Getting it to stop

Once things are steady and you've got a record, here's how you shut it down and stop it coming back.

1. Report it on the platform. If the content breaks the site's community guidelines, use the in-app report tools to flag it. If you can't find the buttons, most platforms keep step-by-step reporting and parental-control instructions in their help centre, and you can find walk-throughs for Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and WhatsApp in the online-safety guides put out by charities and your broadband provider.
2. Ring the school first if the bully is a pupil there. Most schools have an anti-bullying policy, and they have pastoral staff who can act, even when the bullying happened online and out of hours. They can't help with what they don't know about.
3. Lock down the profiles together. Set accounts to private, swap a real name and photo for a nickname and an avatar (a pet or a band, not their face), only accept people they actually know offline, and strip school, age and location out of bios.
4. Know when it crosses into a police matter. Report to the police if the bullying involves sexual abuse content, targets your child's ethnicity, disability or sexuality, includes threats of harm, pushes them toward self-harm, or has become harassment over time. Your country's laws on harassment, threats and malicious messages may apply to this kind of thing.
5. Agree a plan in advance, while things are calm. Decide together what they'll do if they see or get cyberbullied again, and talk through how the things people post online can land on someone. Kids handle a crisis far better when they've already rehearsed it.
6. Look after how they're feeling, not just the incident. If your child is really struggling, talk to your doctor or a confidential counselling service, and tell them they can ring or message a free children's helpline any time they want to talk to someone outside the family.

Underneath all of this sits a bit of prevention: take a real interest in their digital life early, set parental controls on your broadband, devices, apps and platforms, and have these chats in an age-appropriate way before there's a problem rather than after.

Where to get help

• The platform's own block and report tools, the flag, three-dots or report option on each app, for content that breaks their rules.
• In an emergency, if there's immediate danger, call your local emergency number. For non-urgent matters, use your country's police non-emergency line.
• A free children's helpline for your child, and a parents' support line for you when you're not sure what you're dealing with. Tell them they can reach a children's helpline any time even if they say they're fine.
• A national service for reporting child sexual abuse material, if the bullying involves sexual abuse content.
• Your child's school, which most likely has an anti-bullying policy and pastoral staff who can act even when the bullying happened online and after hours.

Find the exact services where you live on the Get help page.

So it helps to stop policing minutes and start thinking about a balanced digital diet instead. You're aiming for a decent mix across the week: some creative stuff, some learning, some real social connection, some pure entertainment, and a proper helping of offline life around all of it. And remember, children copy what they see far more than what they're told. If you're scrolling at the dinner table your boundaries carry very little weight, so setting a few limits on your own use is one of the most effective things you can do for theirs.

Building a rhythm that sticks

Rules that get written together get followed. Rules that get imposed get gamed. So treat this as a routine you build with your child, then let the tools do the nagging so you don't have to. Here's the rhythm, roughly in the order it runs through a day:

1. Set the limits together. Sit down and agree how long, what times of day, and which apps. Children stick to limits far better when they helped set them, so make it a conversation, not a verdict. Revisit it as they get older.
2. Keep mornings and mealtimes screen-free. Device-free meals and homework done without the phone in reach. Out of sight really helps, so the screen being in another room does half the job for you.
3. Build in breaks through the day. A rough rhythm of 20 to 30 minutes of screen use, then a short active break: a stretch, a chat, getting up for a drink. Make sure there's a daily chance to properly move, too.
4. Mix up the activities on purpose. If it's wall-to-wall YouTube and TikTok, steer some creative, social or learning use into the day so passive watching isn't the whole diet.
5. Drop screens as a reward. Dangling screen time as a prize quietly teaches your child it's the best thing on offer, which only makes them want it more. Take it out of the reward jar.
6. Move screens out of the bedroom at bedtime. This protects sleep more than almost anything else. If the phone charges in the kitchen overnight, a chunk of your problems sorts itself out.
7. Write it down together. Fill in a family agreement so the rules on device use are settled and on paper, rather than re-argued every evening.

With teens, the rhythm shifts. Hard restriction stops working around this age, so hand over the controls instead. Show them the self-regulation tools, the usage dashboards, timers, app limits and warning pop-ups, and let them run their own screen time, checking in now and then on what settings they've chosen. Pair that with a plain conversation about how endless feeds and autoplay are designed to hook them on purpose. Knowing that struggling to put the phone down is by design, not a personal failing, helps a teenager reflect rather than feel told off.

When it's tipped too far

None of the following spells disaster on its own. But if a few are stacking up, the balance has slipped and it's worth a calm conversation rather than a crackdown. Watch for:

• Anxiety or stress when they don't have the device on them.
• Poor sleep, often traced back to late-night phone or tablet use.
• Physical activity quietly dropping off.
• Pulling back from seeing friends face to face.
• Most of their screen time being passive, endless scrolling or watching, rather than making or learning anything.

If that's where you've landed, you don't need to tear everything up. Go back to the rhythm above, rebuild it together, and lean on the built-in tools that do the heavy lifting:

• Apple Screen Time for iPhones and iPads, for limits, downtime and app caps.
• Google Family Link for Android, with Android Digital Wellbeing for usage tracking and timers.
• Microsoft Family Safety across Windows and Xbox.
• TikTok Family Pairing to set time limits and link your account to theirs.
• Instagram's "Your Activity" to see and manage how long they're spending in the app.
• A free family agreement template, the kind online-safety charities publish, to fill in together.
• Age-specific advice (under 5, 6 to 10, 11 to 13, and 14 plus), since what suits a six-year-old looks nothing like what suits a fourteen-year-old. Most family online-safety sites break their guidance down by age band.

The warning signs

None of these proves something is wrong on its own. They overlap with ordinary teenage moodiness, so don't expect a neon sign. If a few of them cluster together, or if something just feels off, treat it as a reason for a gentle conversation rather than waiting for proof.

• Someone your child met through an online game wants to move the chat somewhere private, off the game and onto a separate app.
• Requests for nude or sexual images, or sexual conversations with someone online.
• Your child suddenly going secretive about who they're talking to or what they're sharing.
• An adult or a stranger asking your child to keep their friendship or messages secret.
• Threats that arrive after something has already happened, such as an embarrassing webcam moment or an image that got shared. This is sextortion, and it's frighteningly common.
• A general shift you can't quite explain: more withdrawn, jumpy around their phone, evasive about one particular "friend."

Making your child a harder target

You can't supervise every message, and you don't need to. What you can do is close the easy openings a groomer relies on and make sure your child knows they can come to you. Work down this list at your own pace. Even the first couple of items shift the picture more than you'd expect.

