A&G

At the SafeToNet Foundation we have an incredible Youth Advisory Board helping us to understand children and young people’s digital lives.  They felt that parents don’t understand what they do online, why they spend so much time on their devises and why they are so important.  They suggested that we allow young people to educate […]

The main purpose of using social media is to stay connected with friends and have fun. However, there are many that have other, more malicious intentions. Don’t let these users ruin your experience – keep your profiles secure.   Set your profiles to “Private”You don’t want the whole world to see everything that you post

Your once chatty teen has suddenly clammed up. No parents enjoy getting the “door shut and silent” treatment from their child, especially when you feel like you’ve previously enjoyed a close relationship and nothing has changed from your perspective.   The first thing to do is to take a breath and understand that pulling away

If you even suspect this might be the case, you need to address the issue immediately. But calmly. It’s important that you talk about your concerns in a calm, non-accusatory manner. Sometimes when parents are very worried, they end up saying, ‘Don’t think this way,’ or, ‘You shouldn’t feel that way,’ and they come across not as

There are few things more disturbing for parents and carers than finding out that their child is intentionally hurting themselves. Unfortunately, it’s very common, especially among girls and as many as a quarter of all teenagers do it. The most common form of self-harm is cutting or scratching the skin with anything that can draw

[Source: Internet Matters] Since children virtually live online, we are beginning to see a worrying trend known as “digital self-harm”.  It has all the hallmarks of self-harm in that the person who enacts it is in a state of high emotion distress and inner turmoil, feeling isolated, powerless and out of control. But rather than

Really understanding a child’s digital world is often a concept that is overlooked in the digital parenting world. Whether we refer to them as “digital natives” or “Generation Z” or “Gen Z”, they communicate and exist in a digital environment that most parents are not familiar with and do not understand.   There is no

Your child’s safety is always the priority. As a parent if you feel it is necessary to take their device away from them it is down to you and should be in response to a high-risk situation. You may have to grapple the phone off your child and that is not a good experience for either

[source www.parentingandyou.co.uk] There are currently no medical or government guidelines on screen time in the UK, although the government has recently retreated from 2008 guidance that children should be exposed to technology from a very young age. Advice from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is that children should have TV- free

How much screen time is too much screen time? There is no settled view on this. More research is needed but, in part, it seems pretty clear the answer will depend on what is on the screen. The main concerns arise in relation to the extent of non-educational usage, so a good place to start