Thinking of banning internet use when parents not in room / house. Any advice on how / whether to?

[guitarrista]

It's been suggested to me that it would be a good idea to ban 11 and 13 year olds from internet when parents are not in a room with them, to protect kids from what they might see / do. They both have the internet on their phones, and they do homework on a computer upstairs so this would really restrict them a lot compared to what they are used to. They also spend occasions on the internet when parents are out, so I guess we'd have to switch it off if we are out. Does anyone have experience of only letting kids use internet in shared areas of house? Any advice / other ways of protecting kids?

Maybe I'm a bit lax in this area but I've always figured that educating dd about possible problems/ what she might come across is better. I feel she's quite savvy about stuff.

We have a good relationship and I'm fairly confident she would tell me stuff. But then she knows I'm quite laid back so if I was to say no to something there'd be a good reason.

She's nearly 14. She did have a bloke message her once who said he liked young girls. She called him a fucking pervert and blocked him. I asked if she was upset and she wasn't at all, said he can't harm her, etc, it's all words on a screen. She wouldn't give out her name, town, email, school details, etc and knows why not to.

She knows there's not nice people about and also that there's nasty websites about.

Check out what blocking can be done via your internet service provider. For example, sky lets you block certain websites via age bands. So, a PG setting would automatically block all social media websites, a 13 setting would allow social media but still block all self gaming , porn websites( these would be 18 ). Their website explains it quite well.
I also have a total block on certain websites that I don't like ( e.g Tumblr) and only allow access to others ( YouTube for example) between 6 and 9 pm. I can control all of this remotely if I'm not around - much to DCs disgust .
For their phones, this will be via 3G , so I think you will have to check individual settings on their phones. I'm less sure on that as I'm really mean and don't let them have internet on their phones.

On most modern wifi routers you can set access at certain times for certain devices although it does not look as simple as it sounds.
I'm often threatening this but never follow it up, the threat is enough and the boys know that if I put my mind to it I would work it out and I would restrict their access.

Norton provide a package called Norton Family, where you can not only set what websites your dc can access, but also how long or from when to when they can use the computer. Very useful!