• Get on the apps yourself. Set up your own account on the games, apps and sites your child uses. You'll see how chat works, who can message a stranger, and how someone could make contact. You can't assess a risk you've never looked at.
• Fix the privacy settings on every platform, side by side. Don't leave the loose defaults in place. There are site-specific settings guides online for all the popular apps, so you're not guessing. Doing it together means your child learns what each setting does and why.
• Lock down what gets shared. The rule is simple: no full name, age, gender, phone number, home address, school name, or photos with people they only know online. Talk it through rather than just announcing it.
• Make one rule non-negotiable. They never arrange to meet someone they only know online without a parent there. No exceptions.
• Have the "people lie online" conversation plainly. Explain how easy it is to fake an age, a face, a whole identity. An "online friend" who claims to be 12 and into the same game might be nothing of the sort.
• Reassure them about the test. Tell your child that safe people will never ask them for, or pressure them into, sending any kind of image. If anyone does, that's the tell. And make it crystal clear they can come to you about anything, no matter what's already happened, without losing their phone or getting shouted at.
• Walk through the report and block tools in their games. In Minecraft and Roblox especially, show them how to flag and report someone, then practise it once together so it's muscle memory in the moment.
• Add a technical layer. Put parental controls, filtering or monitoring software on their devices. The conversations matter most, but the controls catch what conversations miss.

If you're worried right now

If you think grooming is happening, your first job is your child's sense of safety. The way you react in the first few minutes decides whether they keep talking to you.

• Stay calm and reassure them first. Lead with "I'm glad you told me, you're not in trouble."
• Find out who they've been talking to by speaking with your child, and if you need to, their friends or teachers.
• Preserve the evidence before you do anything else. Save screenshots, usernames and the conversation somewhere safe. Don't delete anything in a panic, however upsetting it is to keep.
• Block or unfriend the person, then report the account or content on the platform. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube and X all have reporting options built in.
• Report it to your country's child-protection or report-abuse service (see the Get help page), the route to advisors who deal with exactly this. Call your local emergency number if your child is in immediate danger, or your country's police non-emergency line if it's not urgent.

A clear plan for sextortion

Sextortion needs its own clear plan. If someone is threatening to share a private image of your child unless they're paid:

• Do not pay, and do not send anything more, even if a payment has already been made. Paying simply invites more demands. There is no version of this where giving them more makes it stop.
• Stop all contact and block the account, but keep the evidence (screenshots, usernames, the messages) before you do.
• Report it to your country's child-protection or report-abuse service (see the Get help page).
• Use an image take-down service for under-18s to get an image removed (see the Get help page). Take It Down, run by NCMEC at takeitdown.ncmec.org, works internationally to help remove a nude or sexual image of an under-18 from participating platforms.

Where to get help

• The platform's own report and block tools for the account or content.
• In an emergency, your local emergency number if your child is in immediate danger.
• A free children's helpline for your child, and a parents' support line for you (find your country's on the Get help page).
• A national service for reporting child sexual abuse material, including any nude or sexual image of an under-18.

Find the exact services where you live on the Get help page.

The single most protective thing you own isn't a setting at all. It's your child believing they can tell you the worst thing in the world without you falling apart.

What we're actually dealing with

Picture the doctored photo that does the rounds every few months, the politician supposedly caught somewhere they never were, or the AI video of a celebrity saying something they never said, lips slightly out of sync, the audio drifting just enough to feel wrong if you slow down and look. Thousands of people share these before anyone checks. If your child has ever shown you a "fact" from TikTok that turned out to be nonsense, you've met the same problem in your own kitchen.

Fake news is made-up or twisted content dressed up to look like the real thing. It comes in two flavours worth naming. Misinformation is false stuff passed on by people who genuinely believe it's true. Disinformation is false stuff spread on purpose by people who know it's a lie. Either way it moves fast, partly because so much of it is now churned out by AI, and partly because it's built to grab attention and get shared before anyone stops to check. This matters more than it sounds. The wrong content can mess with how kids feel, what they believe, how they see their own bodies, and in some cases their pocket money too.

Why kids fall for it

It's tempting to think children share rubbish because they're not paying attention. The truer story is that the feed is built to beat all of us, and a few specific things are working against your child.

• "If it's got loads of likes and shares, it must be true." Shares measure how shareable something is, not how true it is. The most emotional, outrageous posts spread fastest precisely because they're designed to.
• "A real-looking photo or video can't be faked." AI now produces convincing images, cloned voices and deepfake video. Looking real and being real stopped being the same thing a while ago.
• "My child would obviously spot a scam." Confirmation bias makes all of us trust the things that match what we already believe far more readily than the things that challenge it. Algorithms and echo chambers then feed kids more of what they already agree with, so a false claim that fits their worldview slips straight through.

Knowing the feed is rigged this way takes the shame out of getting caught, which makes a child far more willing to slow down and question a trending post instead of swallowing it because everyone's sharing.

Building the habit

A checklist only works if it becomes second nature, and that takes a bit of steady backup from you. When your child gets it wrong, keep it kind. If they share something fake, fact-check it together, work out the tell you both missed, and nudge them to go back and tell the people they sent it to. Owning the mistake is part of the lesson, and a child who's terrified of being told off just hides the next slip.

For younger ones, dial it back a notch. Talk about the difference between a fact and an opinion, switch autoplay off so they're not shoved into an endless feed, and keep half an eye on which creators they're following. A shorthand worth drilling into them: Read it, Check it, Wait. Read the whole thing, find at least two other sources that back it up, and sit on it for a few days before sharing.

Keep an eye on how all this is landing emotionally, too. A child who seems anxious about something in the news, or unhappy about their body after a run of edited or influencer photos, may be soaking up more than they're saying. And if a child mentions they lost money to a scam or shared something they later found out was fake, treat it as a moment to talk, not to tell off.

Try it together

The best way to practise is to make a game of it, so catching fakes feels like a win rather than a lecture.

• Run a "spot the fake" quiz as a family. Plenty of online-safety charities run free interactive quizzes and critical-thinking guides that work well for this. Both are free to use online.
• Pull up a real claim doing the rounds and walk through the gut-check together, out loud, so your child sees how you'd check it.
• Reverse-image-search a suspicious photo as a pair so the Google Lens trick stops feeling like magic.

If misinformation has really upset your child, look after their wellbeing first and point them toward a free children's helpline or a confidential counselling service. You can find the ones available where you live on the Get help page. And if you'd like the advice tailored to your own family's ages and devices, plenty of online-safety charities offer a quick questionnaire that gives you a shortlist rather than a firehose.

