Play their game with them

The activity

Your child picks a game they play and teaches you how it works. You play beside them as a beginner, and find out what the game involves, including who they 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 your child shows them you’re interested in something they care about, and it teaches you what the game involves: who they can talk to in it, what it costs and how they would block someone.

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

When to get help. If you learn that someone in a game has asked your child for pictures or personal details, asked to meet them or asked them to move to another app, or that there is a sexual image of a child, stay calm, do not blame your child, and leave everything as it is (do not reply, 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 your child tells you that someone is hurting them, that they are hurting themselves, or that they do not want to be alive, stay calm, thank them 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, your child has dropped things they used to enjoy, or they only see their friends online, talk to your child’s school and your GP.

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

The sheet that goes with it comes with a subscription: Their online world.

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.