The risks
Best parental controls
How to install Google safe search
How to keep under fives safe
How to keep children aged 6-11 safe
How to keep children aged 11 plus safe
Useful links
There’s a big, bad, dangerous world out there, as we mothers are only too keenly aware. But the problem for our generation is that while we weren’t looking someone left the front door open, and now the big, bad, dangerous world is right here in our sitting room – or, even worse, behind closed doors in our teenagers' bedrooms.
It’s entirely wrong, of course, to classify the internet as enemy number one: the truth is, as Mumsnetters know only too well, the internet is the planet’s most stunning communication advance since a cave dweller picked up a stone and started chalking on the walls. It’s the biggest single difference between our children’s childhood and our own childhood, and most of what it brings is entirely positive: information, communication, endless possibilities and opportunities are flooding into our kids’ lives because of it. And our children, of course, are on to it - the average teenager in a Mumsnet household spends at least nine hours a week surfing the net, with 36% spending more than 10 hours a week on their computers. (See the full survey results)
And yet, parents fear it - in our survey more than half of parents said they were worried about what their children looked at or might look at – but we’ve not quite worked out how much we need to fear it, let alone how to deal with our fears. To complicate the situation further, most of us are acutely, painfully aware of the gulf between our own computer skills and those of our children – for all but the most IT-literate among us, our kids run rings around us.
Most of us are burying our heads in the sand - aware that dangers lurk in cyberspace, but failing to do anything about it. In fact, two thirds of our survey respondents haven’t installed any parental controls at all on the family computer. So what are the risks and what measures, both technical and non technical can we take to protect our children from these risks
The Risks
The reality, of course, is that home never was all that safe. Remember, it’s where most accidents happen? And the truth is, the world out there isn’t on the whole bad either – the vast majority of what happens on the internet is good and safe and life-enhancing, and parents realise this – 85% of Mumsnetters surveyed said the internet had a positive impact on family life but the problem is that there ARE some risks, and before you know how to deal with them, you have to know what they are.
Risk one: Contact
This is the big bogey in the room, the nightmare scenario of the virtual world for parents. And this is the number one fear for parents of teenagers according to our survey (50% of parents were worried about their teen talking to strangers in chat rooms).
Here’s what happens. Your child talks, on the computer, to all sorts of people via all sorts of routes – email, chat rooms, instant messenger, you name it. The vast majority of the people s/he chats to, of course, are bona fide kids too… one in a million (or maybe one in a thousand, or maybe one in several hundred – one of the many problems is, we just don’t know how many there are out there) isn’t who he says he is. Instead of 12-year-old footballing Freddie, he’s 45-year-old child molester John – looking to wheedle his way into your child’s life and – in the worst case scenario – waiting to one day lure him away from the ‘safety’ of your home, into a real-life meeting where he’ll have an opportunity of abuse or worse.
Does it ever happen? Well, yes it does – according to a spokeswoman from the government’s Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, 240 offenders had been arrested as a result of its investigations as of December 2007 (the centre was set up in 2006). CEOP receives more than 400 reports a month about online safety issues, and most of them relate to parents worried their kids are being ‘groomed’. What’s more, some CEOP research last year found that 24% of 11-16-year-olds had met someone in real life who they’d only got to know online.
Beyond all this, though, is the point that whether grooming is widespread or not, the internet clearly makes it possible for it to be used in that way. So, given that fact, we have no option but to protect our children from the potential risk.
And contact problems aren’t just about sex offenders. Online bullying is another issue, with an increasing number of children being targeted. Parents need not only to safeguard their children from becoming victims, but also to make sure they don’t take part in the bullying either.
Risk two: Content
If you’ve been ignoring how easy it is for your child to see porn online, try this. Type the word ‘sex’ into Google right now. Assuming you have no safe search in place of course, within less than a minute we guarantee you’ll have seen images you’d be horrified to imagine your child looking at. But ‘sex’ is exactly the kind of word a 10 or 11-year-old might decide to try doing a search on. And there are other sorts of content risks too. Your child might be duped into believing false content, or will come across material that’s racist or harmful or dangerous in some other way.