The rules that catch most of them

You don't need to be technical to teach this. Give your child a few simple rules and practise them, and most cons fall apart on contact. Go through these together at the kitchen table.

1. Run the "too good to be true" test. Free in-game currency for nothing, a cash giveaway, a stranger offering to pay them: if an offer needs their login or feels like easy money for nothing, it's bait. Say it out loud so it becomes a reflex.
2. Never hand over a password or personal info. No login, no full name, no address, no phone number to anyone they only know online. Use comparisons they already get: "Would you give your address to a stranger in the park? So why type it into a game chat?" and "Would you climb into a stranger's van? Then why click a link from someone you don't know?"
3. Don't click links in messages. Instead, open a fresh browser window and type the real website address in by hand. Scammers copy real sites with tiny tweaks to the web address, so check it carefully, make sure it starts with https, and look for the little padlock before typing anything in.
4. Treat urgency as a warning, not an order. Act-now-or-else pressure, and any "your computer is infected, download this now" pop-up, are designed to stop them thinking. The right move is to slow down and check.
5. Be suspicious of familiar faces asking for money. A friend, relative or celeb suddenly asking for cash or a login may be a hacked or cloned account. Get your child to check another way before doing anything.
6. Lock the accounts down. Turn on two-factor authentication on their important accounts and set profiles to private. A password manager makes this easier and gives every account its own strong password.
7. Know where the buttons are. Walk through the platform safety tools together so there's no panic in the moment: how to report (usually a flag, three dots, or a gear icon near a username), how to block, mute and restrict, how to hide content, how to change a password, and how to set a profile to private.
8. Report dodgy texts to your phone provider or your country's spam-reporting service. It's usually free, and it helps the networks shut scams down. You can find the right number or shortcode for where you live on the Get help page.

Two things help these rules stick. Play a "spot the fake" game: a media-literacy quiz that tests whether you can tell a real message from a fake, plus classroom-style games that teach the same skills. Then pull up a real phishing message from your own inbox and pick it apart together so it feels concrete. And run a couple of "what if" role-plays, such as "Someone promises a rare in-game item but needs your login, what do you do?" and "An unknown number texts saying they're a friend in trouble and needs money, what now?" Let your child reach the answer themselves, because the one they work out sticks better than the one you hand them.

If they've been caught out

If a scam gets through, move quickly and stay warm. Both matter.

• Change the password on the affected account straight away, log out of all devices, and change that same password anywhere else it was reused.
• Ring the bank or card company to freeze the account, dispute any charges, and ask for a new card if needed.
• Lead with "this isn't your fault." Treat it as something to learn from, check in afterwards on how they're feeling, and make it clear you're the person they come to next time. A kid who's scared of being told off is a kid who hides the next one until it's far worse.

Sextortion needs its own handling, because the levers a scammer pulls here are money and shame. If someone is threatening to share a nude image unless they're paid, say this clearly to your child: it's not their fault, it's a crime committed against them, and the blame sits entirely with the offender. Then do not pay. Paying rarely makes it stop and usually invites more demands. Don't delete the evidence, and report it to your country's fraud or cyber-crime reporting service and to your country's child-protection or report-abuse service (see the Get help page), so it reaches child-protection specialists. You can also use Take It Down (takeitdown.ncmec.org), a free service that works internationally to help get a nude or sexual image of an under-18 taken offline.

For emotional support, a free children's helpline is there too, and your child can reach a confidential counselling service if they'd rather talk something through outside the family. You'll find the ones for where you live on the Get help page.

One last thing worth saying out loud to your kids: the people who run these scams are good at it, and getting caught doesn't make you stupid. It makes you human. The trick is just to slow down, check, and tell someone. That's a skill they'll use long after they've stopped playing Roblox.

Where to get help

• The platform's own report and block tools, for anything that breaks the site's rules.
• In an emergency, your local emergency number; for non-urgent matters, your country's police non-emergency line.
• A free children's helpline for your child, and a parents' support line for you (find the ones for your country on the Get help page).
• Your country's fraud or cyber-crime reporting service to report a scam, and a national service for reporting child sexual abuse material.
• Find the exact services where you live on the Get help page.

More barriers, in minutes

The quick wins above cover the whole house at once. A few more take just as little time:

• Set up device-level parental controls. Turn on Apple Screen Time on iPhones and iPads, Google Family Link on Android, and Microsoft Family Safety, which also covers the Xbox. These let you filter and block adult content.
• Use the controls inside the apps they live in. TikTok Family Pairing lets you link your account to theirs. Swap YouTube for YouTube Kids with younger ones. Instagram and Facebook have their own screen-time managers too.
• Move screens out of the bedroom where you can. Unsupervised internet access behind a closed door is where a lot of this slips through, and a shared family space makes it far easier to notice when something has gone wrong.

A quick note on what raises the odds. A younger child on apps or games with a minimum age of around 13, unsupervised access in the bedroom, few or no controls on devices and broadband, and unmoderated livestreams or chat rooms all leave the door open wider. And remember a quiet child isn't proof everything's fine. Children very often say nothing when they've seen something upsetting, so no complaints isn't the same as no problem.

When they're the one looking

If your child is actively seeking out adult content, resist the urge to grab the device. Confiscating it tends to drive the behaviour underground rather than stop it. Talk openly about why they're looking. If what they're searching for is extreme, or involves self-harm, contact a confidential counselling service or a parents' support line for advice (find the ones where you live on the Get help page).

Talking about porn

The conversation works better as a thread you keep picking up than as one big set-piece. A few things worth carrying into it:

• Name what they may run into in age-appropriate, plain language, rather than waiting for a complaint to react to. Children who have a word for it are far more likely to mention it.
• Make clear that stumbling on something is never something they'll be told off for. Separate the seeing from any sense of being in trouble.
• Keep the door open for the harder questions. Curiosity is normal, and a calm, factual answer beats a child filling the gaps from a search bar.
• If a particular search or worry suggests something more serious is going on, a confidential counselling service or a parents' support line is there for parents who want advice on how to handle it (see the Get help page).

Reporting and removing

When content needs taking down or flagging, use the platform's own tools first, then escalate by the right route for what it was.

• On the platform: use the flag or report tool built into the app to report the content.
• Child sexual abuse images or videos: report to a national service for reporting child sexual abuse material so it can be removed (find yours on the Get help page). Take It Down, at takeitdown.ncmec.org, works internationally to help get a nude or sexual image of an under-18 taken down.
• Hate content: report it via your country's service for reporting illegal or extremist content.
• Terrorist or extremist content: report it via your country's service for reporting illegal or extremist content.
• An adult behaving sexually toward your child: contact your country's child-protection or report-abuse service (see the Get help page).

