Dr Tanya Byron's coming back from 1.30-2pm on Tues 11th December and wants your views on video games and the internet

[CarrieMumsnet]

Dr Tanya Byron would like to pick your brains on how parents can help children deal with the benefits and potential risks of video games and the internet.

Is this an issue that worries you? Do you feel supported/equipped to help your child/ren navigate this technology safely?

Dr Tanya is producing a report for the Government - The Byron report - and is particularly keen to get parents to canvass opinions on this subject from their children, so do go ask the dc's what they think...if you can drag them away from their playstation that is .

As always if you can't attend on Tues, do feel free to post your thoughts/opinions/questions here.

To add, ds1 still likes the cbeebies site, and has just discovered the fantastic BBC Schools site, so spends most time on these.

My view for what it?s worth is that for PC and console games the age rating stuff works very well technically; it is the same as for films. 15, 18 etc. It?s just that some parents buy 18-rated games for their 12 year olds because they think ?it?s just a game? and don't realise it can be as graphic as something like Texas Chainsaw Massacre which they wouldnt buy.

I think the government needs to advertise about the video game rating system on TV, explaining to parents exactly what games with 18-certificates on may feature.

The greatest risk by far is the internet. I agree it is important for children not lot be left surfing the net.

My 3.8 DD plays cbeebies and is great. I'm pleased at this as she has good mouse control and computer awareness. She plays a golf game on the xbox 360 with DH too.

As long as it is in moderation then gameplaying shouldn't be a problem. Internet use in a solitary environment is a different matter.

DD 4.5, has only just started using the PC for entertainment (she goes to the CBeebies website, and I've been to KneeBouncer.com also in the past with her and DS).

I have to say, it does concern me that DD will be proficient in circumventing security settings when she's a bit older. Ditto DS who's 2 years younger but catching up fast.

DH works in IT, and I can see a natural interest being taken in what he does already by the DC's. DH also plays some of the pretty gorey games. He's not so vigilant about what he plays when DD is around, although that doesnt happen often. He'll also watch some films when they are around - they may be 12 cert - but IMO they are still too young.

I've never been keen on the gorey-type games personally, or like Grand Theft Auto, where the players get extra points for running down prostitutes

I dont know what I'm going to do when DD and DS hit double figures/teens. I feel that the theme of some games penetrates the minds of children more than some parents realise. I am putting that forward on the behaviour I see from some of the children in DD's class - who clearly have older siblings and watch the games that they play.

I dont know much about child psychology, but my concerns centre around what age a child is when they become aware that what they see on a tv or computer screen is not real life, and that they cant/shouldnt act out the things they see in real life.

My other concern is that other parents wont be particularly vigilant, and as a result, my children end up exposed to things at school/outside of school that I wouldnt allow them at home, or, worse still, exposed to adverse behaviour as a result of inappropriate 'games'/viewing. I dont know how valid this particular concern is though.

Internet is a bit more dodgy; the best and worst of humanity at the touch of a button is very scary!

Gosh, "penetrates the minds" sounds a bit Doctor Who, but I think you catch my drift

ds is four so only uses pre-school video games and has closely-supervised internet access/Cbeebies digital TV games. And very little of it - the odd hour at weekends. (He watches too much Cbeebies TV, though, I'm far from a perfect parent...)

I'm sure video/internet stuff is positive in lots of ways - develops hand-eye co-ordination, I gather, and teaches children useful skills for the rest of their life wrt. using computers.

The things that concern me as he gets older include thinly-disguised advertising - some of the fast food and confectionary companies have/had websites that are designed to promote their products and undermine parents' attempts to encourage healthy eating. I don't want companies making him 'brand aware' so he reaches for their products for the rest of his life without thinking about it!

Obviously violence in video games is another worry - I know boys will always play fight, but video games are so intense... presumably they involve a different part of the brain to real life? And is the sort of killing where the baddies come back to life giving them the wrong messages (but then, horrible wounds and suffering would hardly be a good thing either). I'd like to see some evidence-based research to help me decide what to allow him and what to restrict.

And then there's t'internet and social networking - good as another way to relate to your friends, bad for increased opportunity for bullying. Kids used to be able to escape bullying once they got home... Youtube worries me as they seem very resistant to taking horrible real-life footage of violent bulllying down. I hope by the time ds is a teenager/old enough to want to use those sites there is some guidance for parents and children and some regulation of the sites so that victims of bullying aren't further persecuted.

HTH

The other parents being less vigilant is a valid concern. I often get one of the older two boys asking for a particular game and, when I say no because it is a 15+ or even 18+, they are aghast saying that they have played it at so-and-so's and it's fine .

