To think it’s impossible to block dodgy websites on teenagers phones and wonder how we are supposed to protect them

[Br3athd33p1y]

I always go to them for tech advice. Appreciate advice from schools etc re certain sites but how do you protect kids in reality?

OP right now you have children who actually talks to you about things, that is way more valuable than any parental control

I know what Omegle can, but you have to teach your children how to browse the web safely. Just like you cant shelter your children from the world you cant shelter them from the internet

You have to teach them how to safely navigate both, but of your children are 15/16 years you are at a point where your influence is limited and you just gitta trust them to come to you if they need you or have a problem

The way I see it a simplified version would be a child walking home from school

• there are lots of scary things that could happen - run over by a car, abducted by a peadophile, fall over and break arm, loads house keys, be bullied by other kids.

Now a knee jerk reaction would be to just not let a 12 year old child walk home alone. But really this is just delaying it and then they will become an 18 year old with no road sense and be just as much of not more vulnerable. So as a parent, leading up to 12 years old I teach road safety, stranger danger, etc start letting them decide if it’s safe to cross and so on. I then let them walk on ahead of me and then eventually I let them do the walk on their own (whilst tracking them obsessively on find my iPhone until I’ve had a text to say they are home safe!!) Things may still happen to them and yes it’s terrifying but I have to believe that I have equipped them with the skills and knowledge to deal with most situations that will come up. So with online even as small children they were aware in age appropriate terms of the dangers of online, and things like not give out your real name and location. While they were little they knew they were not allowed to comment on anything online unless we had seen and approved it, they didn’t have any social media until secondary school, and knew they could only accept people they knew in real life and not to befriend any adults. It’s a step by step process and as parents we need to equip them with the skills to deal with online threats etc but at some point we will have to trust them to make the right decisions.

@Br3athd33p1y my parents didn't know we were hanging about on those sites. I'd imagine they would've been worried if they had known.

Nothing bad ever happened to us, but you are totally right in that there are some dodgy people on those sites.