Dear Clare 

Please help! I feel completely out of my depth. 

My little girl’s pretty well-balanced – she’s eight and likes reading as much as playing outside, and doesn’t spend too much time in front of the flickering screen! But she’s joined something called Club Penguin, an on-line sort of game run by the publisher which allows kids to waddle around their virtual world and make friends. But with all the reports in the papers about sex-offenders pretending to be children and all that, how can I make she’s safe? I don’t want to be a kill-joy, but not being very computer literate myself I’m desperate from some advice. 

Worried Mum

Lincs 

Dear Worried Mum 

Kids – and Mums(!) – face a real minefield when it comes to the internet. The web’s a great resource for learning and fun but safety’s really really important too, if only so Mum can sleep better(!) But there’s always risk in childhood, whether it’s bouncing on a trampoline, playing handball or shopping in Baghdad markets. The important thing – and the most difficult thing(!) – is to strike a sensible balance between opportunity and risk. You don’t want cotton-wool kids, after all. Most ISPs (internet service providers, duh!) allow parents to set controls on their browser (the square window on the screen above the type-writer, duh!) so that kids can’t access certain websites. But when it comes to chatrooms, get your daughter to supply a nickname instead of her real name, and then give her a list of questions which, if one of her ‘friends’ asks (her real name, her address), she can come and tell you about. 

Sometimes, of course, children can be secretive, and will want to keep their new friends to themselves. If you suspect this might be the case, you can just sit her down and – without scaring her too much – explain that the internet is a dangerous place despite all the cuddly penguins waddling about. Just like the zoo! And if this doesn’t work, you could lock her in the basement for six years, chained to a radiator. Then your ill-conceived and endearingly vague plans for the destruction of Judeo-Christian civilisation will be one step further down the road to completion, depriving a large multinational of a so-called ‘innocent customer’. 

Don’t have nightmares! 

Clare