Even my sister lets her 12yo play 18+ games and acts as if I'm loopy when I express concern. Her response "Oh goodness, everyone plays these games. He's fine." How does she know???

I do think that the certification of games needs to be far more stringent than with films. Because the children become totally involved with the games, which they don't with films, and it therefore has a potentially far greater effect on them (probably harmful having seen the content of some of the games). And there needs to be much greater publicity about the certification and what it really means. Giving a game a 15+ certificate and saying on the back that it contains mild sexual reference doesn't mean an awful lot. What is mild sexual references? What does "some violence" mean? Etc. Parents need to know what the judges mean when they give a rating, what are they referring to and what are they judging it against. Otherwise parents cannot make a fully-informed decision.

Some parents might think "mild sexual reference" just means something fairly innocent when in fact it refers to something which those particular parents would consider to be much more than mild. We all have our own standards and boundaries but are being asked to trust someone else's view of a game and that person might not have the same values as we do. So we need to know exactly what the ratings mean so we can form our own judgment.

My DS (6) has never really been interested in gaming but interestingly, when I watched the child of our time programme recently, they commented that research had shown that some playing of video games actually helped childrens concentration levels and that as long as the content was appropriate (i.e not violent etc) that it can actually benefit them!

Can Dr Tanya confirm this research or was it a load of tosh! Please please answer this as Ive been dying to find out one way or another as my DS's concentration levels are quite low and almost feel I should be making him play them!!

Thanks!

Personally my answer is gender specific - imo girls are less dominated by screens and walk away more easily. they do not get wound up the same way boys do either.
i think pc's and gaming they are awful -
never heard such tosh as 'promotes hand eye coordination'
saw a head teacher on tv saying that the downfall of a love of reading is computers and i truly believe it.
am horrified when i see women on mumsnet asking for games for 2-3 year olds
I think women will regret it when they have two or three 8-12yr old boys who want to do very little else but 'screen'
have 5 children - gaming is at a minimum - once a fortnight if that..
I think it is the death of the imagination and terribly sad

Oh dont get me started on brand awareness and children-targetted marketing.

DD's 4.5 and already she is targeted through school.

ds(14) plays runescape on the pc and the usual youtube etc. it's safer in a way as he talks to all his (local) friends online so at least it keeps him in .

i trust him to a certain extent. but i do check through history etc to see what exactly he has been looking at.

he still has a great imagination.

I think safe internetting is a real problem: no matter how much 'education' they get children seem to think they are invincible and regularly ignore all rules about not making themselves identifiable on the web and/or not giving out personal details. It is shocking and I just don't know the way around it. I know from my work in secondary schools that teenagers simply laugh at the guidelines that are given to them, and ignore them completely.

My son (10) uses a site called superclubsplus (at home and at school), which is a closed community (with vetted entry) with moderators, and therefore safe. But it has cost his school quite a lot of money for them to have this facility in year 6. Earlier in the school they also use espresso which is a non-live/vetted search facility. But again this is expensive for schools.

I'm really not at all sure what I will do when they are older and want to go on MSN, Bebo, Youtube, etc.

Generally - like everything else in parenthood - we set guidelines and time-limits for the use of technology, and it doesn't really cause problems: they accept the house rules. We have chosen so far (boys are 8 and 10) to only have one internet-enabled PC and one TV in the house and not to have a game-system which uses the TV. So the boys do have Nintendo DS, but don't have Playstation or X-box or similar. They are only allowed age-apropriate games for the DS.

I don't think technology in this regard is any different from other parenting issue. You have to be prepared to set the rules and stick to them.

I know a man who is 36 and he spends all day ( I mean all day) in one of these games which is very realistic. I am sure he is addicted. He told me once he probably spends more than 10 hrs a day on it. That's what worries me about gaming - the geek factor.

I agree everything in moderation and we all know people who never do anything in moderation.

My DDs are only 2 and just 5 so we don't have experience in this arena. Like Hulababy, I know that the computer will always be in a family room and the children won't be allowed internet-accessible computers in their rooms.

Whilst I can set boundaries with my own children and do my best to ensure the games they play and sites they visit are age-appropriate, clearly, other parents don't show the same restraint. I worry about the impact it might have on my children who have to rub shoulders day to day with other children who will be exposed to very inappropriate video games and Internet content.

Since 'media studies' seems to have become a popular subject in schools, it might be useful for all pupils to have media lessons, where they discuss and perhaps come to understand the impact of the media i.e. gender discrimination, advertising, impact on future employment if their teenage antics can be traced on MySpace/Youtube, watching out for people videoing you, celebrity culture, Internet safety etc...