Where to get help

• The platform's own report and block tools, for content that breaks its rules.
• In an emergency, your local emergency number; for non-urgent matters, your country's police non-emergency line.
• A free children's helpline for your child, and a parents' support line for you (find your country's on the Get help page).
• A national service for reporting child sexual abuse material, plus Take It Down at takeitdown.ncmec.org to help get an under-18's image removed.
• Find the exact services where you live on the Get help page.

Inside their head

It helps to start with empathy, not alarm. Picture being thirteen and online. You post a photo. Within minutes the likes, comments and views start landing, and each one feels like a tiny hit of being seen and being worth something. Then you notice the pattern everyone notices: the posts where you look a bit older, a bit sexier, the ones with the right pose and the right filter, tend to get more. The reward gets quietly wired to the sexier version of you.

From there it becomes a loop that is hard to step out of. You check the stats. You feel the pull to post again. There is a quiet pressure to push a little further next time to keep the numbers up, because the same photo twice never lands as well. None of this feels like a decision. It feels like keeping up.

And everyone around them seems to be doing it. In group chats and on their feeds, posting this way looks normal, even expected. Nobody wants to be the one who looks childish or left out. They are also growing up inside a pop culture where influencers and celebrities sell a 'hot girl' or 'looksmaxxing' aesthetic as the whole point, and where beauty filters have quietly reset what a normal face and body are supposed to look like, including their own.

The platforms make all of this stronger, not weaker. Sexualised content tends to get more reach, so the algorithm learns to show it, learns to reward it, and learns to feed your child more of it and more of the pressure that comes with it. On top of all that sits a confusing cultural message they have absorbed without ever choosing it: that being sexual is the same as being confident, grown-up and empowered.

So when an adult looks at this and thinks 'kids these days', they miss the point. This is not a character flaw. It is a set of strong, well-designed forces working on a young brain that is wired to want connection and approval.

What this actually looks like

It is rarely one dramatic thing. It is a spectrum. At the everyday end it is filtered and edited selfies that make them look older or sexier, carefully chosen poses, 'thirst trap' shots, revealing or suggestive photos taken for the camera, sexualised dances and trends and challenges, and dressing or performing for likes. Further along it becomes a habit of escalating to keep the engagement up. At the far end sits the fantasy that gets talked about as a joke and then half-seriously: 'I'll just start an OnlyFans,' or the idea of sugar-dating as 'easy money'. OnlyFans is one example on this spectrum, not the whole of it, and most kids never go near it. The pull, though, runs the length of the whole line.

If it's already a pattern

If you can already see this happening, the most important thing is how you show up. Stay calm and curious, not punitive. Shame and confiscation tend to push it underground, and they teach a child that this is a topic they cannot bring to you. You want to be the person they come to when something goes wrong, and that starts now.

Get underneath the behaviour with gentle questions rather than accusations. What does posting this way give them? What would they miss if they stopped? Then redirect, steadily, toward the things they are genuinely good at and the people and places where they feel valued for more than their looks. You are not trying to win one conversation. You are trying to widen the places they get to feel worth something.

Watch for the signs that this is tangled up with something bigger: compulsive checking and posting they cannot seem to stop, low self-esteem, anxiety, or distress about their body. If you see those, get professional help. A GP or counsellor can support both of you, and reaching out early is a strength, not a failure.

If an image has already been shared

Keep this proportionate, but know the serious facts. For anyone under eighteen, a sexual image of themselves is illegal and is treated as child sexual abuse material, even if they took it and shared it willingly. These images are a hook for grooming and sextortion, and once they are out, they are effectively permanent. None of this is your child's fault, and saying so out loud matters.

If an image has been shared or your child is being pressured or threatened, act fast and steady:

• Do not pay and do not panic. Paying a blackmailer almost never makes it stop, and panic makes good decisions harder. Reassure your child that they are not in trouble with you.
• Stop the spread. Use Take It Down (takeitdown.ncmec.org) and StopNCII (stopncii.org) to help get images removed and blocked across participating platforms.
• Report it. Report to the platform where it happened, and keep a record.
• Find local services. Use our Get help page to find the right reporting routes, helplines and support where you live.
• If a child is in immediate danger, call your local emergency number.

Around 1,300 photos and videos of a child are posted online before they turn 13, and most of them weren't posted by the child. They were posted by us: the birthday parties, the first days of school, that bath photo we always meant to delete. There's a word for it now, sharenting, and it's where a digital footprint quietly begins, years before the child ever agreed to one.

The trail they leave

A digital footprint is the trail of data your child leaves online. Some of it they put there on purpose. Far more of it gets collected in the background, by apps, websites and devices, then recycled, combined and sold on without anyone asking.

One embarrassing post is rarely the thing that hurts them. The harder problem is quieter: scattered, harmless-looking scraps of data get stitched back together to identify, profile, impersonate or target a child. The school name plus the football team plus the favourite playground starts to add up to a real person in a real place.

This footprint has a long memory. It starts young, it follows them into adulthood, and it's far easier to shape early than to scrub clean later.

A few things tend to flag that the footprint needs attention:

• Old posts or photos still surfacing online, or reappearing in app backups, even after you deleted them.
• Your child's name, school, location or daily routine being findable in an ordinary web search, or sitting on a profile set to public.
• Unknown contacts saved on their device, or friend and message requests from people they don't know.
• Their details turning up somewhere they never shared them, which can point to data reuse or a breach.
• A reputation forming before they even have their own accounts, usually built out of a parent's own oversharing.

Lock down the settings

Pick a quiet hour, sit down with your child if they're old enough, and run through the checklist below. It doesn't all have to happen at once, but the first three are worth doing first, because they show you what a stranger can already see.

1. Search your own kid. Type their full name, any usernames and old profile details into a few different search engines and see what surfaces. Whatever's public, you want to find it before a stranger does.
2. Delete the dead accounts. Old apps, abandoned profiles, forgotten subscriptions, the game they played for two weeks in 2022. If they don't use it, remove it. Every dormant account is one more place data can leak from.
3. Switch off anything the app doesn't actually need. If a feature isn't required to use the app, turn it off. Start with location sharing and location services, public profiles, microphone access, and ad tracking.
4. Go through privacy settings together, app by app. Set every social account to private, or to its maximum privacy, so only people they know in real life can see posts or message them. Doing it side by side beats doing it for them, because they'll actually remember how.
5. Sort the passwords. A unique, complex password for every account, built from random words and characters, stored in a password manager so nobody's trying to hold twelve of them in their head. Then switch on two-factor authentication for the accounts that matter.
6. Set up parental controls across their devices, apps and games. Use them to limit who can contact your child, and to require a password before any spending goes through.
7. Keep everything updated. Phones, tablets, computers, all on the latest operating system and software. Updates are where the security fixes live, so an out-of-date device is a soft target. Check anti-virus is installed while you're there.
8. Lock down the browser. Turn on an ad-blocker, set the browser to "do not track", and get them into the habit of using private or incognito mode on shared or public devices.
9. Use the real age and location when setting up accounts. Fudging it feels harmless, but the correct age is what triggers the child-specific protections. And teach them not to "click and accept" terms and conditions on autopilot.

