One in five children see something online they 'wouldn’t want their parents to know about'

'Our main concern is around unsupervised access — in places like bedrooms, with doors shut. This can leave them vulnerable.'

Over one in five children aged 8-12 have seen something online in the last year that they “wouldn’t want their parents to know about”.

A survey of 1,600 children in that age group found that half of children accepted they “spend too much time online” and just under a third say they can “go online whenever they want”.

Just 3% of children were “never allowed to go online”.

The figures come as a new campaign has been launched by CyberSafeKids and the National Parents Council called ‘Same Rules Apply’.

Coinciding with Safer Internet Day, the campaign is aimed at telling parents that they should approach their children’s online life the same way they approach parenting them offline.

Unsupervised access

CyberSafeKids chief executive Alex Cooney said: “Our main concern is around unsupervised access — in places like bedrooms, with doors shut. This can leave them vulnerable to stumbling across highly inappropriate content or being contacted by strangers — in a place that should be safe and protected.

“Worryingly, only 18% of the 8-12-year-olds surveyed said they weren't allowed devices in their bedroom.” 

Elsewhere in the survey, it found that 43% of children said they were “not allowed to chat or game with strangers”. 

Over half (56%) said they were not allowed to add friends they didn’t know while 29% said they were only allowed online at certain times.

A higher percentage of boys (24%) had no rules in place when they went online compared to girls (14%).

Furthermore, a quarter said they find it hard to switch off from games and apps and 22% said they waste a lot of time online.

Parental care

National Parents Council chief executive Áine Lynch said she hopes the campaign makes parents stop and think about how they parent their children in the digital world, which she highlighted “can feel overwhelming and sometimes scary”.

“We also hope that parents see that by looking for parallels and comparisons between the online world and the offline world that they already have rules in place and parenting skills that they can apply,” she said.

“However, parents should reassure themselves that by working on having a good open relationship with their children and by ensuring that they listen to their children when they talk about the big things and the small things, they are doing the most important thing to keep their children safe.” 

The CyberSafeKids charity said it is also asking for a “fundamental change” to support children online, which should not fall on parents alone.

It also insisted that gaming and social media platforms take their responsibilities regarding child users “far more seriously”, with legal frameworks to mandate this.

Dr Colman Noctor, a child and adolescent psychoanalytical psychotherapist, added: “The irony of today's world is that our physical communities have never been smaller and our virtual communities have never been bigger.

“We feel anxious about our 13-year-olds using public transport but we feel ok about giving them an unregulated portal to the outside world. We need to pay more attention to our children’s online world and teach them how to navigate the online world safely.”