For parents of 7- to 12-year-old children

Your child has reached a phase in life where his/her use of electronic media will increase significantly. As you are no doubt aware, it is important that you continue to take an interest in your child’s media use and discuss matters relating to it with him/her. Media education forms part of your child’s upbringing.

In particular, the internet is not a detached, virtual island, but part of children’s and adolescents’ everyday lives. Children and adolescents meet their friends, spend time and acquire information on their interests on the internet. Correspondingly, you probably feel the need to familiarise yourself with the internet services your child is using and be present whenever he/she needs guidance.

Internet

Familiarise yourself

• Together with your child, familiarise yourself with the services he or she likes and the opportunities provided by the internet. Let your child teach you too.
• The computer’s protective settings can be used for preventing access to undesired websites. A dedicated, appropriately restricted user profile can be created for every family member.
• Technical protective settings provide help but are no substitute for common rules and a parental presence.

Participate and discuss

• Place your computer in a communal family space. This will make discussing and supervising your child's web use natural. Reserve time for listening and discussions.
• Tell your child that there is inappropriate and illicit material on the internet. Encourage your child to tell you about any disturbing or worrying material he or she encounters on the web.
• Emphasise to your child that he or she has the right to refuse to do anything that feels suspicious or unpleasant in the slightest.

Set rules together

• Agree on rules for web use together with your child, while also teaching him or her, from an early age, to use common sense when browsing the web.
• Agree together with your child on how he or she might act towards other people online.
• Remind your child that his or her own or anyone else’s personal details or photographs should not be distributed to anyone online without your consent.
• Remind your child that he or she must always tell a trusted adult if he/she plans on meeting an online friend in the real world.
• Ensure that your child uses safe passwords and does not divulge them to anyone.
• Remind your child that bullying is not allowed online either. Encourage your child to tell you if he or she is subjected to bullying. Ponder together how best to intervene in cases of bullying.
• Agree together with your child which sites he or she may visit, and set clear time limits on web use.

Mobile phone

Familiarise yourself with and discuss the following

• Familiarise yourself with the phone and its use together.
• Save the numbers of important adults onto your child’s mobile phone. Learn how to call these numbers. Also, instruct your child in making an emergency call.
• Remind your child that a familiar adult must be immediately informed of any unpleasant messages and losing the phone.

Set rules together

• If necessary, set a price limit for your child’s mobile phone subscription. You can also set restrictions on the use of pay services.
• Tell your child that he or she is not yet old enough to make purchases by mobile phone without your consent.
• Consider whether your child really needs an internet connection or camera in his or her phone. Does your child understand the rules for taking photographs of other people and distributing them?
• Make an agreement that other people are not allowed to use the mobile phone.
• If you so desire, you can prevent your child’s phone number from being available from directory enquiry services.

Television, movies and games

Familiarise yourself with and discuss the following

• Watch television and play games together. Let your child show and teach you the things he or she knows.
• Take it upon yourself to be aware of what is being watched and played at your child's friends’ homes. If necessary, agree common rules with the parents of your child’s friends.
• Place your television in a communal space. This will ensure that your child can immediately turn to an adult if something he or she experiences or sees bothers him/her. Reserve time for listening and discussion.

Set rules together

• Agree on which programmes can be watched and which games played. Many adult-oriented programmes and games may be too frightening for school-age children. It is best to turn the TV off if it is not being watched.
• If necessary, set time limits and keep to them. Set aside some quiet time before bedtime.
• Follow the age limits for TV programmes, movies and games. Moreover, find out for yourself whether a programme, movie or game is suitable for your child. Also, tell your relatives which games and movies may be bought for an adolescent child.
• You can restrict the availability of a certain channel by setting a password for that channel on your digital set-top box.

Further information online

Information for parents on children and adolescents' web use - www.tietoturvakoulu.fi, www.mll.fi/viisaastiverkossa ja www.nettivihje.net
Age limits for movies - www.vet.fi
Children and mobile phones – http:// www.mapel.fi
The age limits and transmission times for TV programmes that may be disturbing to children http:// www.ficora.fi
Polite phone use in public places - www.alakailota.fi