The Screen Time Diet: Helping your teen to find the balance with tech has useful tips and advice on healthy gadget use, showcases alternative tech for creativity and learning, and encourages teens to have more balance when it comes to technology. 

Childnet offers a toolkit to support parents and carers of children of any age to start discussions about their online life, and to find out where to get more help and support.

Commonsensemedia provides independent reviews, age ratings, & other information about all types of media for children and their parents.

Government advice about protecting children from specific online harms such as child sexual abuse, sexting, and cyberbullying

Internet Matters provides age-specific online safety checklists, guides on how to set parental controls, and practical tips to help children get the most out of their digital world.

How Can I Help My Child? Marie Collins Foundation – Sexual Abuse Online

Lets talk about it provides advice for parents and carers to keep children safe from online radicalisation

London Grid for Learning provides support for parents and carers to keep their children safe online, including tips to keep primary aged children safe online.

Stopitnow from The Lucy Faithfull Foundation can be used by parents and carers who are concerned about someone’s behaviour, including children who may be displaying concerning sexual behaviour (not just about online)

National Crime Agency/CEOP Thinkuknow provides support for parents and carers to keep their children safe online.

Parentzone provides help for parents and carers on how to keep their children safe online.

Talking to your child about online sexual harassment: A guide for parents – This is the Children’s Commissioner’s parental guide on talking to their children about online sexual harassment

#Ask the awkward – Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre guidance for parents to talk to their children about online relationships

Net Aware is a guide from the NSPCC to apps, games and social media sites.

A guide to different apps and games and how to ensure your child is using them safely.

Oyoty 

Oyoty is an app that will run on your child's device and act as a personal e-safety assistant to help keep them safe online. 

What is Oyoty?

Oyoty is an intelligent robot spotting risky behaviour of your children on social networks. It detects issues that could potentially impact their reputation and safety. Once Oyoty spots such issues, it promptly alerts the child on their smartphone, explaining the nature of the risk, and guiding them to fix the issue. Alternatively, the child may question why a content has been spotted, by marking it for discussion with the parent.

Every week, the parent gets a report, showing the progress made by the child in addressing issues and learning how to be safe. In addition to spotting risks, Oyoty provides preventive advice in the form of videos (and, later, quizzes) that are educational yet fun to watch.

For further information and to download the app, visit www.oyoty.com

Fortnite: Battle Royale

A rapidly increasing number of children are playing the game ‘Fortnite’, making its Battle Royale mode “the most played online game in the world.” As with all online gaming, there are a number of risks that need to be considered in order to ensure children and young people are effectively protected. National Online Safety provides regularly updated resources for the whole school community according to the latest trends and has therefore created a guide to educate school staff and parents about Fortnite: Battle Royale. The guide explains what the game is all about and some online safety issues to consider, with the aim of protecting children whilst playing the game.
Click here to read the guide>>

TikTok

TikTok is a video-sharing social media app which lets people create, view and download looping 15-second clips. Typically, these are videos of users lip-syncing and dancing to popular songs or soundbites (often for comic purposes), enhanced with filters, effects and text.

Designed with young people in mind, TikTok skyrocketed in popularity in 2019 and has featured near the top of download charts ever since. It now has around 1 billion active users worldwide.

In the guide below, you'll find tips on a number of potential risks such as age-inappropriate content and in-app spending.

What parents need to know about TikTok

Snapchat and Location Sharing

Snapchat has recently added location sharing to the app.  This gives pinpoint locations of users when switched on, with obvious implications for safety.   We strongly recommend that parents and students take the time to look at how their location is shared on Snapchat and other apps (e.g. Facebook).

Please see this blogpost for more details about controlling who can see your location settings in snapchat.

http://www.childnet.com/blog/introducing-snap-maps-the-new-location-sharing-feature-in-snapchat?utm_content=buffere2c35&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

We are aware that there are groups of people using social media groups to encourage dangerous behaviour in children (sometimes described as ‘Blue Whale’).

Omegle

Omegle is a website that pairs random strangers for live text or video chat. The guide below from National Online Safety gives more information about this site and safety tips for parents: 

What parents need to know about Omegle

 

Live Streaming

Sayat.me app is designed to allow users to invite anonymous comments, while it does not allow two-way contact, it is open to direct bullying, but only has a PG rating.

Live-streaming platforms such as Live.me,  Live.ly, Periscope, Facebook Live and Musical.ly are particularly open to abuse as there is no easy way to control or remove anything that has been streamed.

See https://www.childnet.com/young-people/secondary/livestreaming for more information.

Hotel Hideaway

Hotel Hideaway is advertised as a game full of opportunities to meet new people and make new friends. However, this is a free 3D virtual world app where users can create their own avatar and hotel room and chat with others worldwide in public or private chat rooms. Users should be 17+ but the use of cartoon avatars makes this appealing to younger audiences. The chat function puts young children at risk of being exposed to mature language and grooming behaviour.

Please be mindful of this new online game and help safeguard your child if you believe they may be accessing it.

Parent Guide for Child Internet Safety

https://www.vpnmentor.com/blog/the-ultimate-parent-guide-for-child-internet/

Age Ratings

All Apps that allow social interaction have the potential for abuse.   There is a minimum age requirement in the sign-up agreements, and it is important that parents are aware of this, as it indicates the level of protection offered. Typically, if the minimum age is 18, there are no protections offered by the service to prevent inappropriate communication, and no parental controls.  Apps with a minimum age of 13 generally have some way of reporting and or blocking inappropriate content, along with some parental controls.

Platform	Minimum age to sign up
Live.Me	No PEGI rating yet, recommended for 17+ only
Live.Ly	12
Sayat me	13
Facebook	13
Instagram	13
Pinterest	13
Snapchat	13
WhatsApp	16
YouTube	18 (13 – 17 with parental permission)
Musical.ly	18
Loovoo	18
SimiSimi	18
TikTok	12+

All Apps have a PEGI rating.  This is equivalent to the age rating of a film, set at 12, 16 and 18.  It is illegal to sell rated items to children below the age rating in the UK.

See https://www.net-aware.org.uk/networks/?order=-popularity for more information about apps that are most commonly used by teenagers.

Click here for more information about apps that are most commonly used by teenagers.