Yesterday we went bowling as a family. Sunday morning, 11am and when it wasn't their turn, my daughters were mesmerised by the free-standing video-machines behind us, which happened to be fairly graphic shooting games. My DH and I did not think it was appropriate for these machines to be in a bowling alley but if they had to be there then they ought not to have been switched on until much later. They were right behind the lanes and visible to all. It's obvious that people do have the mindset of 'it's just a game'

We don't have an X-Box, Wii, Playstation or similar. DD1 (9) likes going online (supervised) and uses the BBC schools site, CBBC, as well as Barbie.com and other "design a room" and "dress up a figure" children's sites.

I suppose I am quite restrictive with her but gaming isn't really a part of our lives so I wouldn't know where to start even if we got a gaming system.

I do worry as she gets older as there is so much more exposure to violent and inappropriate games. When I was a kid we had Atari and Donkey Kong now it's all death and destruction. We visited friends recently and DD1 was asked by their DS (9) if she could go and play Grand Theft Auto with him - they were quite surprised when I said no.

Sorry, I have waffled on a bit. I suppose my concerns as a parent are ineffective regulations of games, lack of information about content and the normalisation of violence as entertainment.

Erm, I'd like some tips about how to wean my DS off cbeebies/pocoyo/thomas websites please. He's 2.4 I can't hide the computer... he finds it and plugs it in and everything. I guess maybe if I deleted the history he wouldn't find things so easily...

I agree that a report is a good idea.

I'm currently dealing with the aftermath of my 13 yr old son being given the name of a porn website which had extremely graphic sexual content easily available.
I have always been open and honest and quite liberal with my son, we have a good close and frank relationship. I was dismayed, let down and horrified that his first sexual knowledge is based on what he saw.
We have discussed and worked out ways forward.
What I am now facing is he has severed a trust bond with regard to the PC, I now feel it reasonable to deny him ALL leisure access and have locked it down seriously with reagrds to his access.

I used to worry abour runescape, PS2 and so on...
That was small cheese compared to this in all honesty

I have a probably too-laid-back attitude towards access to the internet and computing - although obviously I have a say in what games get bought. My younger sons (5 and 9) play on the computer a lot - Football Manager for the older, and the younger one plays things like Rome Total War or (with me) city building games - there's a "Build a City in Ancient Greece/Rome/China" series. As a result he has an impressive knowledge of military strategy, import and export, the importance of religion, entertainment, taxation, and producing enough food for the population etc - all quite difficult concepts for a 5 year old which these games make quite easy to grasp. So computer games can be valuable and educational - and its quality time we spend together. We have 1 computer and 4 kids (1 now at Uni) so turns on the computer are rationed to half an hour a go, but I'm not always supervising what's they're doing on their turn, and there is constant access to the internet. I do think you have to show a degree of trust.

The only time I've really messed up (I hope) was the realisation that DS1, then about 16, was playing a game with DS2, then about 5, which was basically a recreation of the Normandy Landings, complete with gruesome amounts of blood and violence - I'd assumed that DS1 would have a degree of sense and was very wrong!

I think most parents are agreeing here:

Don't let teens access the internet in their room
Use closed/moderated communities for younger ones like Club Penguin
Computers can be beneficial (my 4 year old can do multiplication as a result of Timez Attack)
Be aware of what children are doing online
Limit Screen time
Be aware of game content - it's easy to find this out online
Use parental controls for the Internet (or NetNanny and suchlike)
Explain to children to never give out your details online and that people may not be who they seem

Parents should use a family friendly ISP like v21 or UK online - these provide content filters and extra parental controls as part of the package.

The Australian Government has just launched a free net content filter for parents to download, and has published information for parents to help their children surf safely. They have written online tutorials for children too about safe surfing and netiquette.

www.netalert.gov.au/

They are also in the middle of an ad campaign which shows that a 13 year old girl online is actually a middle-aged man behind the on-screen persona.

I have to say with regard to video gaming I'm pretty happy with our Wii. It has lots of cutesy 'G' rated games, very little in the way of hack/slash and gets the whole family up and moving. And brain training (my 4yo beat DP ).

If canvassed, my 2 teenage stepsons would say that the only problems with gaming are that the games are too expensive, school interferes with gaming and parents are annoying when they tell you to put the controller down and come to the table.

My 4 yo would say that 1 hour a day of screen time (that's tv/wii/laptop) is not enough and that I'm a meanie. And also that Princess Peach should be in more games.

I agree that parents need to take control of what games their children are playing. Lots assume that only children play video games but thats simply not true. Why should games be "banned" just because they are unsuitable for under 18s?

I love playing games like The Sims and Football manager. DH has a PS2, Xbox360 and a Wii and plays a variety of games. We are aware that when DS is old enough, some of these games will need to be hidden from him, just as DVDs such as Casino Royale will be.

