Keeping children safe online: a parent's starter guide
Practical, age-aware steps to protect children — without spying on them or scaring them away from talking to you.
Keeping children safe online is less about locking everything down and more about building trust, setting age-appropriate boundaries, and knowing which tools help. Children who feel they can talk to you are far safer than children who fear losing their device.
Start with conversation, not surveillance
The most important safety tool is a child who will come to you when something feels wrong. Make it clear, early and often, that they will not get in trouble for telling you about something upsetting or something they clicked by mistake. A message worth repeating: "If anything online ever makes you feel uncomfortable, scared, or confused, you can always tell me."
Set up parental controls
Every major platform has built-in family tools for screen-time limits, content filters, and purchase approval: Apple's Screen Time, Google Family Link, and the family settings on consoles and streaming services. See our family safety resources.
Lock down privacy on their accounts
Set children's social and gaming accounts to private, turn off location sharing, and disable chat with strangers where possible. Teach them never to share their full name, school, address, or photos with people they only know online.
Know the main risks by age
- Younger children (5–10): unsuitable content, in-app purchases, strangers in game chats. Favour curated kids' apps, keep devices in shared spaces, disable one-tap purchasing.
- Tweens (10–13): first social media, cyberbullying, pressure to share. Agree which platforms are okay and revisit privacy settings together.
- Teenagers (13+): sextortion scams, contact from strangers, misinformation. Shift from control toward coaching.
Talk to teens about sextortion
A fast-growing scam targets teenagers: a stranger poses as a peer, coaxes a private image, then threatens to share it unless paid. Tell your teen plainly: if this ever happens, it is not their fault, they should not pay, should stop responding, save the evidence, and tell a trusted adult immediately. Report it to the platform and to a child-protection hotline — see our directory.
Trust versus monitoring
For younger children some oversight is reasonable. As they grow, heavy secret surveillance damages trust and pushes things underground. Aim for transparency — if you use monitoring, say so and explain why — and hand over responsibility gradually.