Keep your children safe online

You can run, but you can’t hide from the digital age.

That’s the verdict of an author who has written a book to help ‘digital immigrant’ parents understand the technology in their children’s lives.

Dr Jodi Gold, a child and adolescent psychiatrist has released Screen Smart Parenting to help mums and dads learn about their offspring’s digital world.

She explained: It is here to stay, so I wanted to develop a more fearless approach where we embrace it and control it so we are not controlled by it."

Dr Gold, a mother-of-three, stresses that all decisions about digital issues need to be age-appropriate and related to what parents already know about their children and their family culture.

In other words, parents need to rely as much as possible on their own instincts.

One obvious aid to navigating the minefield that is the internet is parental controls which stop children accessing inappropriate web content.

Dr Gold said: "They do work for some families and they may be necessary if your children are truly misbehaving online, but I believe we should allow our kids to make small mistakes online. They can't build resilience or learn to navigate the world if we restrict their access.”

Dr Gold believes that most teenagers can get around parental controls with one or two clicks, and encourages transparency instead.

"I recommend being clear with your kids about which sites are appropriate and forget about the filters and spyware," she advises.

But Gold doesn’t advocate giving children a list of approved sites before leaving them to it. Families, she says, should have rules around technology and parents should follow their children online - joining the same social media sites.

The book also discusses the thorny issue of removing devices as a form of punishment and the time youngsters should spend in front of a screen.

The answer to that, she says, depends on what the technology is being used for.

"Digital technology is likely to be detrimental if your child is using it to avoid real-life interactions, or if it's truly interfering with sleep, school and family life. It's detrimental if your child feels bad when they're online.

"But one size doesn't fit all. As a parent, your job is to help your child use technology to enhance their lives and not harm it."

Screen-Smart Parenting by Dr Jodi Gold is published by Guilford Press, priced £9.99.