THIS week, our NSPCC columnist Debra Radford, assistant director for Yorkshire, Humber & the North East, talks about children's online presence.

The summer holidays are here and with children spending more time in their online world to stay connected with school friends and entertained, I would like to offer some specific online safety advice to parents and carers. Advice around a question that many parents ask us when it comes to their child’s online wellbeing: “Should I let my child set up a YouTube account?”

Since its creation in 2005, YouTube has gone from strength to strength and it is the second most visited website worldwide. With over 500 hours of content uploaded every minute and more than a billion hours of video viewed every day the scale of content is enormous. YouTube is very popular with children and young people, who watch for various reasons such as watching their favourite gamers.

However, not all content on YouTube is suitable for children and young people to see. So, as a parent, it is important to be aware that a child should be 13 years old to create their own YouTube account. Young people between the ages of 13 and 17 can create their own accounts, but only with the permission of their parents or carers. On Net Aware, our website co-created with O2, we have lots of advice for parents to help in making this decision of whether to allow their children to have their own YouTube accounts.

My advice to parents is this. Give it a read and talk with your child about their reasons for wanting to set up their own account.

Many children believe you can make lots of money by sharing videos, but whilst this is possible it is the exception rather than the ‘norm’ and it can put them under significant pressure. What do they want to achieve? What do they want to share? This can be a great time to talk about what is appropriate to share and what isn’t.

When agreeing rules and time boundaries, consider a family agreement – you can find a template of one on Net Aware. Stick it up where all the family can see it. This allows your child to understand your expectations which can be reviewed when you think you need to. What has worked and what hasn’t? This agreement could include not sharing personal and private information, whether they are allowed to show their face in the videos, suitable clothing (for example no clothing that might identify the school they go to). You may also like to view their new creations before they are uploaded onto YouTube.

The Net Aware review of YouTube has also got lots of advice exploring safety features and settings for when your child is viewing content on YouTube, but what about if they want to make and share their own videos?

Making videos can be a great way of learning new digital skills, as well as promoting creativity and critical thinking but there are some risks that you should be aware of, such as over-sharing or disinhibition.

This is when hidden behind a keyboard it can be easy to say or do things that you wouldn’t do offline. This could be over-sharing but it could also include sharing videos which are inappropriate, revealing or even offensive.

They might feel pressure too, to create more videos or different content to keep up with trends which adults or influencers are doing.

This could involve sharing personal information or age inappropriate behaviour or language. Keep the conversation going with your child and if you see that they are feeling under pressure, find out why and talk to them about this.

And remember you can find more information about your child’s wider online world and the most popular apps, sites and games they’re using at www.net-aware.org.uk.