Risk three: Commercial
It’s not all sex and porn, either. Another very real danger for your child – and through your child, your entire family – is that he or she may be tricked or encouraged into giving out information that could be used to defraud you – your credit card details, for example. Plus there’s the risk of dodgy online ads, or advertising marketed at their age group, but by organisations that don’t have their best interests at heart.
What you can do to keep your kids safe?
First of all, don’t panic! These are worst-case scenarios, remember. They’re possible, but they’re not necessarily happening to your child right now. The thing is to be aware of them, and to make sure you do all you can to minimise the chances of them happening.
“One thing to remember is that, though the virtual world often seems very different from the real world, in fact we’re not talking about dangers that weren’t there before,” says Nicola Saunders of Childnet, the charity behind kidsmart.org.uk, the country’s leading information source on how to keep kids safe online. “That’s important, because parents are often so worried by the technology that they think: there’s nothing I can do to tackle this, because it’s so far removed from anything I know. Whereas the important first thing to know is that it’s about exactly what you do already know, which is good parenting.”
How so? Well, what parents do all the time is bring up their kids to be sensible and savvy – and these are all the qualities they need to know right from wrong, and scary situation from safe situation, when they’re online. So in fact, in doing what we’ve always done – parenting our kids well – we’ve been protecting them from the dangers of the internet all along.
So good parenting is fundamental, but it’s not the whole story. At every age and stage of our children’s lives, it matters to be aware of how to reduce the internet’s risks as much as possible. Here are some suggestions on how to do just that.
How to keep under fives safe
For littlies, a whitelist is ideal. It works by enabling your child to view only pages from internet sites you allow – so for a small child you enable just one or two sites he enjoys, and – for the moment at least – that will limit the cyberworld to a few carefully-chosen, and extremely safe, locations. To do this you need to install filtering tools that block access to content. If that sounds complex then even the most internet illiterate amongst us should be able to create a favourites folder in a child's name and add some safe sites to it (on PC's click on Tools, on Macs click on Bookmarks to do this). Then show your child that that's where they can find their favourite sites and they don't need to bother with anything else.
Tools which limit your child’s time online might also be useful - some tools allow parents to block out times of the day when the child can or cannot go online, though for this age group the chances are you're going to be monitoring use pretty closely.
Mumsnet Top Tips for keeping under-fives safe on the internet
- Aways keep the computer in a family / communal room, and keep your children’s use supervised. (Mrs Weasley)
- Talk openly with your child about games / sites they're visiting, show interest and get involved. (Biza)
- Use some suitable parental control software (see below) to ensure your child doesn't accidentally stray into sites that are unsuitable, and don't take it off even if they promise not to go on websites they shouldn't - they might not realise the website is suspect till it's too late. " (Freckle)
- Try to make computer usage something that you do together, rather than as a substitute babysitter / childminder. (Robinpud)
There are tons of different brands and types of parental control software options out there. So with Mumsnetters’ help we’ve narrowed it down to four recommended options : CyberPatrol, Net Nanny 5.6, Windows Vista and OS X Leopard. Of course you are welcome to try (and please report back to us if you do) any of the other offerings out there but these all do a good job of, at the very least, blocking questionable websites and monitoring kids' time online. Each have different advantages and disadvantages and will therefore suit different folks so it’s worth reading up on all of them to see what will be best for you and your family.