That's the bulk of the footprint contained. The settings hold the line, but the lasting protection is your child understanding why the line is there.

Tools worth a look

The tools and resources that do most of the work, once the conversation's underway:

• A password manager to generate and store a unique password for every account.
• Two-factor authentication on the important accounts as a second lock.
• Parental controls across devices, apps and games, to limit contact and require approval for spending.
• The location services toggle on the device, to turn off location sharing wherever it isn't needed.
• An ad-blocker and the browser's "do not track" setting, plus private or incognito mode on shared devices.
• Anti-virus software on phones, tablets and computers, kept up to date.
• Financial alerts, such as text notifications, to flag any unexpected spending.
• A search engine, used deliberately, to audit what's publicly findable about your child.
• Children's privacy and data-protection standards, the kind many countries now set out, which spell out the privacy and data protections apps and sites are meant to give children. Worth knowing your country may have something like this when you're weighing up whether a service treats your child's data properly.

Play it with them

Ask your child to teach you their game. Sit beside them, pick up a controller, and let them be the expert for half an hour. It's the quickest way to see what they love about it, and it tells you far more than any guide can: who can talk to them, where the chat happens, and how easy it would be for money or a stranger to slip in. For a lot of kids a headset, a couple of mates and a world to build in is the best part of their day. They're hanging out, building things, competing, chatting away, and most of that is good for them. The same features that make it social, though, are the ones that let strangers slide into a chat, let a loot box quietly drain your card, or let a rough match turn into someone being nasty over voice.

The best monitoring tool you have isn't an app, it's your presence. Play a few rounds together every so often, and keep the console somewhere shared rather than behind a bedroom door. In a family space you can overhear the chat, glance at the screen, and pick up on a rough session early. That's also where you'll learn the game well enough to spot when something's changed.

While you're playing, keep half an ear out for the things that tend to flag a problem worth a gentle chat:

• They're pushing to play games rated well above their age, usually because their mates already have them.
• Money is going on in-game items or loot boxes you didn't okay.
• They come away from a session upset, withdrawn or anxious, which can point to griefers or trolls bullying them mid-game.
• They mention "friends" they've only ever met inside the game.
• They struggle to stop, or to stick to the time you agreed.

None of these on its own proves anything. A cluster of them is your cue to sit down and talk.

Where the money goes

Gaming is built to take small amounts of money in a way that doesn't feel like spending. Loot boxes are the clearest example: your child pays for a sealed box of random items and doesn't know what's inside until it's bought, which is exactly what makes them so easy to keep tapping. Battle passes, skins and in-game currency work the same way, and the bill can climb fast on an account with a card sitting behind it.

The fix is to take the open card out of the equation. Block in-app purchases on the device, and for kids old enough to buy the occasional item, fund the account with a refillable gift card instead of a linked credit or debit card. Then set a budget together and treat it as a real number, so a "free" pass that nudges toward extras doesn't run away from either of you. If you've ever found a charge you didn't recognise after a session, this is the change that stops the next one.

Who they're actually playing with

Voice and text chat are why so many kids love these games, and they're also the open door. On an unmoderated server or in a public lobby, your child can end up talking to anyone, including adults who set out to seem like another kid. So the rule about personal information needs saying out loud and coming back to: no real name, address, school or location goes to anyone they only know through the game, full stop.

Keeping the console in a shared room helps here too, because you'll catch the tone of who they're talking to. If an adult contacts your child through a game and behaves sexually, or tries to move the chat onto a private app away from the game, that's a child-protection matter. Report it to your country's child-protection or report-abuse service (see the Get help page), the route straight to specialists who handle exactly this. And make sure your child knows the report and block tools inside the game well enough to use them in the moment, not just in theory.

Help and tools

For when you need people, here's where to turn:

• A game age-rating database for age ratings and content info before you buy.
• Console parental controls and companion apps: Xbox Family Settings, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, plus Google Family Link and Apple Screen Time for phones and tablets.
• In-game report and block tools built into Roblox, Minecraft, Fortnite, Discord, Steam and the consoles themselves.
• Your country's child-protection or report-abuse service (see the Get help page) if an adult has contacted your child through a game and acted sexually or tried to move the chat somewhere private. This reaches child-protection specialists.
• A free children's helpline, a confidential place for your child to talk. Find the one where you live on the Get help page.
• A parents' support line if you want to talk it through as a parent. Find the one where you live on the Get help page.
• Refillable gift cards for spending you can keep a lid on.
• An online-safety charity's gaming advice hub for step-by-step guides on each console and app.

Set up each app safely

The basics are the same on every app: a private account, locked-down contact, and no surprise spending. The menus differ though, so here's a short note on each one, with a button for its exact step-by-step setup.

Age 13 is a threshold, not a verdict

Most of the big apps say you have to be 13 to sign up. It's worth being clear about what that number is, though: 13 is a threshold the platforms picked, and it isn't a verdict on whether your particular child can cope. Some 13-year-olds aren't ready. Some kids manage perfectly well a little earlier with the right setup around them. The birthday tells you when an app will let your child in. It tells you almost nothing about whether they should be. So let readiness lead the decision, and lean on the device tools too, because most of them link straight to your own phone, which makes the core setup an evening's work.

Setting up a first account safely

Once you've decided they're ready, take this in order. The supervision link is the one that matters most, so don't skip past it.

