Talk to EE about keeping your children safe online – HTC One handset up for grabs NOW CLOSED

[KatieBMumsnet]

EE would like to know how Mumsnetters go about keeping their DCs safe online.

Here’s what EE have to say, “Like many things, digital living comes with certain risks if used inappropriately and it’s good to be aware of these risks. It's just as important to keep your child safe on their phone or computer, as it is in the 'real world'. We know our children are often ahead of us when it comes to tech knowledge. We aim to help you understand the issues so you can support them. That’s why we’ve got simple tips and advice that are easy to implement, so you can help your child enjoy using the internet and be safe at the same time.”

So, what do you know and do in the way of internet safety? Do you have parental controls installed on electronic devices at home? Or maybe you try to ensure that your younger children are supervised when browsing the web? What kind of online content do you try to monitor? Do you struggle to know what to do to keep your DCs safe online? Whatever your stance is on online safety, we’d love to hear about it!

Everyone who adds their thoughts to this thread will be entered into a prize draw to win a HTC One handset. For full T&Cs please click here.

Please note your comments may be used (anonymously of course) on EE's pages on MN, social media channels and possibly elsewhere.

Thanks and good luck,

MNHQ

[JHart0]

I rely too heavily upon providers for web content. I would like to see age related classifications websites

[lottietiger]

My DS is only ten months but it's definitely a worry for the future. Younger and younger children are wanting tablets and smart phones which are difficult to police. Even if we decide to hold out til he is older there will be friends who do have them. I'd like to think by the time DS is ready for the computer etc things will be better but I'm sure they will be worse, who knows.

[NumptyNameChange]

that's a good point actually - even if you protect your child at home other children are being bought smart phones that they're allowed to take into school and your children get exposed to stuff there instead.

i'm actually not that comfortable with children being allowed smart phones in school - it totally takes away parents ability to supervise internet use.

[UKcanuck]

This is a huge concern for me recently. My eldest DD has her own laptop, which she is allowed in her room and I have no controls on it. That said, I am comfortable with that due to her personality, whilst being aware that maybe I'm over-complacent.

We are just about to buy a laptop for homework for DD2 (13), who will need more monitoring... So I need to educate myself, stat! I'm looking at Family Safety Centre and NetNanny right now.

I strongly believe, though, that we need to educate children about Internet safety and how to raise concerns, rather than policing alone.

[madhairday]

This has definitely become more of a concern as our dc have grown older. They are now 13 and 10, and up until recently were only online on the family computer which is downstairs, and on which we have the Microsoft Home Safety thing going - which is great - it sends a copy of all the emails they have sent and received, and also a list of all the websites they have been on. But for their birthdays dd got a kindle fire and ds an ipod touch, and since then we've realised how difficult it is to keep an eye on them. The ipod has far better safeguards than the kindle which is a bit rubbish in terms of family safety - you can only turn the internet on and off for instance whereas on the ipod you can at least block inappropriate content (though doesn't work for youtube)

So we've brought in a rule where they are only allowed on the internet downstairs - they are allowed to read books on their devices in bed but if we find them on the net they get banned for a while, which has worked so far - there has to be some trust involved. We've also installed passwords so if they want to download anything we have to put the password in as they are not told what it is (which they hate) ;) - this works well for keeping an eye on what's going on the device.

I do worry, but hope we are bringing them up to be aware of danger but also to trust them to learn how to use them responsibly....it's hard to find the balance.

[TiredDog]

Parental controls on PC and it's full view of everyone in sitting room. Kindle is difficult to do the same on so I have unfortunately blocked access to the internet as a consequence.

DD11yrs has her own e-mail but it is copied to me so I know if she is receiving inappropriate e-mails

We chat about it a lot

[nlondondad]

My youngest child is now 18.

When they were younger I took the view that using software to "protect" them was unlikely to be effective, instead we used a combination of vigilence - the sole computer with internet access was in the living room so we could always see hwat they were doing- and openly discussing, when it arose, the issue of inappropriate material, which of course they heard about in the playground.

