What your child writes or says is checked before we write anything, the finished story is checked before your child sees it, and every picture is checked before it is kept. The checks are automatic, and anything they cannot settle goes to a person on our staff.
The checks on your child's own words
Most of what your child does is choosing from pictures. Where they use their own words, such as the beginning of their own story, the words go through four levels of check, starting with the simplest:
- A word list. It matches whole words rather than parts of words, so ordinary words and place names are not caught by accident.
- A scoring step. It weighs a concern against your child's age group, so a chase that suits a nine-year-old is treated differently for a three-year-old.
- A closer look at anything near the line.
- A person, for anything that is still unclear. Your child's words are not used in the meantime, and your child is offered something else.
A few things are looked for on their own. A sign that your child might be at risk is looked for first. After that come text that reads like an instruction, an address or a phone number, a real person named alongside something unkind, and a character that belongs to somebody else. When your child asks for a story about something hard, such as a pet that died or trouble at home, we let you know the same day.
If a check on your child's words cannot finish, the safer answer is taken. You can also add topics of your own to leave out; see Topics to leave out.
The checks on the finished story
Once a story is written, every page is checked again as one piece of text, including the easier and harder versions of each page, before any pictures are drawn.
- If the story does not pass, it is not made. It shows as "Not made" on your child's Books tab, and the books it used are given back to your account.
- If the checks are unsure, the book waits for a person. It shows as "Being checked", and we email you to say so; the email says this usually takes a few hours. The books it used are not given back while it waits.
If you think a book was stopped by mistake, see When a book cannot be made.
The checks on every picture
Each picture we draw is looked at for anything that does not suit your child's age group. A picture that does not pass is never used, and it is recorded so our staff can look at it. If it was the drawing of the characters that every page follows, the whole book waits for a person.
Separately, before any picture is kept, including a photograph of a drawing you send us, an automatic check looks at the picture itself for the kind of image the law requires us to report. It judges each picture as it is, and it does not compare pictures with lists of known images. The company that runs this check is named in the privacy notice. A photograph with a real person's face in it is refused before it is stored; see Drawn heroes.
What your child sees
A check never tells your child they did something wrong, never names a rule, and never says a grown-up has been told. Your child sees one short line that offers something else, such as:
- "Let's find a different kind of adventure for this one. What about something with a chase in it?"
- "How about spooky but friendly? A monster who is scared of the dark, perhaps."
- "That one belongs to somebody else's story. Pick a name that is yours."
- "Let's keep it to story ideas. Shall we pick who is in it?"
When something your child writes is worth you knowing about, we tell you. Safety alerts explains when and how.
When a person reads something
A person on our staff reads:
- a story or picture the checks were unsure about
- every book a child offers to the shared library, before another child can see it
- a comment the checks were unsure about
- every report a child or a grown-up makes
- anything that reads as a sign a child might be at risk, which alerts a person on our staff straight away
- every book you ask us to look at again
We also read a sample of books the checks allowed, to find anything the checks let through that they should not have. These are the times we aim for when something is waiting:
| How serious it looks | Our target |
|---|---|
| The most serious | Within an hour |
| High | Within 4 hours |
| Medium | Within 24 hours |
| Low | Within 72 hours |
No automatic check is perfect, which is why a person is there for anything unclear, and why your child can tell someone about a book or a comment.
Questions about how books are checked can go to support@taletykes.com, or see Contact.