Thanks for the link dodge....not scary to me at all, very real and stuff that we have already discussed with both our kids. Their school has had some people come in very recently talking about tween and teen safety online and with cellphone use. Also, coming from the UK, when I was growing up there was a huge issue and presence of paedophilia and child kidnappings so I generally seem the strictest on these kinds of subjects with friends who also have kids. I was followed by someone when I did my paper round at age 10, and kids were being snatched out of their front gardens all the time. I really couldn't care less if they agree with me or not. I grew up in a very different world than they did even though we are the same age.

My daughter has had an ipad for over a year and so we are familiar with turning the location services off and have some master settings set on it which restrict viewing pages with adult content, apps are age restricted and social media sites are blocked. My son plays online games which are geared towards an older audience (He is totally into D&D and similar and there is a genre of these games for tweens with less violence but they still attract adults) so I heavily research the games content prior to downloading and there is typically always an option to turn chat off and both kids know that they are never to respond to an email, text or call from anyone they do not know first hand. Skype and facetime always have people trying to add you to their contacts and they have also been subjected to inappropriate text messages from strange numbers. No pictures thankfully but some pretty shocking messages so they have gotten over the initial exposure from being in the dark that this kind of thing actually goes on. Also last fall there was a major issue with the education website called "glogster" that schools use for kids to make educational blogs. Upon signing in or even sometimes just typing the web address in there would be a pop up for "adult friend finder" Anyone who has ever come across this pop up will know it is not a dating website but more a site for "encounters" so there is graphic nudity even on this page that pops up. This was of course dealt with but I am more accepting of the fact that some things I can not control so I make a point of keeping my kids well informed. I don't want to scare them but at the same time make them aware of the real dangers and threat that the internet is to kids. Paedophilia and online predators has been covered recently at school with the kids so talking to them at home was a very natural extension of the schools teaching. I always ask them to tell me what was spoken about and how it makes them feel. It gives me a better understanding of their feelings surrounding the subject and to some extent their level of understanding on the topic. It's not a nice thing to have to talk about but an important one that should not be blown up to scare them, but discussed in realistic appropriate terms.

I am really neurotic about online pictures. I have instagram but I am private so people must request me as a contact before being able to see any of my pics. I will only add friends too not just acquaintances. This was a huge issue I had with FB. Seriously out of your 1000 fb friends, how many of them do you ACTUALLY REALLY KNOW?!?

I would be happy for now just getting her a cell phone that isn't a smart phone. I do know that she takes her itouch to school and uses it for a calculator and for a translator on a daily basis (French Immersion) I just need to spend the next couple of months really weighing up my options and having a good think about it. I think I'd be fine also with just turning off the data altogether and so she can only use it on wifi at school which is already restricted and at home. When we go out for the day as a family she doesn't need to be surfing and texting and calling during family time will be some of the rules we address with her.