1. Link your account to theirs with the built-in supervision tool, and do this first. Each platform has one now: TikTok Family Pairing, Instagram Family Centre, Snapchat Family Centre (set it up at parents.snapchat.com), and for YouTube it's Supervised Accounts through Google Family Link.
2. Set the account to private straight away. TikTok and Instagram now default under-18s to private, and Instagram automatically puts under-18s into a "Teen Account". On TikTok you can switch public and private whenever you like, so check together that it's set to private.
3. On TikTok Family Pairing, set a daily screen-time limit (it defaults to 1 hour for 13 to 17s), schedule blocked windows for school and sleep, switch on Sleep reminders, mute night-time push notifications, and turn on Restricted Mode to keep mature content and LIVE out.
4. On Instagram Family Centre, set daily usage limits that lock the app once they're hit, schedule bedtime and study blocks, check who's allowed to send message requests or add them to group chats, and look through their followers, following and blocked accounts.
5. On Snapchat Family Centre, you can see your child's friend list and recent contacts (the message content stays private, which is fair), and set who can contact them to Friends or No One. Check Snap Map location sharing too. One catch worth knowing: only your child can switch their location sharing off, so sit down and do that step together.
6. On YouTube, use Google Family Link to pick the right tier: Explore for under-13s, Explore More for 13+, and Most of YouTube for older teens. Turn on Restricted Mode to block mature content, switch off comments and live chat, set watch-time limits, and review their watch and search history.
7. Add device-level controls on top of the app settings. Apple Screen Time, Google Family Link, Family Sharing, or Samsung and Windows parental controls let you manage overall screen time and what gets downloaded, whichever app they're in.
8. Clean up their profile together. Strip the risky stuff out of the bio and profile (school, location, full name, contact details), and set sharing so only the friends they know offline can see things.
9. Write a Digital Family Agreement together. There's a downloadable template online. Treat it as a living thing rather than a one-off, and lean on quick check-ins about what they've been up to instead of one big serious talk you never come back to.

The risks worth knowing about

Those three risks (content, contact and conduct) don't vanish once the account is set up, so it helps to know what they look like day to day. A few patterns are worth a gentle conversation if you spot them:

• They're glued to it, spending a really excessive amount of time scrolling.
• They're posting embarrassing or overly personal images.
• They've racked up hundreds of followers, plenty of whom they've never actually met.
• They seem upset, anxious or withdrawn after they've been using it.
• They've gone secretive or cagey when you ask about what they do online.

None of these proves something has gone wrong on its own, but a cluster of them is your cue to open up a conversation rather than wait.

Keeping the door open

Settings do a lot, but the most protective thing is your child believing they can come to you, so keep the talking going alongside the controls.

Ask what "being a friend online" actually means to them. Talk about how anonymity and peer pressure can make people behave very differently than they would face to face. And here's a line that tends to stick with kids: "if you wouldn't wear it on your T-shirt, don't post it online." That's digital-footprint thinking they'll carry with them.

Where to get help

• The platform's own report and block tools, built into every app, for content that breaks their rules or anyone who needs blocking.
• In an emergency, your local emergency number if your child is in immediate danger.
• A free children's helpline for your child to talk something through in confidence, and a parents' support line for you when you're not sure what you're dealing with. Find your country's on the Get help page.
• Your country's child-protection or report-abuse service for anything involving an adult behaving sexually toward your child (see the Get help page), and a national service for reporting child sexual abuse material.
• Supervision and content tools that work everywhere: TikTok Family Pairing, Instagram Family Centre (Teen Accounts), Snapchat Family Centre at parents.snapchat.com, YouTube Supervised Accounts via Google Family Link, TikTok and YouTube Restricted Mode, Apple Screen Time and Google Family Link / Family Sharing, plus a downloadable Digital Family Agreement template.

Find the exact services where you live on the Get help page.

One thing before you start. Controls work best when you tell your child you've switched them on, especially older kids. If they discover location tracking they never knew about, or find their account locked at 8pm with no warning, the controls become something to outwit. Set them up, then have the conversation. It saves a lot of grief later.

Layer 1: your broadband, step by step

1. Log in to your broadband account and turn on the family filter. Most providers offer one, often called something like Web Safe, Broadband Shield or HomeSafe, and it covers every device on your home WiFi.
2. Check your mobile network too. Most networks have a content filter you can turn on for your child's SIM, so the protection follows them off the home WiFi and onto mobile data.
3. While you're in the mobile account, set a spend cap on that SIM so a stray in-app charge or premium text can't run up a surprise bill.

Layer 2: the device, step by step

1. On an iPhone or iPad, open Settings, then Screen Time. The age-based presets get the core controls on in under five minutes.
2. Set a Screen Time passcode that's different from the code your child uses to unlock the phone. If they share, they can just switch everything back.
3. Set up Downtime (blocks apps during hours you choose, say 8pm to 7am, bar an Always Allowed list), App Limits (cap time on specific apps or whole categories, and switch on Block at End of Limit so the cap actually bites), and Communication Limits (who your child can contact during the day and during Downtime).
4. Tighten Content and Privacy Restrictions: set age limits for apps, films, music and books, choose Limit Adult Websites or build an Allowed Websites whitelist for younger children, turn off Explicit Language in Siri, switch Share My Location off, and turn on Communication Safety, which detects and blurs nude images sent to or from your child.
5. On Android, set up Google Family Link instead. Go to Settings, then Google, then Parental controls, and supervise the account. From Family Link you can approve or block app downloads, set daily and per-app time limits, add a bedtime Downtime schedule, and set a School Time schedule. Make sure "Unlimited apps" is turned OFF for that one.
6. Still in Family Link, under Google Play content restrictions set age ratings, and choose "Try to block explicit sites" or "Only allow approved sites" for Chrome. Turn on the SafeSearch Filter for Google Search too.
7. Stop the surprise spending, the step parents most often wish they'd done sooner. On Apple, turn on Ask to Buy (Require Purchase Approval) and set Require Password to Always Require. In Family Link, open Google Play and set "Require approval for" to All content, or at minimum In-app purchases. If your child games, fund accounts with a refillable gift card rather than leaving a card linked.
8. On a shared device, tablet, console or smart speaker, make a separate child account. With their own profile, the age-appropriate restrictions follow your child around instead of vanishing the moment they pick up the family tablet. On Windows PCs and Xbox, that's Microsoft Family Safety.
9. Use location features openly. Family Link and Apple Family Sharing both let you set alerts for arriving at or leaving Home or School. Switch it on, then say so. Discovering it later feels like spying and damages trust faster than almost anything.

Layer 3: the apps and games, step by step

1. In each social app, switch on the in-app controls: set the account to private, lock down who can message your child, and turn on any restricted or sensitive-content mode.
2. On the games console, set up the maker's family settings. Nintendo Switch, PlayStation and Xbox family settings all let you password-protect which games can be played, limit who your child can chat with, and cap session length.
3. Grab the companion phone app for each console so you can see and adjust those settings in real time from your own phone rather than borrowing the console.
4. Block or restrict in-game purchases on every games account, and prefer a refillable gift card top-up over a linked card so a "free" battle pass can't quietly become a big bill.
5. Note which apps are below their minimum age (usually around 13) and either remove them or, if you're allowing it, tighten the looser default settings they came with.

