Online safety for children and young people

30 January 2025

Some children are using the internet from a young age, and it can be an important part of growing up for children and young people. But what do you need to know about online safety for children and young people?

According to Ofcom’s 2024 Children’s Media Literacy report, 96% of children aged 3-17 went online in 2023, with 84% of children aged 3-4 having access to the internet. Starting conversations about online safety early is important, and that’s what we’re going to look at first.

The importance of conversations with your child

There’s often a misconception that we should only speak to children about being safe online when they’re a bit older and nearing adolescence, when actually it’s best to start these conversations at a much younger age. As the statistic above shows, quite a high percentage of 3-year-olds have access to internet, so we need to start having age-appropriate conversations from that young age. We’ve linked to some resources on this at the bottom of the article.

Not only is it important to start the conversation early, but it’s vital to keep it going as your child gets older.

You might want to discuss:

  • What your child likes to do online: This is a good conversation at all ages.
  • If your child has an online friendship group: This is more relevant to children who go online independently.
  • If your child knows how to check they are safe online: Again, this is more relevant to children who use the internet unsupervised. We go into this topic below.

Saying no

An important conversation to have with your child is about saying no. Put simply, saying no online is the same as saying no in public. Explain to your child that saying no is the right thing to do if someone asks them to do something online that they wouldn’t do in person.

For example, if a stranger came up to your child and said, “Let’s go in this room by ourselves and have a chat” your child wouldn’t feel comfortable and wouldn’t go with them. The same applies online. Having that conversation with your child will help them to be as aware online as they are in person and feel empowered to say no if they feel something isn’t right.

Knowing who you’re talking to

As adults, we know that unfortunately it can be very difficult to know exactly who you are talking to online. Some children, particularly younger ones, are more likely to take what they see at face value. For example, your child might think that they can trust the profile images they see online. But the reality is, people control the profile pictures they use, so they can choose to use any picture they like.

Have conversations with your child about the fact that they don’t always know who they might be interacting with online. It’s crucial to know exactly who someone is. Being a friend of a friend is still too vague and it’s important your child understands this doesn’t automatically make someone their friend anyway.

Using social media safely

Children grow up aware of social media, so helping them use it in a safe and healthy way is important. A big part of that is again having open and honest conversations so they’re more likely to share what they’re doing, who they’re talking to and what they’re seeing.

Help your child understand that they shouldn’t share anything on social media that they wouldn’t be prepared to share in public. If they wouldn’t say something, share something, or show something to someone face to face, the same should apply to how they act online.

A good question for your child to consider is: “Do I mind if I have no control over who sees this or where it ends up?” This helps to keep them safe, and also helps to stop private information falling into the wrong hands. Once something is online, it’s very difficult to remove, but easily shared in many different places.

Making sure they know how and why to block users or report content is also important. Not all children and young people are aware of how to do this, or may think they’ll get in trouble if they do. For this reason, it’s also worth checking how many profiles your child has on the different platforms they use, and if they’ve connected with any people they don’t know. Some young people may set up a new profile if something happens on their existing one that they feel uncomfortable with, meaning they can end up with multiple profiles on the same platform.

While social media brings certain risks, we shouldn’t forget the positives that can also come from using it.

The positives of social media

For children these days it’s a:

  • way to build and strengthen existing relationships
  • method of connecting with other like-minded children
  • platform to learn.

If you’re someone who didn’t grow up with social media, this might be harder to understand, but it’s important not to alienate our children and young people when it comes to social media use. For them it’s very much the norm, and if you’re not open to talking about it, your child may feel like they can’t come to you if they do need support or advice.

Gaming and gaming platforms

Children are getting into gaming at a younger and younger age, with 23% of children aged 3-4 and 41% of children aged 5-7 playing games online according to Ofcom’s 2024 Children’s Media Literacy report.

