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Family cybersecurity
The right answer depends entirely on how old they are
A seven-year-old and a fifteen-year-old do not have the same problem, and advice that treats them the same is why so much of it gets ignored. Pick an age and the rest of this page starts there.
How old is the child you are thinking about?
The first real accounts appear
This is when accounts, usernames and other people arrive
Games with chat, school platforms and a first messaging app. The risk shifts from what they see to who can contact them, and the useful controls move from the device to the individual services.
Start here: Go through the privacy settings of the one game or app they use most, with them watching. Doing it together is what makes it stick.
The half that keeps working
Controls expire. The conversation does not.
Every filter you set has an end date — a friend's phone, a school laptop, an eighteenth birthday. What survives all of those is whether your child will come and tell you when something has gone wrong, and that is built long before it is needed.
“Am I going to lose my phone if I tell you?”
This is the question behind most silence. If the answer has ever been yes, the calculation is already made. Saying plainly that telling you is never what causes the phone to go is worth more than any app.
“What do I do if someone I do not know messages me?”
Agree the actual steps while nothing is happening: do not reply, screenshot, show an adult, block. Rehearsed once, it is something they can do while frightened.
“What if I already sent something I regret?”
The most important thing to have said in advance is that it can be dealt with and that you will not be angry. Children who believe that ask for help hours earlier, and hours matter.
“Why do you get to see and I do not get privacy?”
A fair question that deserves a real answer rather than an assertion. Saying what you look at, why, and what changes as they get older is what makes the arrangement legitimate rather than something to evade.
None of this is soft alternative to the technical work. It is the part that still functions at 11pm on someone else's wifi, which is exactly when you are not there and no filter you bought is either.
What actually to set up
Four layers, in the order worth doing them
Most of the useful ones are already in things you own. The paid layer is last on this list because it is genuinely last in usefulness, not because it is unnecessary.
Layer one
The accounts themselves
Every major platform has a child or supervised account type with different defaults. This is where the strongest controls live, it is free, and it is the layer most people skip in favour of buying something.
Free · built in
Layer two
The device
Screen Time on Apple devices and Family Link on Android cover app installs, purchases, hours and content ratings across everything on the device rather than one app at a time.
Free · built in
Layer three
The home network
A filtering DNS service applies to every device on your wifi at once, including guests and the ones with no parental controls of their own. Blunt, and it stops at the front door.
Free tiers exist
Layer four
A paid family suite
Worth it if you want one dashboard across several children and platforms, or location sharing and reporting the free layers do not give you. Worth nothing if the first three are not set up.
Paid
One caution about reporting features: a dashboard that shows you everything a teenager does is a decision about the relationship, not only about safety. Some families are fine with it, some are not, and it works far better when the child knows it exists.
The guide for that age
Two pages for 8–11 — the settings worth changing, the conversation worth having, and what to skip because it will not survive contact with a real household.
Straight answers
Questions parents actually ask
- At what age should they get a phone?
- There is no correct age, and anyone who gives you one is guessing. The more useful questions are what it is for, whether it needs to be a smartphone yet, and what you have agreed about where it sleeps.
- Is monitoring software spying?
- It depends on whether they know. Openly agreed monitoring that loosens as they get older is a normal part of parenting. Covert monitoring discovered later usually costs you more than it ever gained.
- They use a friend's phone anyway. Is any of this worth it?
- The technical layer is worth it for the years when it works, and the conversation is worth it precisely because it is the part that does not stop at your front door. That is the argument for doing both.
- What about gaming chat?
- It is where most unwanted contact with children happens, because it is voice or text with strangers by design. The single most useful setting on any game is who is allowed to message them.
- How do I handle a child who is better with tech than me?
- Stop competing on that ground. You are not going to out-configure a fifteen-year-old, and you do not have to — the things that matter here are judgement and trust, and those are yours to teach.
- Do I need antivirus on their laptop?
- The built-in protection on current Windows and macOS is reasonable for household use. Keeping the operating system updated and not being an administrator for daily use do more than most add-on products.
Where to look
Independent sources, none of them selling a suite
- Apple — Screen TimeThe built-in device controls, from the people who make them.
- Google — Family LinkThe equivalent on Android and Chromebooks.
- Common Sense MediaAge ratings and reviews written for parents rather than marketers.
- NCMEC — NetSmartzAge-banded material from the national centre, including for children themselves.
- FTC — protecting kids onlineThe regulator's own guidance, including on children's privacy law.
- CISA — Secure Our WorldThe four basics that matter for every member of a household.
One email, then we leave you alone
Take the two pages for your child's age
The settings worth changing, the conversation worth having, and the things to skip because they will not survive a real household.
The guide for that age
Two pages for 8–11 — the settings worth changing, the conversation worth having, and what to skip because it will not survive contact with a real household.