Cyber Patrol
Cyber Patrol is versatile. It gives parents heaps of options, so you can make the features it offers apply to just some users, or all users. All parental control software lets you restrict your child/ren’s access to external internet applications like chat or web browsing, but CyberPatrol can also restrict access to programmes on the computer's hard drive, like games. The downside is that CyberPatrol can only be installed on one computer, so it could end up being pricey if you have a house full of lap tops you want to add safety controls to, plus it’s not compatible with Macs. It does however get a good write up from Mumsnetters:
“Cyber patrol is very good indeed. Blocks everything unsuitable. We also have the ability to view anything our daughter is using on the net. She only ever goes on the msn chatroom with friends from school (mind you, I wish we could ban that for all the arguments it causes!)” smartiejake
Net Nanny 5.6
This is allegedly the easiest parental filter to use, but it’s crucial you get this version not the earlier one. Net Nanny blocks peer-to-peer networks, allows remote management (helpful if your child needs access to a blocked site or needs extra time online and you’re at work) and provides effective filtering. Additional licenses for more than one computer must be bought separately, so again it might get pricey if you need to make more than one computer child-friendly. The big attraction is that while even non-netty parents found set up and use easy, it’s supposedly hard for children to get round it, although this is only true if you set a tricky password:
"My daughter (8 years old at the time) hacked the password on Net Nanny - although in Net Nanny's defence we did not set a particularly strong password." soapbox
Windows Vista
If you’re thinking of buying a new computer or upgrading your system to Windows Vista, it’s worth trying the parental controls included in this package before buying any additional software. Vista offers most of the major features that the other stand alone software provides: time limit settings, adjustable levels of site and application blocking, and usage logging. It doesn’t allow you to manage the computer remotely and some say it doesn’t allow parents to customise time limits as well as some of the other programmes on offer, but if this isn’t that important to you, it’s worth a try.
OS X Leopard
This is a Mac operated system you can buy from Apple, which again comes with the controls built in and offers similar features to Vista. Favoured by the Mac fans on Mumsnet, it seems to get the thumbs up:
“We upgraded to OSX Leopard, and the parental controls were a bonus. It was very easy to install over the existing system - which wasn't working at the time - just whacked the disc in and followed the instructions. The parental controls setting has allowed us to give our son (8) his own account, but drastically reduce the things he can do on it. First up he uses a simple version of the desktop - so far fewer things for him to click on so he doesn't get confused and kill the computer - and we can select which applications he can access - essentially word, chess, safari. His dictionary hides profanities and we can restrict which websites he can access automatically - either by putting in exactly which ones he can use or by selecting "try to limit access to adult sites". We can set who he mails or chats with and how long for and we can even set time limits for weekdays and weekends so he can't use computer beyond these and choose which hours of the day he is allowed access ( ie prevent access to the computer at all during 'bed times' – useful if children have a computer in their own room!) Finally, all his usage is logged, so we can see exactly where he's been, how many times etc. It is so simple to use and, I imagine, will be brilliant as he becomes more independent in his computer use.” Willow
As with all these systems though the security is only as good as the adults in charge of it: "Although a breeze to set up, no system is completely infallible and the Leopard system, like any, falls down if you give your child administrative rights to the computer! (they can simply then override your settings – or if they’re really mean lock you out!)" Geekboy
This age group are more tricky, because they’re a lot more internet-savvy. They’ll be using a lot more sites, too. Rather than a whitelist, you may want to think about a blacklist – this blocks the websites you don’t want your kids to be on. You should also use a filter to stop your child from viewing most sexually explicit material on the Web (although no filter is 100% safe). Another option to think about is a children’s browser, which serves as a gateway between your computer and the internet. Browsers for kids generally filter sexual or otherwise inappropriate words or images and they are often designed to be easier for children to use.
Look for the “preferences” link on the main google search page (in small text)
Half way down the page click on the “Use strict filtering” option (this filters both explicit text and explicit images)
You can also do this for other search engines.
"If you only do one thing it’s worth installing Google safe search. Although not completely foolproof, it only takes a minute and does filter out lots of bad stuff. " Wotzonked
There are a number of social networking sites aimed at this age group such as Webkinz and Club Penguin. These offer the ability to chat and play online games with other children. Now is the time to talk to your child about the possible dangers of chatting with someone online and protecting private information - name, phone number, even what school they go to - and never sharing their password information with friends. It's worth asking them to tell you before talking to anyone online - and then letting them talk to friends and family online so they feel as if they have some freedom.
