Play her game with her

The activity

She picks a game she plays and teaches you how it works. You play beside her as a beginner, and find out what the game involves, including who she can talk to in it.

What it is for. For many children, games are where they relax and where they spend time with their friends. Playing one with her shows her you’re interested in something she cares about, and it teaches you what the game involves: who she can talk to in it, what it costs and how she would block someone.

• The first step. Ask her to choose the game and teach you: “Will you show me how to play this? I’ll probably be hopeless.” Let her pick a time that suits her, and not one that cuts into playing with her friends.

Safety. Check the age rating, and what the game lets players do: chat, voice and buying things. Use the console’s or the game’s settings to limit who can talk to her, and so that nothing can be bought without you. Don’t store a payment card on the console or in the app. Screens off about an hour before bed, and the console stays out of her bedroom overnight.

When to get help. If you learn that someone in a game has asked her for pictures or personal details, asked to meet her or asked her to move to another app, or that there is a sexual image of a child, stay calm, do not blame her, and leave everything as it is (do not look further, copy, forward or delete). Act that day, using the routes under “If you need help right now”, at the foot of every page, and tell the school’s designated safeguarding lead. If she tells you that someone is hurting her, that she is hurting herself, or that she does not want to be alive, stay calm, thank her for telling you, do not promise to keep it secret, and act that day in the same way. If for several weeks gaming has come before sleep, meals and washing, she has dropped things she used to enjoy, or she only sees her friends online, talk to her school and your GP.

The other four steps, and your part in it, are in the library.

It goes with

• Screen Time. For parents who have lost the argument about screen hours, and suspect it was never quite the right argument to have.
• What Screen Time Actually Is. For parents who feel they have lost the argument about screens.

The first chapter you open here is free to read in full.

Free on this subject

• Gaming. What to do first, what helps, and who else can help. Free to read and to print.
• Online safety. What to do first, what helps, and who else can help. Free to read and to print.