Internet Safety for Kids: Tips and Parental Controls

Internet Safety for Kids

Keeping our children safe from the dangers of the Internet may seem like fighting a losing battle. But sticking with a few basic guidelines and teaching your kids about safe surfing will help tremendously.

In today's digital age, ensuring your children's safety online is paramount. With the vast array of content and potential risks on the internet, it's crucial to establish clear guidelines and communication channels. Educating your children about online dangers, from cyberbullying to inappropriate content, equips them with the knowledge to navigate the digital landscape responsibly. Implementing parental controls and monitoring their online activity can provide an additional layer of protection. Encouraging open dialogue and fostering trust empowers children to seek help when they encounter anything unsettling online. By staying vigilant and actively engaged in their online experiences, parents can create a safer digital environment for their children to explore and thrive

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Online Privacy and Security

Educate Yourself

The Internet is the greatest resource of information. Both good and bad. Knowing what the Internet can offer, what mistakes you should avoid, and what your children may get their hands on, will put you in a more comfortable position to be able to advise them. Special classes might be available in your region, or you can take online courses, which can educate you about the Internet and provide some guidance on how to make sure your children are safe
Also see: Keeping Your Kids Safe Online With Parental Controls.

Communication is Key

The main concern for you is to protect your children while Online. Educating and talking to them about Internet safety is paramount. They must always know that they are welcome to come to you if they have any questions. You should ask your kids what they do on the Net as well as what kind of websites they go to. If your kids are use instant messaging and chat rooms, be sure that they know who they are chatting with. Never let your kids meet people they have met online without talking to you first. Social media services such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat. Snapchat are very popular among teens and their friends. But these sites might lead children into giving out their or your personal information. These Services do have privacy settings to assure that your profile could only be seen by people you know. As the Parent, you should insist your child set up these privacy settings. When educating your children, help them to understand what inappropriate content is. Also make them aware that they should never run any unknown programs. Or provide any information, especially personal information, to people they do not know.

Being Vigilant

It may be a good idea to place your children's computers in the main living area to keep an eye on their web activity. This can be particularly important for younger kids and can help you educate your kids further. Monitoring how your kids use those mobile phones is much more difficult.

Teach Kids to Recognize Online Threats

Children should be taught how to identify common online dangers such as phishing attempts, fake profiles, and suspicious links. Encourage them to question unfamiliar messages, avoid sharing personal details, and always verify sources before clicking. Building awareness early helps children develop critical thinking skills that reduce the risk of scams, cyberbullying, and identity theft.

Kids and Social Media Safely

Understanding how Social Media websites effects your teens can help you understand the dangers they might be exposed to. Following or friending your teens on these Social Media sites can help you keep an eye on their online activity.

Percentage of Teens on Social Media Sites

Setting Digital Boundaries at Home

Creating clear rules around screen time, device usage, and online behavior helps maintain a safe and balanced digital environment. Parents can establish device-free zones, monitor app usage, and use parental control tools to guide safe browsing. Consistent boundaries not only protect children online but also promote healthier habits and responsible technology use.

Use Available Applications

There are apps specifically designed for parental control that can help keep your children safe on the Internet. As they get older, they will learn how to bypass parental control software. But this can still be helpful to stop younger children from unintentionally stumbling across inappropriate Websites. And for those rare species of kids that actually listen to their parents.
See below for a list of some of the Best Parental Control Applications

Protect Your Mobile Devices

Many of the same precautions you take with your PC or Laptops should be taken with mobile phones, tablets, and other devices that could contain sensitive information. Encourage your teen to use password protection and enable the device locator function on all your devices. It is also not a good idea for apps in general to use location services, since these may reveal where they live, go to school, even where the kids hang out after school.

Most devices will allow you to select what apps can show your location. Sit down with your kids and look at their phone or tablet's location setting. An example might be a picture of their birthday party on Instagram, that will not post your home address.

