Digital Kids

Mariella Frostrup returns with a new series of the programme that explores the complex realities of parenting in today's Britain.

In the first programme of the new series, she is joined by a panel of experts and commentators to discuss raising 'digital kids'. Can tablet games really help nurture or educate the under-fives? Should older primary school-age children engage with age-appropriate social networking sites as a form of 'training' - or should they be protected from the online world, however safely controlled, until much later?

And Mariella and her guests will explore how parents can help equip teenage children to negotiate the wilds of the internet, from cyberbullying to 'sexting'.

So, Mariella asks, to what extent has the digital world simply sharpened problems that have always faced parents - and how far has it wrought a radical change in the nature of teenage life, and what parents need to know and do to help their children through it?

With Professor Tanya Byron, Professor Lydia Plowman, Julie Johnson, Helen King (Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre) and Professor Sonia Livingstone.

Producer: Phil Tinline.