North East families urged to set up parental controls on new devices
Many people will have gifted their children an electronic for Christmas
A County Durham bullying support group's urging families to set up parental controls on new phones, tablets, consoles and other connected toys.
They say it'll help improve safety by limiting their exposure to inappropriate content.
Val McFarlane from the Bullying Intervention Group says using parental control is vital for children: "It helps to safeguard them against inappropriate content and against people being able to contact them online, but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't keep the lines of communication open between yourself and your child. You should always be able to talk to them about what it is that they're accessing online.
"This will help to improve your child's safety by limiting their exposure to inappropriate content. It will also help to manage their screen time and it'll also reduce the risk of cyber bullying, or even scams.
"Try and make your child feel confident to talk to you if they're scared about something that they've seen online. Make sure that they know what to do should that happen, make sure they understand that they need to speak to you immediately or another trusted adult.
"It's very important to set up parental controls on devices, on home wi-fi and on individual apps, as this will ensure that they're only accessing safe applications etc and this will filter the content that they can access.
"Parental controls can give you a peace of mind by helping your child filter inappropriate websites, inappropriate content such as adult material, not age-appropriate material, it'll also help with time management, and you can set daily limits for device use."