DON’T GET PUSHED AROUND ONLINE

Parents trying to work from home and homeschooling will be very tempted right now to leave children unattended on devices. But it’s vital you don’t let the ball drop… and end up like me with a bill for an avatar’s new hot pants.

Not only do I need to have eyes in the back of my head to keep my daughter safe online, I also have to be some sort of tech wizard.

But if there’s one thing I can’t stress enough, you must know your children’s passwords, and be able to use your fingerprint or face ID to access all their devices.

With phones it’s especially difficult because once they have their own account – or Apple ID in the case of my daughter – security gets in the way of your access.

But refuse to pay the bills until you have complete access to all areas, and then check the phone every week.

I once discovered that Jesse had downloaded a free teenage chat app and was having a conversation with a girl who sounded more like a 47-year-old groomer called Steve. Needless to say, her phone was banned for a month and all apps removed.

The problem is my daughter now has a certain amount of control over her devices and she can still upload free apps without me knowing, so I have to go through her phone regularly and delete them.

Parents with younger children will find dad Resit Dogan’s advice useful – especially about push notifications on internet browsers.

He’s the co-founder of Mentalup (www. mentalup.co), the brain game app for children, and knows all about security, but even he discovered his nine-year-old daughter had started getting notifications about porn sites.

He explains, “Like many other kids, my daughter is doing more learning online so I had to go out and buy her first computer.

“We were in the dining room working and she was attending an online lesson, when her expression changed. Her browser had out of the blue sent her a notification for a porn site to visit and she did not know how to react.

“While we don’t want to police our children, it’s really important that we help achieve safe internet use. “We prioritised safety for Mentalup and created a way of offering games with suitable difficulty levels to improve cognitive skills, and parents can monitor their child’s progress.”

Google provides remote parenting control via its Family Link app for mobile devices. I use this for my daughter’s phone and limit her screen time and review what she does. She cannot install any app without my confirmation and she cannot install any 13+ apps (like Youtube) even if I did give permission.

You can add a parenting control extension to browsers such as Chrome and Firefox and you can limit the websites that your child can view.

And, as I learnt, you can prevent push notifications – I have since installed this extension after our issue. It’s easy for children to become addicted to the internet and games. That’s why we set a daily screen time limit and provide child-safe content with no advertising.

Explain that applications where you can communicate with others by voice or in writing are not suitable. Children know that they should not talk to people that they do not know in the street, explain that the internet is no different.

A last word from me – do not hesitate with older ones to remove their phone or device until better behaviour resumes.

I sometimes think it can even be a relief for them to have some time out from tech.