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Advice

Young people love mobile phones and the way they can talk to and text friends, and these days they can even surf the net from their phone. It’s great as a parent to know your children can ring you anytime. But there are some dangers for young people when they use mobiles, such as being sent inappropriate or indecent images, or talking to strangers outside your supervision. Young people may also put themselves at risk by giving out their mobile number on the internet to people that they don’t know or by posting it on a website for anyone to read.

There are also worrying reports of children being bullied by other children and receiving abusive text messages. As well as staying safe, children need to be taught how to use mobiles responsibly. Some young people end up having with massive phone bills because they signed up for ringtones on the internet and the cost goes onto their bill.

Spam or junk text messages are an increasing problem—it can sometimes be very tempting for young people to reply to the sort of text messages which tell them they've won something, and which gives out a premium-rate telephone number to ring—that’s a number beginning with 09.

We think that if you want your child to have a mobile phone it’s best to agree with them how you want the phone to be used. An early discussion about the use of popular paid-for services, like ringtones, screensavers or time spent on the internet, can avoid nasty surprises later.

It is also very important to encourage your children not to give out their mobile number, or anyone else’s, to strangers either online or in real life. This includes putting it on websites or in profiles they've created on popular sites like MySpace or MSN.

Childnet’s chatdanger.com website has a pretty comprehensive section on mobile phones, which contains stories and advice that you and your children can read or listen to together. The stories have been sent to us by people from all over the world and include advice about what to do if your child is being bullied by mobile phone.

In the Info Centre, we have also included a guide for parents about other aspects of safety for children and their mobiles, written by the mobile phone operator Orange. It’s well worth looking at.