What controls can't do, and why you keep talking

No control catches everything, and treating them as a fix-and-forget job is where they fall down.

• Diarise a review. Settings that fit a nine-year-old will frustrate a thirteen-year-old, and an over-locked teen just borrows a friend's phone. Revisit as your child grows, and bring older kids into the decisions so it feels less like a cage.
• Keep talking. Controls work best paired with conversation, so the settings make sense to your child rather than becoming a puzzle to crack.
• Expect gaps, and rely on the layering to cover them. A filter the broadband misses may be caught on the device, and a device gap may be caught inside the app. That overlap is the whole point.
• Get help when you're stuck. If a specific platform trips you up, an online-safety charity's parental controls hub has click-by-click guides for individual devices, apps and consoles, and you can write the household rules down together with a free family agreement template. A paid cross-device option like Qustodio gives you one dashboard across several platforms if you'd rather manage it all in one place. You can also find the services and support that apply where you live on the Get help page.

When did you last have a real conversation with your child about what they're doing online? Not "get off that thing and come for dinner," but a proper back and forth where you asked what they were watching or who they were playing with, and they actually answered. If you can't quite remember, you're in good company. Most of us put it off, waiting for the right serious moment to sit them down and cover everything at once.

That waiting is the trap. You can't wall a child off from the online world, and trying mostly teaches them to hide things from you. What keeps a child safe is something far smaller and a bit more boring: a steady drip of open, low key conversation, so that when something goes wrong, your child already knows you're the person they come to. You're keeping a door open, that's all. And you don't have to get a single one of these chats perfect, because there's always another one coming.

Why the one big talk doesn't land

Picture the version where you pull up a chair, put on your serious face, and deliver The Talk. Your child stares at the floor and waits for it to be over. Nothing goes in. They've learned that "online" is a topic that makes you tense, which is the opposite of what you want, because the whole point is to be the easy person to come to.

A hundred tiny moments beat one big sit down every time. Treat their online life the way you treat school: ask about it in passing, often, with no weight on it. Thirty seconds in the car counts. A question while they're eating counts. The goal isn't to cover the syllabus, it's to make talking about online stuff feel as normal as asking how football practice went. When the conversation never stops, there's no awkward "we need to talk" to dread, and your child stays in the habit of mentioning things.

A couple of mental models help the lessons stick once you're chatting regularly. The 4S Cyber Shield is a neat one even young children remember: Spot the small clues something's off, like a weird website or a message full of mistakes; Stop clicking or talking and close the tab if something feels yucky; Shield personal information such as passwords, birthdays and addresses and never hand it to strangers; and Share any worry with a trusted adult, whether that's you, another carer or a teacher. And the ABC checklist runs alongside all the talking: Activate parental controls so safe search is on, dodgy content is blocked and strangers can't make contact, using the tools built into your broadband, the platform and the app; Balance screen time by agreeing daily limits together and leaning towards active stuff over endless passive scrolling; Check and chat, meaning check which apps they're using and the age limits on them, and keep talking about what they might run into.

Making yourself easy to come to

Here's the part this whole guide hangs on, so let me be plain about it. Your reaction in the moment your child tells you something is the thing that decides whether they ever tell you anything again. If they confess they clicked a bad link, saw something horrible, or got tricked, and your face falls or your voice goes up, they file that away. Next time, they'll close the tab and say nothing, and the problem will grow in the dark until it's far bigger.

So when they bring you something, stay calm. Calmer than you feel. Lead with "I'm glad you told me, you're not in trouble," and mean it. Be genuinely non-judgmental about their interests too, even the ones that baffle you, because a child who feels judged for what they like online stops bringing it to you at all. Keeping them coming to you is the entire job.

This is also why you don't snatch the device. It's the most tempting move in the world. Something's gone wrong, your instinct screams "take the phone away and make it stop." But confiscating the device the moment a child opens up teaches them one lesson with brutal clarity: telling Mum or Dad about a problem gets your lifeline taken away. Do that once and you've trained them to hide the next thing. The phone isn't the enemy here. The silence is. Deal with the actual problem, keep the device in the conversation, and save them learning that honesty has a punishment attached.

There's a tidy way to remember the whole stance, called EARS. Emphasise empowerment, framing safety as giving them control rather than taking it away. Approachable, meaning you react calmly, because the second they think you'll lose it or confiscate the tablet, they stop telling you things. Repeat, coming back to the hard topics again and again instead of treating them as done after one go. Scenarios, rehearsing "what would you do if..." so they've practised before it's real.

Ways into a chat

The trick with openers is to ask something a child can sink into, not a question they can shut with one word. Open beats closed every time, and "show me how you do this" beats almost anything, because it flips the power and lets them be the expert for ten minutes. A few practical ways in:

• Lower the stakes by doing something else at the same time. The hardest chats go easier on a walk, kicking a ball about, or drawing together, because taking eye contact out of it relaxes both of you. A real news story or a "what would you do if..." hypothetical makes a great springboard.
• Get in the game with them. Actually play the games and watch the channels alongside your child. You learn the platforms, you can teach a good habit in the exact moment it comes up, and the whole thing stays a conversation rather than an interrogation.
• Be direct. Skip the vague hints and awkward pauses and just say what you mean. Kids read the dithering as discomfort, and discomfort tells them this is a topic to avoid.

It's worth booking the occasional proper talk too, around half an hour, built entirely on open questions. And keep half an eye out for the quiet signals between conversations: a child going suddenly silent about a video, game or feature they used to chatter about; messages and websites full of typos or flashy "free toy" reward links, which is classic phishing bait aimed squarely at kids; an online "friend" who keeps fishing for personal details; a moment that felt "yucky" where they closed the tab and said nothing; or content that doesn't quite add up, because AI fakes are now that convincing.

The one rule that matters most

If you take only one thing from all of this, take this. You will not say the perfect thing every time, and you don't have to. The children who stay safest online aren't the ones with the strictest filters. They're the ones who know that whatever they stumble into, they can come and tell you, and you won't go up in flames. Stay calm, don't snatch the device, keep the door open. That's the bit that lasts.

Backup worth keeping within reach

• A downloadable online safety checklist, published free by several online safety charities and often broken down by age, so you can grab the one that fits your child.
• A conversation starters guide for ready made prompts when you want more ways in. Plenty are free online.
• A digital family agreement template to fill in together, so the rules feel mutual rather than imposed. Free versions are easy to find.
• Platform specific parental control guides that walk you step by step through the settings on individual devices and apps, so you're not hunting through menus alone. Most big platforms publish their own, and many online safety charities gather them in one place.
• A media literacy quiz for practising spotting fakes with older children, which turns it into a game rather than a lecture.

