a charming, educational e-safety story for children aged 3-7 - into a fun, interactive tablet app. It's free to download and enjoy with your child.

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 Smosh, Good Mythical Morning, PewDiePie -- the names may not mean much to you, but chances are your kids are on a first-name basis. Their funny hosts, off-the-cuff commentary, silly antics, and bewildering (to adults) subject matter put them among the most popular YouTube channels for young teens, garnering millions (and, in the case ofgame commentary PewDiePie, billions) of views. In fact, according to a recent survey of U.S. teens by Variety, the top five most influential celebrities are YouTube stars. But information about these personalities' shows -- the content, quality, and age-appropriateness, for example -- isn't easy for parents to find.

Read more.

 The Guardian writer Stuart Dredge writes; 'There's a whole industry of internet safety and security experts, many of whom have children of their own, and have to face the same task of rearing safe, responsible internet citizens.

The advice that these people are giving their own kids should be top-drawer, so what is it? I put a call out, and was overwhelmed by responses. Here are edited versions of 21 of the most useful.'

Read the article

A helpful guide to setting parental controls on common platforms here.

Structure of this report

Following the Executive Summary in section 1 the report has a two-part structure as follows:

Part 1 The Context of the Internet

Section 2 - Opportunities, risks and challenges

Takes an overview of children's access to the open internet as an educational resource, as a platform for communication and creativity, but also as a source of distinct risks around content, contact and conduct, with specific regulatory challenges.

Section 3 - Parental mediation: managing the risks to children

Describes the tactics of parents, carers and educators in guiding and informing children's behaviour through education and advice, mediation and rules as critical aspects of child protection online.

Section 4 - Safety mechanisms and the role of industry

Describes in detail many of the tools and mechanisms offered to parents to protect their children online and notes some of the issues around such tools. It does so within a simplified model of the internet from content origination to content reception by the user and gives an overview of the status of internet intermediaries like ISPs.

Part 2 The Research

Section 5 - Children and the internet: use and concerns

Sets the context for mediation by looking at key changes in children's use of the internet, their likes and dislikes compared to the online concerns of parents.

Section 6 - Parental mediation strategies: take -up, awareness of and confidence of parents in relation to parental controls

Provides both quantitative figures and qualitative insights to create an in-depth picture of the broad range of online mediation strategies employed by parents and their levels of confidence about their ability to keep their children safe online.

Section 7 - Safety measures on sites regularly visited by children

Looks at the research available regarding parental mediation of websites regularly visited by children, including search engines, YouTube and social networking sites.

Section 8 - Why parents choose not to apply parental control tools

Looks at the various reasons why some parents choose not to install parental controls.

The full document is available here

Thinking about buying your child a new smartphone, tablet, gaming system, or laptop this holiday season? Here are some downloadable cards to include with their gift.

Just CLICK on the card for the gadget you are buying, PRINT it out, and WRITE your house rules in the spaces provided