Sara Payne says parents should ‘snoop'
Parents are being told to wise up, put their foot down on internet safety and ‘snoop’ on what their children are doing online.
Government Victims’ Champion Sara Payne says mums and dads shouldn’t be sorry for taking an interest in their kids’ lives.
Smooth Radio’s exclusive Websafe internet safety survey reveals one in ten parents are failing to regularly check what their children are doing online.
Watch the video interview below
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Sara said: "This is a real concern for me. I understand why they don’t do it; it can become quite a battle to stand over your child’s shoulder while they’re on the internet. They’re quite secretive and they don’t want you to know what they’re doing.
"I use a monitoring system that monitors everything that my children do online and I can check anytime I need to. I have an agreement with my children, they know it’s there. I feel it’s the best thing I’ve ever invested in and means I can use it for all sorts of reasons.
"If my child is being particularly secretive or sullen, I might go there to find out what’s going on in their life that they won’t possibly tell me face to face. I can then perhaps strike up a conversation."
Sara is now calling for parents to install monitoring software on their children’s computers and is hitting out at those who believe it’s an invasion of their teenagers’ privacy.
She added: "You just tell them – yes, you can have the internet - but this will be on there and I will check at some point. But you tell them if they don’t stick to these rules, the internet goes. You’re the parent, they’re the child and they’re the rules – there’s nothing wrong with that.
"I’m not sorry or apologising for being involved in my children’s lives. They’re teenagers, and when I was a teenager I kept secrets - secrets that perhaps I shouldn’t have.
"For your children’s safety, you have to get involved. If you’re not very good with the internet or with computers, then you have to enforce a rule that you can go and look or that your child teaches you.
"My children are all on Facebook and I’m on Facebook. I am an added friend of theirs so I can see who their friends are and watch the information they give out."
