Show me three things

The activity

Once a week your child shows you three things: the funniest they have seen, the weirdest, and one they think you should see. You watch without comment.

What it is for. In our experience, what is on your child’s screen matters more than how long they spend on it. A weekly look, on their terms, lets you be curious without checking up on them, and makes you someone they might tell if something goes wrong.

• The first step. Ask once, casually: “On Sundays, show me three things: the funniest thing you’ve seen this week, the weirdest, and one you think I should see.”
• Watch each one to the end without comment: no verdict, no warning, no joke at its expense. Then thank your child for showing you. If one is a sexual image of anyone under eighteen, stop watching straight away, and see when to get help, below.
• If something worries you, try not to let it show. Most worries about content can wait until another day, when you can raise them in passing. A sexual image of anyone under eighteen, sexual or violent content your child is too young for, anything about self-harm or suicide, and anything suggesting that someone is contacting or hurting them cannot; talk to your child calmly that evening.

Safety. Most social media services are for thirteen and over. Every phone charges outside the bedrooms overnight, the adults’ included.

When to get help. If you learn of an adult contacting your child, anyone asking them for pictures or personal details, or 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 what your child is shown keeps turning to bodies, food or self-harm, or their mood or eating changes, talk to their school and your GP. If your child has hurt themselves, or talks about not wanting to be alive, stay calm, thank them if they have told you, don’t promise to keep it secret, and act that day: help them ask the surgery for an urgent appointment, and if it is closed, use the routes under “If you need help right now”, at the foot of every page. If your child tells you that someone is hurting them, stay calm, thank them for telling you, don’t promise to keep it secret, and act that day, using those routes; if the person hurting your child lives in your home or your child’s other home, go straight to children’s social care or the police. If your child is badly hurt, or may have taken too much of a medicine, get medical help straight away, even if they seem well.

The other step, 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

• Your Child’s Online World. For parents who have seen something on their child’s phone that they can’t unsee.
• 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

• Social media. 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.