IT’S half-term for thousands of pupils across the Bolton area and the usual perplexed problem for parents of how to keep youngsters safe and content.

I suppose it’s reasonable to suppose many children will not spend large chunks of the holiday out about with friends but holed up in their living room or bedroom with a tablet or iPad.

These “electronic babysitters” keep youngsters of all ages quiet for hours, and, worryingly, that’s all many parents want. Unfortunately, there is often a price to be paid for this technological convenience and it may well be the innocence of our children.

Without monitoring what they can access, even very young children can now discover highly unsuitable material showing everything from sexual degradation to extreme violence. The effect on them can vary from making them quiet to precocious. What it definitely does, though, is alert them to the very dark side of life today before they’re able to cope with it.

Equally worrying is that children may be extra-active on social media during the school holidays, and not just with each other. These days, paedophiles don’t lurk outside school gates, wearing a dirty mac and offering to show youngsters some cute puppies.

They are very clever, IT savvy and totally unscrupulous. They befriend our children via chatrooms and pose as other children on social media, happy to groom them and wait for that moment when they can maybe persuade them to meet up. At the very least, they may eventually suggest that children post revealing photos of themselves.

David Beckham says that he has banned his youngest children from using social media. While Brooklyn, aged 16, runs any content by mum and dad before posting, 13 year-old Romeo is only allowed a private social network page to keep in touch with friends. The younger two (Cruz, 10 and Harper, 4) are banned from sites like Facebook.

This is a sensible approach. The Beckhams obviously know the positive value of social media – David has 4.7 million Instagram followers – but also know the dangers and go to the trouble of policing their children’s use.

Yes, I know it’s very difficult to keep tabs on youngsters these days, and what does some old granny know anyway? All I do know is that children still respond to time spent with them – and that school holidays are a flashpoint in this relationship when bad things can happen.