Many children of this age want to set up their own email account, usually to correspond with school friends or family. If you have parental controls on your computer to look at what protection they can offer for email accounts, either in limiting who your child can contact or who can contact them. If you don't have parental controls, you might want to think about adding their email as an alias to your own account, so that you can see what's coming in and going out. Either way, encourage your child to choose an email address that can't be linked to their real name/identity and is unlikely to be targeted by spammers or other predators eg gigbo23@googlemail, rather than johnsmith23@googlemail. Now is also the time to explore how your computer's spam filter works and set it to filter out as much as possible. Some spam filters also allow you to filter images to make it less likely that pornogaphic images will get through. No filter is ever 100% foolproof though, so make sure your child knows never to respond to an email that gets through from someone they don't know, or to click on links in emails/open attachments unless they are from a trusted source.
This is a good time to agree a set of ‘internet house rules’, which could perhaps be tacked up on the wall near the computer; these might include how many minutes/hours each person can be online, which, if any sites your children are allowed to access without permission, a promise to tell you if they come across material they find upsetting/disturbing or that they don't understand. A commitment not to give out any personal or family details. Not to post photos online without permission.
Most crucially though, position your child's or family computer in a public area, rather than somewhere s/he is alone.
Check your computer's internet history regluarly to see which sites your child has been visiting and if they've already discovered IM (instant messaging) let them know that you will monitor their email and IM accounts to see who they are talking to. Being open about this ability to check up on them, might cause initial arguments but should help prevent accusations of snooping later on.
Be aware that your child will probably spend time on computers at friends' houses, and that they might not have parental controls in place or have given any thought to their child's computer usage. Talk to your child about this before they go and see friends and, if you are particularly worried, talk to the parent or carer at the house they are visiting and explain that your child has house rules for computer usage and can they keep an eye on them to make sure they stick to them (then the implication is that they are helping you rather that you are casting aspersions on their parenting/nannying skills!)
Mumsnet Top tips for keeping 6-11s safe on the internet
- Always have the computer in a family room (not a child's bedroom). Crunchie
- Set up a family email account to keep an eye on incoming and outgoing messages. If your child wants their own email account, make sure it’s copied into your account. You can then both remind them to check if they have mail and keep an eye on what’s coming in and going out. PandaG
- Be frank (in age appropriate language) about the kinds of sites their friends are visiting and start to educate them about the potential dangers, and how they can protect themselves. Puffling
- Enforce rules, such as never giving out personal details, never providing a photograph and never lying about their age. seeker
- Set up passwords on the computer, which limits their access and use alphanumeric passwords, which means something to you, but not your child (expletives are good). For Example use bl00dypa55w0rd – your children will never get it and you should remember is (as long as you remember which numbers equal letters.) Whomovedmychocolate
- Set up an administrator programme that will turn access to the internet off as certain times / limit the usage. Geekboy
- Do homework together. If you don't have time to be there for all of it, do the research together, then download the desired documents onto your desktop and switch internet access off. Roberta
- Tell them never to click on a link in an instant message or email as this is often how viruses are passed around or private info is revealed to outside sources. coffeeaddict
Older children are a lot more difficult to police than younger ones. It’s at this stage that you have to hope all your common-sense parenting has paid off, and your children are smart enough to have some idea as to what’s OK and what’s not OK. The trouble is, they’re still incredibly vulnerable – especially given that they often look a lot older than they are (especially girls) and may be tempted to post pictures of themselves on websites (discourage this!).
