Suitable UK chat site for 10 year old?

Jeff_Bridges_hair

rather then a chat room per se, does club penguin not have a forum for people to catch up on and such like. easier to monitor that rather then some IRC place which is always going to be dodgy.

Lots of good and well moderated football forums out there(but you may have to find one where people dont go off and swear in every post) so maybe one of them will do?

It's good that you want to know about these things and better you find a suitable medium for your child to discuss his topics - which you can monitor - through knowing their passwords to check their posts/replies/PMs then to just give the 'steer clear' advice, which whilst is great if geared towards IRC places but not so much good healthy forums.

knightstyle

I wonder if their school has a chat room type of site? Some have one connected with the after school club.

scotsbob

I feel sorry for you OP you asked for good chat rooms and all you got was a lot of pompous lectures and morals.

cootuk

I thought some of the sites like Club Penguin allowed 'safe' chat in parents selecting that they could only choose from a limited number of pre-vetted chat lines? Not particularly exciting or personal though.

http://www.clubpenguin.com/parents/club_penguin_guide.htm

Some sites also allow the parent to login to a higher account that shows who your child has talked with and who they befriend on the site.

The main thing here seems to be to teach your child that not everyone is who they claim to be.
I showed this to DD by setting up a fake account on one of her sites (with her knowledge) and showing that a 46yo guy could pretend to be 9yo for example. She didn't really understand why someone would want to do that though.

The other thing is not to let them use a webcam, or to give out personal details like real name, address etc or talk about 'private' things.

It's not like we didn't play doctors and nurses as kids, and I'm not advocating a puritanical ideology, but online is different unless you definitely know who the other person is.

cleggie

Does he like building stuff? Things like lego?
If so, my son uses Minecraft i think its called. He only adds his real friends from school on there as buddies to build areas with.

Pikeyp

Don't know if this helps at all .. but yesterday was 'Safer Internet Day 2012'!!

http://www.saferinternet.org/web/guest/safer-internet-day

WhiteHorse

square_bear wrote: »

We had our doubts and were very careful about what we allowed him to use, hence the question that I have posted.

Good for you !

It's very difficult to control and can be insidious. Goodness knows, there's enough nutters on MSE ...

StainlessUK

Cbbc and newfound have a general chat room...

heathcote123

bluesnake wrote: »

A good few years ago my friends son (13) took part in chat rooms that included video cameras with other kids as they played Quake?. One day on entering the room his son was playing against a 40+ year old, and at best wearing no shirt.

That guys IP was very quickly blocked.

Personally, like others, would generally keep children away from chat rooms

Wow banned from playing quake for being 40? that sucks!

snowqueen555

those chatrooms don't exist, and for good reason