When something more serious surfaces

Know the named routes. Your country's child-protection or report-abuse service (see the Get help page) handles any concern about grooming or an adult behaving inappropriately towards your child. A free children's helpline is there if your child needs to talk to someone confidentially, and a parents' support line gives advice on worries of any size. Your country's service for reporting illegal or extremist content takes reports of illegal images, and your country's fraud or cyber-crime reporting service is the line to call if you've been hit by a scam. Find the exact services where you live on the Get help page.

Most of the time your child doesn't think of any of this as AI at all. It's just the thing that gives them an answer. The tools themselves are mostly fine. What gets you is the habit that forms around them, because children tend to treat a chatbot like a clever friend who always has an answer.

What's actually risky

The worries here are specific, not vague. It's worth knowing exactly what you're guarding against.

• They believe it. Kids take whatever the AI says at face value and don't check it, even when the answer is plainly wrong. Chatbots state confident nonsense in the same calm voice they use for facts.
• They overshare. They'll tell an AI their age, their school name, where they live, things they'd never volunteer to a stranger, because it doesn't feel like a stranger.
• The homework problem. AI work quietly becomes "their" work. Doing it themselves is how the learning actually lands, and passing off a chatbot's output skips that and usually breaks the school rules too.
• Data collection. The companies behind these tools gather what your child types, and many use it to train their models unless you turn that off.
• Patchy moderation on user-built bots. Some platforms let anyone build a chatbot, and the safety guardrails on those can be thin or worked around entirely.
• Leaning on a bot for company. Some children start turning to a chatbot for connection instead of people, which is where companion apps come in.

Banning the lot tends to backfire, and these tools will be part of how your child learns and works for years to come. The aim is to help them run AI like a tool they're in charge of, so they question it rather than obey it.

Ground rules that work

You can get the settings sorted in one sitting and grow the conversations from there. Run roughly in this order, technical bits first.

1. Judge readiness, not just the birthday. Most big AI tools set 13 as the minimum, but age isn't the whole story. Weigh up your child's maturity, how well they think critically, their media literacy and any additional learning needs before you say yes.
2. Switch off model-training in ChatGPT. On desktop, open Settings and turn OFF "Improve the model for everyone." On mobile, tap the menu, then your account name, then Settings, then Data controls, and turn the same thing off. That stops your child's conversations being fed back into the model.
3. Do the same across the other chatbots. In Google Gemini, open "Manage Activity" and turn off "Gemini Apps Activity." In Microsoft Copilot, go to Privacy and turn off "Model training on text," "Model training on voice," and "Personalisation and memory." In Snapchat's My AI, turn off location sharing and clear the conversation history.
4. Cap the time at device level. On Android, use Google Family Link or Digital Wellbeing. On Apple devices, use Screen Time. Treat the AI apps like any other app and limit how long they can run.
5. Agree a fact-checking rule together. Before your child believes anything a chatbot says, they get a second opinion or find two more trusted sources that confirm it. Frame it as a shared habit, not a punishment.
6. Make a "random stranger" privacy rule. If they wouldn't tell it to a random stranger, it doesn't go to the AI. No age, no school name, nothing that identifies them. Drawing a quick OK / not-OK chart and sticking it up where the devices live keeps the rule visible instead of something you mentioned once.
7. Let AI help with homework without doing the homework. Explanations, examples and ideas are fair game. The test comes after: have them explain the concept back to you in their own words and come up with one solution the AI didn't suggest. If they can't explain it without rereading the bot's answer, the learning hasn't landed.
8. Ask reflection questions while you sit with them. "Does that sound right to you?" "How can we check that's correct?" "Why do you think the chatbot said X instead of Y?" "Is there a point of view it's missing?" You're building the muscle of questioning, which is the whole point.
9. Do an AI activity together for fun. Co-write a story taking turns on each paragraph (tell the AI your child's age range so the writing stays readable). Roleplay an interview with a fictional character. Or put the same question to two different chatbots and compare the answers. A low-stakes way to show AI isn't one single truth.
10. Talk plainly about honesty and oversharing. Doing the work is how their brain grows; handing in AI work as their own robs them of that and breaks the rules. While you're there, check what your child's school policy actually says, because plenty don't allow AI use at all.

AI companions and chatbots

There's a category worth pulling out on its own: AI companion apps such as Replika, and the assistant-style bots built into everyday apps like Snapchat's My AI. These are designed to feel like a friend or character your child talks to, and for a lonely kid that illusion can run deep. A program that can't feel anything still says all the right things, on demand, at 2am.

A few things help here.

• Check whether your child already has a companion account, and how it's registered. The age it was set up under matters. An account created as, or set to, over-18 sidesteps the protections meant for younger users, so sit down together and check the date of birth and age settings on any companion app they use.
• Name what it is. Refer to the bot as "it," never him or her, and talk through the difference between a real friend and a program with no feelings behind the words. This matters even more if your child has additional needs or is going through a lonely patch.
• Watch for the connection shift. If a chatbot is becoming their go-to instead of people, treat that as the flag it is and gently steer some of that need back toward friends, family and offline life.

One note on the wider scene. The companion space has been moving fast on safety. As of late November 2025, Character.AI removed open-ended chat for under-18 users and brought in age-assurance checks, so it's no longer a place under-18s freely chat the way they once did. That's reassuring, but the warning here is really about the broader AI-companion category, the Replikas and Snapchat's My AI of the world, and it doesn't cover all of them. That's why the rule above is to check the apps and accounts your child actually has, including whether an account is quietly set to over-18, rather than trusting any single platform to have closed the door for you.

You don't have to become an AI expert to handle any of this. You mostly have to be the person in the room asking "but is that true?" until your child starts asking it without you.

Works almost anywhere

Some tools and services cross borders:

• Take It Down (takeitdown.ncmec.org) and StopNCII (stopncii.org) help remove a nude or sexual image (Take It Down covers under-18s) from many major platforms, wherever you live.
• INHOPE (inhope.org) lists national hotlines for reporting child sexual abuse material in dozens of countries.
• Child Helpline International (childhelplineinternational.org) helps you find a free children's helpline in your country. Across the EU, 116 111 reaches a child helpline and 112 is the emergency number.
• Every big platform has its own block and report tools, the same wherever you are, and usually the fastest first step.

Can't find your country above? Search for your national "online safety", "cyber tip" or "child protection" body, or start with your local police non-emergency line.