Like many parents reading this now, I'm a busy mum trying to do the best for my children who I love more than anything.
I have a boy aged 13 and a girl who is nearly 11. Along with all the usual ups and downs of parenthood, I am now trying to navigate my children's lives with devices: gaming, tablets, laptops, phones – the tech is everywhere and is now part of our lives whether we like it or not.
New research commissioned by Samsung for Safer Internet Day shows that 91% of 11-year-olds now own a mobile, but 35% of parents believe their children know more about technology than them and 17% are worryingly unaware of how to set up parental controls on smartphones.
The really shocking stat is that Google searches for 'how to set up safety features' have peaked by over 5,000% in the last three months.
It's clear that parents want help on how to deal with this new online era.
Monitoring and protecting our kids' online lives is worrying and exhausting; we're the first generation of parents trying to figure this out and we don't even know if we're doing a good job. There is no manual.
How long should my child watch YouTube for? Are they gaming too much? Is messaging friends in a WhatsApp group a good or bad idea? There are so many questions and every household sets its own rules.
© GettyParents face the grand battle between wanting to give their child a little freedom and allowing them to fit in with their friends (come secondary school they pretty much all have a phone and are on the apps) and feeling concerned about permitting access to what is essentially a digital world of strangers.
Online grooming, watching pornography and the mental health effects of social media use are just some of parents' fears.
In the UK, the Online Safety Bill has now passed as law, which is an immense step forward, meaning our children will soon be better protected from online dangers – age verification will soon come into force and harmful content will need to be removed or tech platforms will incur a huge fine. The US is in the process of debating similar legislation.
© NetflixThis week, Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle have brought the issue of children's online safety to the world stage once again, releasing a statement in response to a landmark U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.
Parents whose children have been affected by, or in tragic cases died due to online harm, gathered together to hear discussions on child safety on the internet.
During the hearing, Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg apologised to parents present after revelations about the number of young females exposed to nudity on his apps.
"It's terrible. No one should have to go through the things that your families have suffered," he told them. "And this is why we invest so much and are going to continue doing industry-leading efforts to make sure that no one has to go through the things your families have had to suffer."
© GettyHarry and Meghan wrote on their Archewell Foundation website: "We applaud the bravery and determination of the thousands of parents around the country whose advocacy resulted in this hearing.
"Over the past few years, we have spent time with many of these families, listening to their heartache and their hopes for the urgent change that is needed in the online space.
"This is an issue that transcends division and party lines, as we saw today at the Senate hearing. The best parenting in the world cannot keep children safe from these platforms. As one of the fathers shared with us: ‘If love could have saved them, all of our children would still be here.’
"This is not the time to pass the buck of responsibility. It’s the time to make necessary change at the source to keep our children safe."
It's heartbreaking hearing the stories of parents who have lost children to online dangers. It shouldn't happen.
Just like us, Harry and Meghan are fearful for their own children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, going online when they are older.
The Duchess previously said: "I feel fortunate that our children are at an age, again quite young, so this isn't in our immediate future, but I also feel frightened by how it's continuing to change and this will be in front of us."
I for one am grateful that the royal couple have used their platform to draw attention to the problems parents are facing with the online world. The more high-profile names who speak up on this, the better.
© Mike CoppolaHere at HELLO! we are passionate about informing parents about online safety and realise the need for more awareness and education on the subject. Yes, the Online Safety Bill is becoming law and will certainly help keep our children safer, but online dangers will still exist.
Potential end-to-end encryption on social media messaging is a big issue right now – how will I know if my child is talking to a groomer if their messages can't be checked or intercepted? I get the privacy argument, but what about the safety of our precious kids?
We do all we can to monitor our teen and tween's devices: regular 'spot-checks' on their messages and search history without warning, our youngest has no social media, we have downtime and app restrictions set up, no phones at the dinner table (that's all of us) or in bedrooms overnight, location tracking is turned off and message settings are on 'only friends'.
We are trying our best… but it's still scary.
© mikkelwilliamSome people will say, 'Just don't give them a phone', but will that help? It's how young people communicate and relate to each other now, and how parents keep in touch with their secondary school kids. By banishing it altogether, will they feel out of touch with their peers? Will that cause other problems?
Our generation forgets that in our childhood we had landlines to call our friends for a chat. Practically no one has a landline anymore, so how do young people connect with their friends without a mobile phone? The world has moved on and us parents are trying to keep up.
The main thing is to keep talking about online safety, learn about the apps as best we can and keep that open conversation going with our children – so if they do have a problem, they feel comfortable talking to us.
However, as Harry and Meghan say, safeguarding our children online shouldn't just be up to us parents; it's also the responsibility of the tech platforms, who we hope will swiftly enforce the Online Safety Bill's new regulations. There are further areas to look at such as social media apps being safer by design, the algorithm settings, and as mentioned, whether messages are encrypted.
I recently spoke to MP Michelle Donelan, the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, who told me that the Online Safety Bill is "a massive leap forward in terms of where we're coming from and where we're going."
She added: "But this bill doesn't do everything that everybody would ever want when it comes to the Internet or app design, and there will be future bills in this space."