The use of mobile devices obviously complicates things, but thinking that forbidding your child to have a mobile device will protect them is naive: they will be exposed to other children's mobile devices anyway.

In a way it is possible to get a bit carried away by the novelty of the hazard. I remember "before the internet" a bit over err forty years ago, in my final year at Primary school a boy bringing in some, actually quite hard core stuff he had found discarded in a hedgerow. He was, I recall, soon apprehended. Vigilence again...

[NumptyNameChange]

but he had to find it and it was conspicuous and he was cuaght nlondondad. now it's on every phone and not conspicuous and unlikely to be caught. you do see the difference?

i also think it's daft to say well if other kids have these things then you might as well let yours do too because you can't control if they look at other people's.

it's like saying well there's not much point not allowing your 12yo to get pissed because they can still get pissed outside the house if they want to.

you protect the best you can as far as you are able. you don't abandon protecting because you can't do it 24hrs a day and in every context.

i do think schools would avoid a lot of hassle though if they banned smart phones or in fact if they banned mobiles or insisted they were cached in form rooms during school hours for example.

we did survive school back in the days before mobiles

[NumptyNameChange]

also it's now likely to be a photo of a girl in the school on his phone and being passed from person to person leaving the girl in an awful position and the guy actually at risk of prosecution for distributing child pornography. the stakes have gotten higher and schools aren't actually coping/proactively dealing with it.

[MimsyBorogroves]

My son (5) is only allowed supervised time on the iPad which is time limited. He knows that if he accesses apps etc that aren't in "his" folder he won't be allowed on again for a period of time. He also knows that if he is ever asked to spend money/credits he is to check with us first even within the context of a game. We have in app purchases off, but I think it's a good message for him in case we ever forgot to turn it on.

When he is older, he will use a computer in the living room for school work. Our internet is already set up with parental controls so we are one step ahead rather than wishing we had done something in retrospect.

We've discussed what to do with wifi/mobiles etc in years to come (a massive projection, he won't be getting a phone or computer for his bedroom for many years) and we will change the wifi password and insist all phones are charging downstairs from a set time of night - assuming that there aren't any massive changes in these things over the forthcoming years.

[manfalou]

My kiddies aren't of internet using age yet but when the time comes they won't be having a computer in their room and their will be a definite... you trust me, I trust you attitude put forward with the likes of social media sites. I will want to know the passwords but won't snoop unless I have reason to believe something fishy is going on...which I hope will never come about. Our 3 year old uses youtube to watch annoying music videos such as gummy bear and crazy frog but not unsupervised.

I think phones have become 'essential' for various reasons and when it comes to a time where the kids go out by themselves they will have one but not a top of the range, all singing all dancing phone. Snapchat is one of the worst things around at the minute so again something that will be closely monitored.

[Elibean]

I do agree with nlondondad about vigilance and human involvement (ie parents interacting) being more effective than merely banning gadgets, though.

[spababe]

it's a very difficult thing to police becuase although I have put controls on to make things as safe as possible for my own children, I do not know what other children show mine on their smartphones and laptops :-(

[MyMillsBaby]

I saw a segment on This Morning the other day that horrified me on this issue. A woman's 5 year old boy had been browsing the web on a tablet and come across some pornographic content. The mum rang in to the show for advice and it broke my heart. There is simply NO NEED for a five year old to have unsupervised access to the internet. If they want to play a game, set up a unique profile for them on your device and ensure all the correct parental filters are put on their side. Make sure your own side is password protected and away you go. It's so simple, but so important.

[janeyh31]

My daughter's are still quite young so are supervised when using the internet & tend to play on cbeebies & apps we down load for them. It is definitely some thing I worry about when they get old & how I can keep then safe when using the internet

[lorka]

My daughter is only 7 so is monitored all the time. However, my son is 11 and I find it harder to monitor him as he likes to go in to his room now. I know when he is on the internet it is a game he is playing ( I do check regularly and browse history) and he is not in to any kind of social media. We have talked about not giving any personal info online and the school has talked about cyberbullying too. Youtube does worry me though as it is so easy to click on something that looks innocent.