Purchase a VPN

This can help your home Computer and other mobile devices. A VPN will provide that extra peace of mind for you. It hides your real Internet location and transmits all the data you send and receive via an encrypted tunnel. This way, it keeps your private information and communications away from hackers, cyber-criminals, and other third parties.
See our review on NordVPN

Search Engine Filters

Most of us do not even know about this feature. But do make sure that the Search Engine your kids use has a search filtering option enabled
Instead of going straight to the Search Engines, use the below links that has the "Safe Settings" enabled by default

Google Safe Search Go to Settings > Privacy & Safety.
Microsoft Bing Safe Search Go to Account > Search settings
Yahoo Safe Search Go to Preferences

Or try some of these search engines
DuckDuckGo: A popular privacy-focused engine that doesn't track, store search history, or use user profiles.
Swisscows: A family-friendly, Swiss-based search engine that blocks explicit content by default.
Qwant: A European engine that does not collect personal data and separates search from advertising.
Brave Search: Built into the Brave browser, offering independent search results with strong privacy protections.
Startpage: Offers results from Google but keeps user data anonymous and private.
Ecosia: Uses ad revenue to plant trees, with strict policies against storing search data.
MetaGer: A German non-profit metasearch engine that protects user anonymity.

Internet Service Providers (ISP)

Some Internet Service Providers (your ISP) offer the possibility to run parental control / content filtering for your Internet connection. You may consider contacting them to see if this solution is available. It may even be safer than separate applications
Listing some free parental control software programs for you to examine.

Qustodio
Designed to supervise, manage, and protect your child's device use on the go

OpenDNS FamilySheild
FamilyShield is the single easiest way to protect your kids online.

KidLogger
KidLogger lets you know: how long your Kid is working on the PC.

Kaspersky Safe Kids
Kaspersky Safe Kids is an advanced parental control app that helps you protect your kids.

Parental Monitoring Software
Hidden Mode & Undetectable. 3 Easy Steps. Real-Time Tracking. View Activity Remotely.

You should also be running and updating your Antivirus Software regularly because your child might download an infected file or visit a malicious website.

Internet Safety Websites

The following websites are some of the best resources that parents and teachers can use to introduce kids to Internet safety.

Internet Safety for Kids

Threats to your child's internet safety include harassment, invasions of privacy, cyberbullying, sexting. The most effective way to keep your kids safe is just to talk with them about online risks, how to avoid them and how they can come to you when something goes wrong.

Internet Safety 101

Age-Based Guidelines Internet Safety 101, is an initiative of Enough Is Enough, a 501c(3) whose mission is to make the Internet Safer for Children and Families.

YouTube - Teens and Online Safety

Explore the Council for Digital Good playlist. Announcing that selections have been made for Microsoft’s 2021 Council for Digital Good. We look forward to engaging with this new group of teens from across the U.S., as we jointly explore ways to promote safer, healthier and more respectful online interactions.

How to Keep Your Children Safe

Internet safety for kids depends on parents being aware of online risks and understanding how to help their children and teens avoid them. Almost every American child and teen has access to the Internet. They socialize in online games or on smartphones just as they would on a playground.

Justice.gov

Discuss Internet safety and develop an online safety plan with children before they engage in online activity. Establish clear guidelines, teach children to spot red flags, and encourage children to have open communication with you. Supervise young children's use of the Internet, including periodically checking their profiles and posts.

Online Safety for Youth

Keeping Children Safe Online Due to COVID-19, kids and adults are online more than ever, often unsupervised in the same space. This Department of Justice webpage provides information, tips, videos, and more to help kids stay safe. National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

SafeWise

State-by-State Online Safety Laws. Teach kids how to navigate the Internet - Talk about proper online etiquette, how to enter safe search terms, how to identify a secure website (HTTPS), and when to ask an adult for help. Let kids know what to watch.

20 Internet safety tips and checklist

Playing it safe online can help prevent you and your kids from being exposed to unwanted information, materials, or risks on the Internet that might harm your devices, personal information, or your family. It's smart to teach children computer safety so that they do not fall victim to some common dangers of the Internet.

StaySafe.org

Top 10 Internet Safety Rules For Your Kids. Along with cyberbullying, one of the greatest risks for children online is, sadly, pedophiles that use the Internet with the aim of meeting up with your child.

Consumer Reports.org

According to Collier, effective online parenting begins with a set of age-appropriate safety rules that should be non-negotiable for children and young teens.

How To Teach Internet Safety To Elementary Students

With children spending time online at younger and younger ages, it’s vital that we explicitly teach young children how to protect themselves online. Most young children get the “stranger danger” talk at school, so they know about how to handle strangers in their neighborhood and in face-to-face situations.

