Grandchildren's online safety

I think the parents should be having the conversation, not us. My 12 year old granddaughters phone is set up so her mother is able to see everything she does.

Nothing to do with us it’s the parents perogative to set up rules and regulations

As a deliverer of Internet Safety in my school, I was horrified at the ignorance of some parents regarding what their children were viewing and publishing online.
They were shocked when we alerted them to the videos their ten year olds had put on You Tube.

I used to deliver a presentation on internet safety for the parents of the pre- schoolers, coming to our school, advising on parental controls, viewing times etc.

I agree that it is the parents' prerogative, when it comes to online activities, but parent's need all the support they can get.
However, I do have conversations with my three year old granddaughter's parents regarding this, offering advice and suggesting suitable activities for her online, but trying not to interfere.

What I do disagree with is the fact that she now has her own Kindle, and she is often reluctant to stop, when we take it from her. I worry about addiction to devices.

However, she does need to be au fait with new technology, it's getting the balance right which is important, but definitely not easy.

My 8yr old GD has a tablet, but my son and his wife have put certain restrictions on it. She can watch YouTube, but only suitable stuff for children

Our GC are only allowed half an hour a day ‘device rime’ And not when they are with us unless they are doing homework. I’m glad I’m not a parent having to deal with this issue. My DD said she knows I would have been very strict

Neither of my 2 GC have been allowed to own any kind of electronic device until they were 11 and going to secondary school. They are allowed to use the family computer, which lives in the living room and can be supervised, and, on occasion, their parents smart phone.

DGD started secondary school this autumn. She now has a phone and a tablet. which she is just as instinctive in using as those in her peer group who have had these devices since they were at nursery. The tablet was supplied through the school and has all kinds of internet safety systems. She has neither phone nor tablet in her bedroom overnight. I know her parents have controls on her phone use as well.

DGS will have to wait until he goes to secondary school before he has a phone and/or tablet of his own.

I am in admiration of the approach of my DS and DDiL to this subject as in much else, I am not even tempted to add my pennyworth.

CatMum59 How did they do that? And can she browse any other sites except Youtube?

I don't think that using gadgets in small age sometimes is really such a big problem. In my opinion the main problem is with the parents who don't control their child's activities in general and screen time too. I mean that using sometimes tablets for example for playing educational games and watching cartoons are ok but when children spend with them all day, that's really bad and it's a great fault of their parents. Also I don't think that it's necessary to buy them separate gadgets till their teen years at all.
But anyway even in older age parental control is still necessary, especially in case of net surfing. We all know how many inappropriate content there are for them and parents should monitor and block it too. There are many helpful programs and apps for this purpose now too like keylogger www.refog.com/ , Qustodio, Social Shield, Family Shield, Kidlogger, NetNanny and so on, many of them can be used effectively on different gadgets.
And of course parents must teach their children how to use gadgets and net wisely and safe, and explain everything about possible web dangers usa.kaspersky.com/resource-center/threats/top-seven-dangers-children-face-online and risks.

At the moment my GS uses my iPad when he visits and we are aware of what he is doing on there. In fact we are often involved. I would be very concerned if he started to get secretive.
He is 8. Thank you mania for the information.

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It’s not for us to have, it’s for the parents.