But what’s most important at this stage applies equally to every aspect of parenting a teenager: you need to keep communicating, and to stay involved. What this means as far as the internet is concerned is to talk to your kids about what they’re doing online and how they’re spending their time on the internet. If they’ve got their own Bebo site, ask to look at it. Make sure their email account has the highest level of spam filtering switched on and make sure they create email accounts that won't lead strangers to them ie no first and last name combinations, or suggestive screen names - kinkykate , sexysusie, lusciouslil or the like. Watch out for excessive use of the internet, especially at night. Be aware of other places that they may be able to access the internet, school, the library, internet cafes and other friends' houses.
Make sure they’re aware that anything they post on the internet may remain there for a long time, and could come back to haunt them when they’re older - after all if you were an employer or admissions tutor you may well be tempted to do a google search on someone you were thinking of employing/admitting, or even trawl through youtube, so they need to be careful what pictures, words and activities they leave active on the web. If your school hasn't had a discussion with parents and pupils about safe use of the internet by now, ask the head to arrange one. Ceop has an army of advisors who will come to schools and do just this.
Cyber Bullying
Most parents are aware of the possibility of bullying and the devastating effects this can have on children of any age, but the internet has made bullying a whole new ball game. Instant messaging and email, along with images can easily be used to embarrass or threaten other children. Messages can also be edited and forwarded on, changing the meaning and causing distress to both recipient and the original sender. Hacking into email accounts via easily guessed passwords and sending mail as if it's from someone else is also sadly quite common.
Make sure your child knows to guard their passwords and watch what they write. Let them know that you are aware of cyber bulling and that they can always tell you if they feel they are being attacked in this way. Keep a copy of any dubious messages by using the Print screen key and copy (Apple, shift and 3 on a Mac) so you can help your child deal with them in the appropriate way. Talk to your children about cyber bullying and check they’re not using the internet as a way of victimising others (teachers as well as other pupils at school).
It's never been easier to cheat at homework, there are even online essays available and homework guides online. Tempting though this may be it's important to remind children that a) cheating is wrong - the internet's fine for research but not for copying out someone else's work and b) you can't believe everything you read on sites full of user generated content like Wikipedia (even Mumsnet!). It's always worth checking a few sources and, shock horror, occasionally resorting to a book/encyclopaedia.
Mumsnet Top Tips for keeping over-11’s safe
- Talk regularly about what they’re doing / who they talk to and encourage them to report anything suspicious. "I phrase it as if I don't have a clue about t'internet and they are happy to 'explain' all about whatever site they are on." Mrs Weasley
- Use profile managers to limit the access to computer controls available to your children (and ideally your husband to stop him breaking them.) This prevents children from deleting the history or turning off security measures. Whomovedmychocolate
- As your child gets older, try vetting websites for yourself and then adding them to the access pages if you feel they’re suitable. Holly1
- Continually educate and update your child about internet safety and the current issues and make sure that you are fully up to speed with dangers, pitfalls and prevention methods. Bon
- Respect your child’s privacy as far as you can, without endangering them – building trust goes both ways. muncher
- Msn is a minefield into which only the hardiest of souls should go. Even the most mature kids can be quite dumb when it comes to forwarded messages. You have been warned! Robinpud
- You have no way of knowing what happens when your children visit friends. Try to establish with the other set of parents what their policies are on internet use. Doodletoyou
- On social networking sites, teach your child to set their profiles to private so only invited friends and family can see their profile, and make sure they don't let people they don't know join their network. champagnesupernova
- Agree with your kids that there is a 'no blame' rule. If they do something they shouldn't and either break the computer or get into trouble, providing they tell you, you will just deal with it without yelling. If they know they can say 'someone said something horrible to me in a chatroom' without you freaking out about them being there in the first place, you've more chance of nipping problems in the bud. Whomovedmychocolate
- Keep your kids off Mumsnet – lest they find out what you’ve been saying about them! anon
- If your child has homework about British Garden Birds, make sure safe search is on Google BEFORE they type in 'blue tits' Soupdragon
See the full results of Mumsnet's 2008 Survey of Children's Internet Use
Talk to other parents about this on our Parenting Discussion Forum
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