KidsHealth

Internet Safety and Federal laws. The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) helps protect kids younger than 13 when they're online. It is designed to keep anyone from getting a child's personal information without a parent knowing about it and agreeing to it first.

Best Parental Control Applications for Android and iPhone

If you are a parent, your kids safety will always be the top priority. Responding to that need, parental monitoring appslike the ones listed below were created to keep our kids safe online.
From NordVPN - The Global Rise of Parental Monitoring Applications

KidsGuard

KidsGuard Pro is a spy app and child monitoring software. The app is installed on the target device, and gathers and sends data to the platform

mSpy

Can an app really make being a parent easier? When it’s mSpy, it can. Find out what they’re doing on their phone and relax knowing they’re making good decisions.

Kaspersky Safe Kids

Get flexible tools that help you safeguard their activities, monitor their behavior and teach them self-control.

Spy Phone

free phone tracking software that enables parents to monitor their child’s activities on his or her Android® smartphone. New Panic Button added for emergency situations.

Bark

Service lets you monitor content, manage screen time, and filter websites so you can get peace of mind while your child is online.

SentryPC

See what applications your kids are using, who they talk to, what websites they visit, and much more.

Qustodio

with daily screen time limits, app monitoring, including Facebook and YouTube, app blocking, kid tracking, family mode, porn blocking and more.

Surfblocker

Built to be simple to use, protecting your device with Safe Surfer is as easy as tapping the Get Protected button. Safe Surfer: Block Porn & Apps

NetNanny

With the all-new Net Nanny® Parental Control app for screen time parenting, you’ll have the visibility to track in real-time, the online and app activity of each child in your family, while also protecting your children from online dangers.

WebWatcher

WebWatcher is compatible with iOS, Android, Windows, ChromeOS and macOS operating systems. WebWatcher Mobile records text messages, call logs, web history, photos, and GPS. WebWatcher for PC and Mac features include email & Instant Message monitoring, keystroke logging, web content filtering and monitoring, and screenshot monitoring

Mobicip

Mobicip is the most comprehensive parental control app with website blocker, screen time schedules, app limits, social media monitor, and family locator.

REFOG

learn how much time your kids use their computer to play and to learn, who they chat with and who approaches them via social networks. Full Control from Any Place

AURA

All-in-one digital safety for the whole family, available on every device.

Google Family Link

Family Link’s easy to use tools allow you to understand how your child is spending time on their device, see their device location, manage privacy settings, and more.

Microsoft Family Safety

The Microsoft Family Safety app helps empower you and your family to create healthy habits and protect the ones you love

Best Practices

Public Wi-Fi should be treated as an untrusted network, even when it requires a password. Before connecting at a hotel, airport, café, library, or other public location, prepare your device to limit unnecessary exposure and protect your accounts.

• • Update your device before leaving home. Install operating-system, browser, application, antivirus, and VPN updates over a trusted connection so known security vulnerabilities are patched before you use a shared network.
• • Keep the firewall and encrypted DNS features enabled. A firewall restricts unsolicited network connections, while encrypted DNS can reduce exposure of domain-name requests when supported by your browser, device, or VPN.
• • Disable nearby sharing services. Turn off Bluetooth, AirDrop, Nearby Share, printer sharing, and device discovery unless they are actively needed. These features can expose your device to unwanted connection requests in crowded public places.
• • Use privacy-preserving Wi-Fi settings. Leave randomized or private hardware address features enabled when your device supports them. This makes it more difficult for hotspot operators to recognize and track the same device across different networks.
• • Protect information visible on your screen. Sit where others cannot easily watch you enter passwords, payment information, or confidential business data. Consider using a privacy screen when working in airports, hotels, or other crowded locations.
• • Teach children not to join unfamiliar hotspots. Children should ask a trusted adult before connecting a phone, tablet, or laptop to public Wi-Fi or responding to a network sign-in page. Review these additional online safety practices for children before allowing unsupervised internet access away from home.
• • Enable account alerts before traveling. Login, payment, and password-change notifications can provide an early warning if an important account is accessed unexpectedly after a public Wi-Fi session.
• • Restart and inspect the device after suspicious activity. If you encounter unexpected redirects, certificate warnings, downloads, or repeated login requests, disconnect immediately. Reconnect through a trusted network, remove unfamiliar applications or browser extensions, run a security scan, and review recent account activity.

