Offline after nine
The aim of this initiative is to support our parents, during the week, in limiting their children’s access to the internet, gaming and social networking (at night time) when they should be resting, sleeping and preparing for a hard-working successful day at school the next day.
Over the years, many parents have expressed their real concerns about the 24/7 nature of their son or daughter’s online activities which has led to them:
- Accessing inappropriate content;
- Contacting people they do not personally know and communicating with them privately or secretly;
- Complaining of tiredness and/or lethargy;
- Being addicted or obsessed with gaming and social networking;
- Involving themselves in other young people’s lives and then getting upset by this;
- Taking part in various other risky behaviours (eg gambling, violent gameplay and trolling);
- Communicating with others in abusive, vulgar and offensive ways;
- Being responsible for and being a target of cyber-bullying;
- Being trolled or abused by ‘friends’ and strangers;
- Sharing inappropriate images of themselves (sexting);
- Developing poor relationships with their peers in the real world.
We are increasingly finding that many young people are troubled during school hours by things that have been shared online the night before (and at weekends and holidays), and this influences their ability to work effectively at school and to maintain good relationships with other people. It does have a real effect on their mental and physical health.
We want all of our young people to be ‘offline after nine’… especially on the night before a school day!
Please support our initiative by:
- Downloading and reading the 'Offline after nine' guide
- Talking to your child about appropriate and safe behaviour when online (see below for tips)
- Setting appropriate boundaries for the use of technology (including offline after nine)
- Sharing our initiative on social media e.g. #offlineafternine
How to deal with the following things that young people will say:
|
Reason given by young person to keep phone in bedroom |
Action |
|
But I need my smartphone to wake me up in the morning! |
Buy them an alarm clock… nice try! |
|
All my friends are allowed to have their phones in their rooms |
No they are not! We’re talking about YOUR health anyway |
|
I promise that I won’t use it after I’ve gone to bed. |
In that case there’s no point it being in your room. |
|
I can’t sleep so I need something to do… |
It’s the technology causing the sleep problems! |
|
It’s so unfair… |
No it’s not unfair… we let you have a phone so we set the boundaries |