[mrscumberbatch]

I think it's all about education. Dd is only 4 but already is startlingly adept with computers.
If we can normalise online behaviours and teach her morals of the digital world in the exact same way that we do for the real world the. I think it will set her in good stead.

Once she is old enough to use the Internet we will be placing filters on and all computer activity will be monitored.

[NettleTea]

DD is 13 and has her own laptop. she knows that I might do the odd random check, but I believe in trusting her rather than forbidding, and being open in talking about dangers/inappropriate stuff.

DS is younger and I am more concerned by him. He is probably AS and so he finds it hard to understand my concerns regarding accidental browsing accidents throwing nasties up. He has pretty controlled access to devices, and I am in the process of looking at parental controls to try to reduce that risk.

[DinoSnores]

DS has his own computer log in limited to 30 minutes a go and only goes to Cbeebies.

I think people are rather naive about how difficult it is to limit pornography on ISPs (how does a computer work out what is and isn't? even the Daily Mail website shows a lot of scantily clad women) but it does worry me just how easily accessible things are if you go looking.

[NotAFeminist]

My little boy is just 13 months old!!! But, when he's older enough to use the internet, we'll have a family computer - not personal laptops/computers in bedrooms - that will be in a communal room so it's all out in the open. Same for us adults, we have our laptops out in the open. We'll teach our children to use the internet for good reasons (research, streaming age appropriate films, homework, writing, keeping in touch with friends/family who live far away etc.) Being a good example in how we use the internet for ourselves is a good way of ensuring our children grow up to use the internet safely.

[gcn504]

We have used various methods throughout the last few years: Child-Protection software which limited accessible sites & software which only allowed access to the internet at various times. However, as our eldest daughter has become a teenager we've lifted a lot of those restrictions to enable her to do homework. However, we have kept a few parental restrictions in place (youtube search results etc). A lot now is based on trust but we do still rely on software where necessary - even on her smartphone it is set up with a parental control for website access.

We do try and keep an informal eye on what she's doing from a social media point of view, as from some of the stories in the media about bullying and grooming, it can put the fear of God into you. These can't really be controlled by software so once again it's a relationship based on trust. It took quite a while for me to agree to her having a Facebook account but I think she spends more time on other apps like Kik and Snapchat which again, are in theory, open to abuse.

So software can help but a large part of it comes down to education (one of the earliest lessons I taught them was about phishing emails) and above all trust.

[Pintoe]

I attended a very informative talk with my daughter at her secondary school about cyber bullying and internet safety - you don't know who you are really talking to online, etc, - it shocked us both and she was initially very careful. However she is 13 now and has Facebook, Instagram, snapchat, twitter, as do all her friends. They can access the internet on phones, laptops, tablets, iPods and social media is changing and expanding all the time; it's so hard to keep track of what's okay and safe. Recently on Facebook, there were a lot of links to horror film clips like Slenderman - she would click on a link one of friends had put up saying: "Great fun - watch this!" and be confronted with some gory clip with no warning at all. Unfortunately she has a very vivid imagination and found it difficult to get to sleep for a long time - you can't really do much when they've already seen something.

[wonka]

My boys only have access currently to internet in the family room, where I can see easily what they are doing. We have regular chats about what is safe and not safe to do/post/look at on the internet. They know not to download anything or upload anything without checking first.

[kateandme]

when they are old enough even homework can seem to private to share or having parents looking over.everything we look at them for seem to be an invasion at that age.so id try to educate them.let them know they can come to us and think of ceritna filters.teaching them safety and the values is important.
with youunger children try to let them know if certian things pop up that they didnt click on not to open them.not to click on sites they dont check with us first for permission.dont download anything without asking.

[MammaTJ]

8 and 7 year olds are only allowed to use a computer in the same room as me and their dad.

I have an 18 year old daughter, and it was the same for her until she was over 14, then she knew enough to come to me if there were any issues. She also knew I checked her FB etc regularly too.