Summary

In our modern digital era, safeguarding our children's online experiences is paramount. It involves educating them about potential online risks such as cyberbullying, inappropriate content, and online predators, while also setting clear guidelines and boundaries. Implementing parental controls and monitoring tools can help mitigate risks, but fostering open communication and trust with our children is equally essential. By staying informed, engaged, and proactive in guiding our children's online activities, we can create a safer and more secure digital environment for them to explore, learn, and connect with others responsibly.

Frequently Asked Questions

At what age should parents begin teaching children about internet safety?

Internet safety lessons should begin as soon as a child starts using connected devices, even when an adult is present. Start with simple rules about asking permission, protecting personal information, and telling a trusted adult when something feels wrong. As children mature, expand the conversation to include social media privacy, scams, cyberbullying, online predators, and safe web browsing habits.

Are free parental controls enough to keep children safe online?

Free parental controls can provide useful website filtering, app restrictions, purchase approvals, location controls, and screen-time limits. However, no parental control software can recognize every harmful message, scam, or inappropriate interaction. Parents should combine technical safeguards with age-appropriate rules, regular privacy reviews, device updates, and open conversations that encourage children to report uncomfortable online experiences without fearing immediate punishment.

How much do parental control apps usually cost?

Costs vary by provider, supported devices, and included features. Some operating systems and internet providers include basic controls at no additional charge, while paid services may require monthly or annual subscriptions for advanced filtering, activity reports, location alerts, or multi-device management. Compare compatibility, privacy practices, cancellation terms, and the features your family will actually use before purchasing a parental monitoring service.

What should I do if my child keeps bypassing parental controls?

First, determine how the controls are being bypassed and close that specific gap by changing administrator passwords, disabling guest accounts, checking alternate browsers, and reviewing device permissions. Avoid treating software as the entire solution. Explain why each rule exists, establish reasonable consequences, and adjust restrictions as your child demonstrates responsibility. Persistent workarounds may require stronger router-level filtering or help from your internet provider.

What information should children never share online?

Children should not publicly share their full name, home address, phone number, school, passwords, daily schedule, live location, travel plans, or financial information. Photos can also reveal addresses, school uniforms, identification cards, or embedded location data. Teach children to ask before posting and review ways to protect personal information online.

How can parents make a child’s social media account safer?

Set the account to private, limit messages and comments to approved contacts, disable unnecessary location access, and require approval before tagged content appears. Review followers together and remove unknown or suspicious accounts. Use a unique password and multi-factor authentication when available. Because settings can change, periodically revisit each platform’s controls and learn how to improve social media privacy.

What should a child do when an online stranger asks to meet in person?

The child should stop communicating, avoid sharing additional information, save relevant messages, and immediately tell a parent or another trusted adult. They should never arrange a meeting, even if the person claims to be another child. Block and report the account through the platform. Threats, sexual requests, grooming behavior, or attempts to obtain explicit images should be reported promptly to the appropriate authorities.

How should parents respond to cyberbullying?

Listen calmly, reassure the child that asking for help was the right decision, and preserve screenshots, usernames, dates, links, and messages. Do not encourage retaliation. Block and report the aggressor through the platform, review account privacy settings, and contact the school when classmates are involved. Seek professional or emergency help if the child expresses fear, severe distress, self-harm, or immediate danger.

How can children recognize phishing messages and online scams?

Teach children to question unexpected prizes, urgent warnings, free game currency, account-verification requests, and messages asking them to click a link or provide a password. They should verify requests through the official app or website instead of using message links. Reviewing common phishing and malware warning signs can help the entire family avoid deceptive downloads and login pages.

What should we do if a child’s online account is hacked?

Change the password immediately, sign out other sessions, enable multi-factor authentication, and check whether the recovery email or phone number was altered. Review sent messages, purchases, connected apps, and account activity, then warn contacts about suspicious messages. Use a different strong password for every account and check other accounts if the compromised password was reused.

How can families make online gaming safer for children?

Review each game’s age rating, chat controls, friend requests, purchase settings, and reporting tools before play begins. Limit voice and text chat to people the child genuinely knows, and explain that usernames do not prove someone’s identity. Protect payment details, block suspicious users, and watch for scam links or unsolicited texts. Families can also learn how to identify and block scam messages.

Author Bio: Harry Sharp

A senior content writer for RSH Web with a fondness for composing engaging and informative articles. In addition to...

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