and 7% considering it “somewhat important”.

“When Life Ed began delivering programs to Australian students almost 40 years ago, the focus was on drug education. That priority has remained strong throughout the years, with steady demand for these programs. However, children these days face new challenges.

In response to growing concerns about online safety, in 2016 we launched our dedicated cybersafety module bCyberwise, which has become one of Life Ed’s most sought after offerings, reaching around 70,000 students nationally in the past 12 months.

Off the back of the success of this module, we introduced a new program called Relate Respect Connect, which teaches upper primary school students about safe and respectful relationships both online and off.

The survey also found that “learning and resilience” was high on the list of concerns, with 89% of parents considering it to be “very important’ and 11% “somewhat important”, followed by “obesity” (85% very important and 15% “somewhat important”).

Interestingly, smoking and alcohol ranked lower, with a small percentage of parents rating those concerns as either “not important” or “I don’t see it as an issue”.

This might be reflective of current trends which show that young people today are drinking and smoking less than before, thanks to preventative health campaigns and messages in the media.

Misuse of medicines was the lowest on the list with only 72% of parents rating it as a “very important” concern, which Ms Sloane said highlighted the need for more awareness around the issue, with reports suggesting deaths involving prescriptions drugs are substantially on the rise in Australia.

Survey results

• Online safety: 95% very important, 5% somewhat important
• Illegal drugs: 93% very important, 7% somewhat important
• Learning and resilience: 89% very important, 11% somewhat important
• Obesity: 85% very important, 15% somewhat important
• Smoking: 82% very important, 16% somewhat important, 1% not important, 1% I don’t see it as an issue
• Alcohol: 81% very important, 18% somewhat important, 1% not important
• Misuse of medicines: 72% very important, 25% somewhat important, 2% not important, 1% I don’t see it as an issue