It seems far too tempting for parents to video games/tv/internet as a babysitter and it is these parents who are up in arms about the content of such media.

We have rules and after some adjustment skirmishes from the boys (10 & 8) it's working well right now.
No computer on school days (Mon-Thurs) and timed at the weekend.
They always have to ask permission and it is a privilege which can be revoked.

Exceptions are made and computer time earned by deserved good school marks. When they've put in the time esp in a subject they struggle with and get an A but not for ds1's stream of A's from his Ethics teacher who's taken a shine to him

Also if they have been (without expecting to be rewarded and you do know...) really kind or helpful I may allow 20 mins before supper. Any whining for longer means no next time, I say.
Ds1 says things like, "I need money, I'm a cook so I'll have to find something to make and sell." Straight-faced. That sort of structure is good for him.

We try & keep other activities/interests going & note that they still do play with other things & each other.

Dh has installed all sorts of filters and I have a "Nanny" facility so I can block internet access.

You have to be as strict with yourself re time control - I've taken to setting the alarm on my mobile otherwise I'm pottering around and forget how long the boys have been on.

Runescape was a big hit and the boys paid (docked from pocket money) the 1 euro odd a week for it. Now dh & the boys are playing another game which involves much running up and down stairs to the study discussing things with daddy and tactical talk over supper. Find it very good to my surprise because they chatter away with dh like I haven't seen in ages and are helpful and supportive of each other. Before the weather turned grim they'd be out in the garden enacting bits mixed up with Tolkien/Harry Potter & their online games with old cloaks and sticks as staffs etc.

I try not to make it forbidden fruit & also not to be old fogey-ish about it. Internet is used for school stuff occasionally & they've learnt that I can and do check the logs so they are fairly responsible these days.
Ds2 was slack with reading (German for school) and instead of saying "No PS/computer - go and read" I've switched to getting us both in the sitting room after the fire's lit in the afternoon before I go to pick up dd and we have tea/milk/biccies & a quiet 10 mins. He enjoys that as he helps light the fire & candles and it's stopped the "school reading bad; computer good" that I think I was unwittingly allowing to develop.

You also do have to take a good look at what they play - and not always rely on what they/friends or even dh says!

Cbeebies website is great for dd (5)

Just re-read title & realised this is more about access.
Rules again about personal info & why it's so vital. I use the: access to our names/computers = access to our bank accounts/credit cards, like opening your front door and shouting "Rob us!"
Also no one needs to know you to play a game. You don't stand in a park or football stand & shout out personal info either.

You need to know what they do/sites they visit and to equip them how to deal with encounters.
Ds1 had a fright when some older boy was trying him into revealing his password and threatened to report him. He wasn't abusive but nasty & it was a shock for ds1 (10) that the gaming community wasn't all youngsters having fun together.

You have to think about your child and what they get out of the games/contact and how to teach them to deal with unpleasant occurrences. They need to be able to tell you too.

We have strict parental controls on our computers (NetNanny).

The DSs can play their playstations in their rooms, but they have to surf the internet downstairs where we can see what is going on.

One thing that does bug me - we have told the children never to enter personal information on the internet, so why do so many of the free membership sites aimed at children insist on so much info?

My DS {12 years} is allowed to go on internet but I check his history and it is strictly contoled by me. He can't get it connected unless I do it on my user name {I am administrator}

He has a PS2 but doesn't play it during week and only at weekends after homework and trumpet practice. It is set up in sitting room.

HOWEVER he is teased at school because we don't allow him to watch 15 or 18 films or games

As for giving out personal id on internet I told him to have a false ID with false dob {ie 1st jan 1995, an email address that doesn't have his name in at all, ie like rtkangamummy etc rather than jane smith and address being london, rather than High street wimbledon}

I did this because soooooooo many of his friends have their name address phone number school dob and photos online on facebook/myspace etc on public view.

Why don't parents read their child's myspace/facebook?

I think it should be somehow be that parents should say No you are not old enough for 18+ when you are 11

I don't understnd why some parents don't realise why something is set at 18 and that an 11 year old will be too young

Why do they want their children to grow up so fast?

They are longer as an adult why can't they enjoy being 11?

DS is only 2 so far too young - but I have come home from work to find DH playing a 15 or 18 gane with DS in the room.
To say he received an earful is putting it mildly and now he only plays when DS is in bed or with his grandparents.
I want to be fairly strict on this as Ds grows up - even if I have to use "well, if X jumped off a bridge would you want to do it" line.
Hopefully by the time DS is old enough there will be tighter controls but, having said that, WE as parents and guardians are the final control so we must take positive action ourselves