Live webchat with Tanya Byron about internet safety, Wed 24 Feb, 1pm

[GeraldineMumsnet]

We're very pleased that Tanya Byron is our guest again. She'll be online from 1pm - 2pm this Wednesday, 24 Feb.

Tanya is a practising consultant in child and adolescent mental health who has two children of her own. She's the author of three books and a well-known broadcaster.

Ahead of the chat, Tanya has sent us this to post on her behalf:

I really enjoyed my last webchat on Mumsnet and found the the questions and insights really interesting.

I have recently been asked by Gordon Brown to review internet safety since my Safer Children in a Digital World report (the Byron review) in 2008.

To ensure my review takes in parents' views, I'm really keen to get Mumsnetters' perspectives on both the opportunities that you think the internet gives your children and also the risks you've encountered.

I'd like to chat about anything to do with internet safety, but to get your thoughts flowing, a few starting points could be:

Is there enough information which is easily accessible about internet safety?

Where do you get your information and advice on internet safety?

How good are schools at educating children about internet safety?

What do you think about internet safety in the context of videogames, games consoles and mobile phones?

Look forward to chatting to you on the 24th!

I agree BitofFun - flicked onto MTV the other day by accident and got all cat's bum mouthed at what I was seeing. And the lyrics to a lot of songs are rather close to the bone now as well.

Dr Tanya...but I think the majority of kids, in this society nowadays, are living a childhood surrounded by technology....the days of 'going out to play' have disappeared...why should they go out if they have computers, phones, DS's, videogames etc etc....most have a tv/Sky in their rooms so they can watch what they want....I'm sure if you were to take everything out of their rooms they wouldn't be able to cope. Only yesterday I watched 'Honey, we're killing the kids' whereby two children watched tv for 5hrs per day...the parents couldn't control this so put a timer on the tv's so they switched off after 2hrs. The kids went loopy and showed such aggression towards their parents for doing so.

We've fallen into a trap, I think, of giving in too easily to our kids simply for the peace and quiet it brings when they're happy whether that be with the help of a laptop or a football.

so much, not 'do much'- banana fingers on my iPhone!

If you mean the violent content of videogames then yes. We brought a Wii for christmas and ever since our 3year old found the sword fighting game his behaviour instantly changed. It took weeks to explain to him that you couldn't copy what you did on screen in real life. I don't know if he was too young or if it just coincided with typical 3 year old boy behaviour but was a nightmare and we were black and blue! He's better now though as long as he doesn't play it for too long.

whispy - my children have none of the things you mention. We have one family tv which is rarely used. Ditto computer.

My children play outside in all weathers - imaginative play using anything they can find.

My ds has asked for a laptop but I said no. Children can cope without all those things.

Oh I agree absolutely but I am just saying that children have always done things like this. Looked things up in books, bought magazines.
There are parental controls...you can ban web sites..they don't need to be able to see you tube or be on facebook or be able to look at inappropriate sites.
Like another poster said, it is about being firm.That won't help you if they are in someone else's home but it never has done.

Bella - yes kids CAN cope without this electronic wizardry but CAN THE PARENTS cope with their kids if they don't have it? In a lot of cases I'm sure they can't which is very sad....

Hi Tanya, yes a onestop shop would be very useful as it would limit the amount of conflicting and potentially out of date advice out there - that's one thing that would worry me, information being out of date as technology moves so quickly.

I've just taken a look at the click clever, click safe info and it's very useful. It's also linked me to CEOP (which I've not been on for a while) and their homepage menu is very useful, giving guidance from cyberbullying and mobile problems to harmful content. Will be bookmarking both sites and getting more clued up.

Dr. TByron - Thanks for the search terms "Click Clever Click Safe" Will check this out & go through it with dd. Best wishes

Agree..it is the unpaid babysitter

The hour is up and it's time to say goodbye to Dr Tanya. Thanks so much, Tanya for joining us again and many thanks to all those who took part in the chat.

Mumsnet...perhaps a permanent link to click safe..?

Thank you Tanya....as always you've been lovely and very helpful. Best wishes. xx

Bye [waves]

Thankyou Dr Tanya

Ladies and gentlemen, sadly I have to leave you now. Thank you so much for your time and your candour. Please let MNHQ know if you are not happy for me to use anything you have said today as a quote (I would never quote your name, by the way!) I am off to have more meetings than I wish to and would love to carry on chatting to you, maybe again sometime soon.

whispy - I am a great believer (perhaps Dr Tanya will disillusion me!) that if you do not allow your children the opportunity to learn how to amuse themselves, then they never will. We cram our children's lives full of activities - give them some time and space to spend an hour making a fortress out of old cardboard boxes!

x post - goodbye & thank you.

Y'know, I really think that it is not the Government's job to regulate what children are accessing.

It is absolutely the parent's responsibility.

I think a lot of parent's are sadly failing their children by giving them too much screentime, little short of child abuse in lots of cases.

Thanks Dr T (is it not Prof now?) . Good luck with the report.

Thats what they want you to believe Keith !

I am going to suggest that my daughter's school put a link on the website to the click site. Will email them now...lots of schools could do this.

the click clever click safe was not something i had heard of, and i shall take a look at it shortly..

some really interesing stuff on this webchat , will read it back properly later

thanks MNHQ and Saint Tanya !

Just found that I started this post and didn't finish it - had to dash off. One thing I wanted to share that we've discussed at MNHQ is the legal age requirement for having a facebook account and the fact that it's so widely ignored, and how schools could help. Some schools are obviously better than others at discussing it, but the big thing for my eldest dd (age 11) is who is on facebook and twitter etc, can she have an account because x, y and z have one. The fact that I could tell her that it's illegal and there may be repercussions for her friends who have underage accounts has given her a reason to stand up to peer pressure. Such a simple thing. Surely if schools made it more clear/ a punishable offence to have a facebook account before the age of 13, it would help parents and children alike to delay this until children are a bit older and hopefully more able to cope

Sorry... personal rant over....