Starting Conversations
Talking about online life with your child.
The most effective safeguarding tool is a regular, calm conversation. Children are far more likely to come to you about something difficult if they already feel heard about the small things.
A few practical openers that work better than “what did you do online today?”:
- “What’s the funniest thing you saw this week?”
- “Has anyone been weird in any of your group chats?”
- “If something happened online that scared you, would you know who to tell?”
Tip: aim for short conversations often, rather than a big one-off chat. Tone matters more than topics — calm, curious, never angry at the device.
Screen Time
How much is too much?
There’s no magic number. What matters is the quality of the time and what it’s displacing — sleep, exercise, real-world friendships, family time.
Signs to watch for:
- Mood worsens after using a particular app
- Reluctance to do anything else, even things they used to love
- Sleep disruption — phones in bedrooms is the biggest culprit
- Withdrawing from family conversations
Cyberbullying
If your child is being cyberbullied.
Cyberbullying can feel inescapable to a child because the phone goes everywhere with them. The first response is the most important: don’t take the phone away as punishment — they need to know that telling you didn’t make things worse.
Practical steps:
- Screenshot everything before responding or blocking
- Block the person — don’t reply
- Report to the platform AND to school if it involves another pupil
- Reassure your child this isn’t their fault
Tell us: if cyberbullying involves another Insights pupil, please contact our DSL Zoe Poullos directly. We treat online incidents the same as in-person ones.
Privacy & Settings
The settings that actually matter.
You don’t need to know every app your child uses — but the following privacy defaults should be checked on whichever they do use:
- Account set to private (not public)
- Direct messages restricted to friends only
- Location sharing turned off
- Tagging in posts requires approval
- Comments on posts limited to followers
Reporting
If something has already happened.
If your child has shared something they shouldn’t have, met someone in person who they only knew online, or received content that’s worried them — act quickly but calmly.
- Report to the police via 101 for non-emergency, 999 if there’s immediate risk
- Report to CEOP (Child Exploitation and Online Protection) at ceop.police.uk
- Contact our DSL — we can support you through the next steps
- Save any evidence before deleting or blocking
