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For our academic publications on parenting in the digital age, check the “Publications” tab on this blog. For full text versions and citation details, visit our project website here and navigate to “Outputs”.

For anyone – parents, teachers, children or others – looking for free and accessible guidance, advice and resources regarding children’s empowered and safe use of the internet, we have compiled a short list of recommended sites, listed in alphabetical order below.

Childnet

A charity that works directly with children and young people from the ages of 3 to 18 on a weekly basis, as well as parents, carers, teachers and professionals, finding out about their real experiences online, and the positive things they are doing as well as sharing safety advice. Their website has free advice and educational resources about the safe and positive use of technology, and they offer a range of programmes that empower young people to take the lead in creating a better internet.

Common Sense Media

This organisation aims to help families make smart media choices. It offers a library of independent age-based and educational ratings and reviews for movies, games, apps, TV shows, websites, books, and music. Its Parent Concerns site and Parent Blog is designed to help parents understand and navigate the problems and possibilities of raising children in the digital age.

ConnectSafely

A U.S.-based non-profit organisation dedicated to educating users of connected technology about safety, privacy and security. ConnectSafely provides research-based safety tips, parents’ guidebooks, advice, news and commentary on all aspects of tech use and policy.

Good Digital Parenting

A service run by the Family Online Safety Institute which provides advice, tips and tools aimed at empowering parents to confidently navigate the online world with their children. Parents are able to find how-to-guides, tip sheets, videos and blogs, and filter by children’s age range, category and type of medium to find resources relevant to their family context.

Insafe

This is a network of 31 national Safer Internet Centres in Europe and beyond, co-funded by the European Commission’s Better Internet for Kids Programme. Its website provides resources for parents, teachers, children and professionals, as part of the network’s role in supporting awareness-raising, helplines and hotlines internationally.

Internet Matters

An independent, not-for-profit organisation to help parents keep their children of all ages safe online. It offers parents advice and resources on a wide range of online risks, and provides detailed guidance on how to install parental controls and safety software for different devices and services.

NSPCC

The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children now has a section on online safety with guidance for parents and others. ChildLine is the national helpline for children facing a range of difficulties including online. Their Net Aware project developed a guide for parents to the social networks that kids use.

ParentPort

Run by the UK’s media regulators, this site guides parents towards the appropriate media regulator to find out about the standards expected from the media, gain further information, make a complaint or share their views with the organisation.

The Parent Zone 

An organisation that provides information, help, advice, support and resources to parents, teachers, health professionals, police officers, e-safety officers and professionals. It produces a free online magazine with guidance for parents.

Parent Info

A source of expert information to help children and young people stay safe online, which schools can adapt, add to and host on their own website; it is co-produced by CEOP and The Parent Zone.

Thinkuknow

Thinkuknow, the National Crime Agency’s, CEOP Command’s education programme, offers information on popular websites, mobiles and new technology, helping children of all ages, parents and carers as well as teachers and professional find out about what’s good, what’s not and what they can do about it.

UKCCIS

The UK Council for Child Internet Safety is a government-led group of more than 200 organisations drawn from across government, industry, law, academia and charity sectors that work in partnership to help keep children safe online. It provides a document on child safety online, which is a practical guide for parents and carers whose children are using social media. It helps parents and carers understand why children use social media and provides practical tips to minimise the risks children may face online.

UK Safer Internet Centre

The UK Safer Internet Centre is part of the Insafe network and coordinated by a partnership of three leading charities: Childnet International, the South West Grid for Learning and the Internet Watch Foundation. It coordinates Safer Internet Day in the UK, and integrates an awareness centre, a helpline for teachers and professionals, and a hotline for reporting illegal content online.

Zero to Three

Zero to Three developed the free guide Screen Sense, written in partnership with leading researchers in the field of media and young children. It is a review of what is known about the effect of screen media on young children’s learning and development.

Many more organisations contributing to the wider goal of children’s empowered and safe internet use are identified in this map of stakeholders. In the UK, such organisations are generally members of the Government-led UK Council for Child Internet Safety.