Part of the appeal of online gaming is being able to chat with friends. While this can be a great way for your child to socialise, there are also possible risks:

  • Chatting with strangers: As we’ve mentioned above, it’s not always easy for your child to know who they’re talking to online. A so-called friend of a friend may not be who they say they are.
  • Inappropriate content or language: If chats aren’t moderated, there’s a chance your child may see inappropriate content, language or behaviour. If your child likes to use a certain platform, it’s worth doing a quick online search to check if they moderate chats.
  • Being asked into a private chat: Chatting on a platform that isn’t moderated is more likely to result in children being pressured into inappropriate conversations or asked to share personal information or images.

These are all reasons why it’s important to keep the conversation going with your child, so you know what they’re doing and they feel they can tell you if something makes them feel uncomfortable or doesn’t feel right.

Settings and privacy controls can feel daunting to figure out, but Internet Matters has clear guides for various games and platforms including Roblox and Minecraft.

Avoiding blame

An important part of the conversations around staying safe online is to avoid placing blame on your child for anything that may have happened. For example, if your child has done something you don’t want them to do, like being involved in online bullying or going into a private chat room, try not to be angry with them.

Instead, try to work through it with them, and support them to use their device in a safe way. A similar thing applies if they’ve been the victim of online bullying themselves. One of the things many parents will do is take the device away from their child, thinking that they’ll be safer without it or they’ll learn from losing access to the device for a while. In reality, this is more likely to mean your child won’t tell you if something else happens in future.

Other things to consider for neurodivergent children and young people

Neurodivergent individuals can be more vulnerable online. Vulnerabilities may be due to:

  • communication differences and not picking up on social cues, for example understanding who is a ‘known friend’ and who is an ‘unknown user’ on a gaming site.
  • processing differences or impulsiveness, which may mean they click ‘yes’ or ‘download’ before being sure what they have agreed to.

Using technology can be hugely beneficial and regulating for many neurodivergent young people.

They might use it to:

  • play a predictable game
  • socialise in their preferred way (for example, communicating through a device can be more enjoyable and less stressful than communicating face to face for some autistic people)
  • look up a familiar or comforting hobby or YouTube video.

This may mean they have more regular, or longer, periods of gaming or using the internet. It’s still important to have regular chats with your child about what they’re doing online but you might also like to:

  • Join in. You can find out a lot about their online activity by being with them. Whatever it is they like to do, sharing it with you will help you to get an idea of their online sites, games, or apps and how they use them. It can also be a lot of fun to be part of their hobby. Many children love nothing more than teaching their parent how to play their favourite game!
  • Use Comic Strip Conversations to support explanations about what to do. For example, you may draw out the online chat which took place on the screen using stick figures and speech bubbles. You can use this to show how to respond responsibly or when to ask for help.
  • Ask what they know about being safe online. They may already be more aware than you think, for example creating strong passwords or not giving out their real name on a gaming app.
  • Check their use of internet vocabulary. Do they know what ‘cyberbullying’ is? Could they identify who their ‘trusted adult’ is? Are they aware how and why you might need to ‘report’ or ‘block’ someone? Do they understand what happens if they do this, so they feel confident and comfortable should they need to?
  • Consider your communication style. If you know your child needs time to process or needs information repeated, take this into account when you’re talking together. You may need to share small amounts of clear and concise information little and often.

This section was written in collaboration with West Suffolk Neurodevelopmental Support Service. Use our online service finder for SEND and neurodiversity services in your area.

Useful resources

There are a few things we haven’t included in this article because there’s already a lot of information available from experts on these topics, like checking privacy settings and using parental controls.

The following guides from Internet Matters may be useful, as they’re available for each device, app or platform your child may use:

If you need resources to share with your child or young person, Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) has lots of age-appropriate information:

TechSafe also has a number of resources to help parents of neurodivergent children have conversations about online safety.

To sum up, open conversations are an important part of keeping your child safe online. Try to have age-appropriate conversations from a young age, and keep them going as your child gets older. If you and your child can talk honestly about online safety, it can be reassuring for you both.

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