Tell NSPCC about the family rules you have to keep safe online - chance to win a £300 voucher NOW CLOSED

[AmeliaMumsnet]

NSPCC have teamed up with O2 to launch their #ShareAware campaign. Here’s what they have to say: ‘We tell our children to share, but online it’s different. In fact, sometimes sharing online can be dangerous. That’s why we’ve joined forces with O2 to ask parents to be Share Aware and keep children safe online. With the internet changing all the time it can be hard to keep up to date but our Net Aware guide gives an overview of the sites young people use. . Our straightforward, no-nonsense advice will untangle the web, and show you how you can be just as great a parent online as you are the rest of the time.’

As a parent, your main priority is to keep your self and your family safe, and this means agreeing on some rules for when you’re surfing the web, for both you and your child. As part of their #ShareAware campaign to keep children safe online, NSPCC and O2 want to know about the family agreements you have in place to make sure you and your DC stay out of trouble - the family contracts you have in place within your home to help things run smoothly.

So, maybe you always make sure there’s an adult present when your DC is online or have you agreed to not share images of your child without their permission? Perhaps no one is allowed on their phones at the table. Every family has a set of rules that works for them, so post on this thread to tell NSPCC and O2 about your family agreements and you’ll be entered into a prize draw to win a £300 voucher of your choice (from a list).

For more information, or to download your family agreement template, visit Share Aware
here to download your family online agreement template.

Thanks so much for taking part, and good luck with the prize draw!

MNHQ

Standard Insight T&Cs apply.

only use the internet in the lounge or kitchen - not in their bedrooms

I have all the parental controls set on each device and the hub we have no technology up the table and my daughter is restricted to an hour and a half on a tablet, console or computer, she is allowed to choose how she uses it, i.e three half an hour turns or all one go.

DD is 8, any apps on her tablet are pre-approved and installed by me or DH, we also decide the security settings. Friend requests on Music.ly for example are also approved by us. We have a very open and honest relationship with her, and she immediately runs to us saying X has friend requested me and shows us.

We regularly check the messaging section on her music.ly app when she is in bed just to ensure nothing untoward is being said.

Her school do great internet safety awareness days, and we sit with her and get her to talk us through the lessons and why they are important. She is aware there are bad people out there who could pretend to be friendly in order to find out where she lives/goes to school etc and we also have a rule that no one sees under her underwear unless mum or dad say so.

We have a pin on the Sky tv so she cannot access any inappropriate channels or movies too.

Something we are vigilant about is videoing at home. No wandering about showing people our home or us. It's inviting problems.

Reading other user's responses, I feel I need to pay closer attention to this. My DC are 4 & 6 and they use YT Kids or Sky Kids or the Cbeebies app so I do leave them unsupervised. But this serves as a timely reminder to discuss with them behaviours on the open web and what to do if they see anything that confuses / scares or worries them.

People on phones when I'm trying to converse with them makes me very cross indeed! They're ignoring real life communication right in front of them to reply to stuff on the phone! If I am in company the phone stays put away! So my rules very much relate to polite use of phones which are banned in lots of situations! If we're busy doing something whether that is a meal, watching a film or having a conversation then the focus should be entirely on that.

We tell our children not to give out personal details online and not to visit inappropriate websites .

DD is 8 and she is only allowed access to the Internet when an adult is in the room. She doesn't have her own phone or tablet yet but when she does she'll follow the same rules as DH and I do - no devices at the table or upstairs!

Our main rule (our DDs are 14, 12 & 9) is that the internet is not used 'privately'. That doesn't mean I am permanently on their shoulder when they are on their laptops or phones, but they use them downstairs. We have parent controls on our wifi which blocks inappropriate material (mostly).

when my children were much younger l was with them the whole time they were online and have been told never to give any personal imformation to no one ever online or not on line

we make sure we have parental controls on everything that can be used for the internet

They have to be supervised, and parental controls

My seven year old son is quite tech savvy and likes to play games on app. We've restricted the age limit for the games and other contents he can download an the android device and on the iPad it's only me. The home internet also has security measures. I also ask him not to join any site without an adult being present. Looking at their browser history, if they do not know how to clear it, also sheds some light on what they are doing.

My DC are still very young (4 & 2) and we are trying to delay their use of 'screens' as much as possible as inevitably as they older they will use them more. They will watch things like Peppa Pig on my phone but only if I let them (they can't access it without a passcode which they don't know!), and very occasionally I'll et the 4 year old look at the Cbeebies website but again under my supervision.
I've started to talk to them about the internet, how you can search for things via Google, that it can be a very useful tool and as they get older I will definitely be telling them all about online safety and putting in parental controls etc.

I have 14 year old daughter who has had it drummed into her from an early age about the perils of social media. I have a background working in child protection. She has only been allowed social media this year and chose to have instagram. I am aware of her followers/ friends and do not allow her post any of her details, including her real name ( her friends already have this information). I do not check her account as regular as I did at the beginning, but continue to be open with her about possible dangers/ my concerns etc, using real life examples. I trust her, while being aware of her age and vulnerability and question her intermittently about her account/activities.

My boys 6 & 9 are now wanting to copy popular videos online where they talk about computer games as they are playing on them, I have to be in the room when they are online and have set maximum security on the tablets because they were filming each other talking about the games unaware that they were sitting in nothing but underpants with no tops on (innocent and childlike to them but could be used indecently if they worked out how to upload it online!!)
Also the way they click on things like adverts or links without knowing what they actually say its so dangerous - we've had a close call a few ties were they've gone onto sex sites/videos that have slipped through the parental controls by them randomly clicking away so now they've got to stay in the living room with me at all times so I can peek over their shoulder and check they've not roamed off.

We have parental controls set up on devices and I have a rule that no technology is allowed when we are all eating together from both the kids and the adults.
I try to let them have some freedom and don't snoop at what they are doing because I think it is important to give them a little freedom though I am dreading the day when they are old enough for the parental controls to be removed.

My DCs are older, but we had some parental control software which caught any attempt to type their full names or our address from their accounts. It really worked! Even after telling them not to, I found them attempting to gibe their address because it seemed like they had to, several times with this (it kept blanking the field if they put in the street name). I could override if I felt it was OK, in individual cases.

Once my DS bought some software and provided an obviously fake address (they didn't need an address, it was a download, and we paid with PayPal). Someone called from the company in the US to complain, I explained why he had done it, and she congratulated me on teaching him so well about online safety :-D!

I control the apps that go on my DDs iPad and we put safe search on YouTube to stop most of the non age appropriate content. I also make sure we're on the same room when she uses it and I encourage her to talk about what she is doing online and to share what she is watching. She is too young to worry about chat apps and the like as she can't really spell or write consistently yet and we don't have any social media installed. I'm am concerned for when she is older because I think social media apps can be quite toxic to vulnerable young minds.

My children are now adults and a lot more knowledgeable about IT than I am, so they are able to offer me guidance now.

parental control over computer time is very important and something that the children understand fully. They are only allowed to use the computer in the family room while an adult is present.

I set up parental controls and explain to my DS why I am doing so. It is hard to tred the fine line in explaining things and scaring them but it is better to be safe.

When they go online it is always with a parent or adult family member and parental controls for all devices a must. Going online with the kids is something we do together and never leave them alone while they are using internet.

Very important that screen time is supervised