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Online Safety

Practical steps to keep your child safe from strangers, scams, and harmful content online.

Practical help for this challenge

Clear, actionable guidance to help you decide what to do next.

  • Practical Guide

    Helping Kids Navigate AI Companions

    An AI companion can remember what a child has said, ask about their day, offer encouragement and respond whenever they want to talk. That can make an AI relationship feel surprisingly real. For parents, the goal doesn’t have to be convincing children that these interactions are meaningless. The more important lesson is helping children understand what AI companionship is, and what it cannot replace.

    AI & Technology · Online Safety

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  • Practical Guide

    Protecting Your Child’s Privacy When Using AI

    Talking to an AI chatbot can feel surprisingly private. A child types a question, the AI responds directly, and no other person appears to be involved. That feeling can make it easy to share things they wouldn’t normally post publicly: their name, school, worries, family situations, photographs or even someone else’s personal information. Children don’t need to understand every detail of how AI companies handle data, but they do need one important habit: before typing, uploading or sharing anything with AI, stop and think about whether it should leave their hands at all.

    AI & Technology · Digital Habits

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  • Practical Guide

    Helping Kids Spot AI Misinformation and Deepfakes

    A video shows a famous person saying something shocking. A photograph captures an event that seems unbelievable. A voice message sounds exactly like someone you know. It may be real, edited, or created with AI. As AI-generated images, video, audio and text become more convincing, children need a new digital habit: don’t decide whether something is true based only on how real it looks or sounds. The goal isn’t to make children distrust everything online. It’s to teach them when to pause, investigate and ask for help.

    AI & Technology · Digital Habits

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  • Practical Guide

    Creating Family Rules for AI Use

    AI is quickly becoming part of everyday life, from homework help and search to creative tools and chatbots. Instead of making decisions one app at a time, a few clear family rules can give your child a framework for using AI safely and thoughtfully. The goal isn’t to create a long list of restrictions. It’s to help your child understand when AI is useful, when to question it, and when they need to turn to a real person instead.

    AI & Technology · Digital Habits

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  • Practical Guide

    Teaching Kids to Use AI Without Letting It Do the Thinking for Them

    AI can help children brainstorm, explore ideas and understand difficult concepts, but it can also give them convincing answers that are wrong or do too much of the thinking for them. This guide helps you teach your child to use AI as a tool while protecting their curiosity, judgment and ability to think for themselves.

    AI & Technology · Digital Habits

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  • Practical Guide

    Teaching Kids About Strong Passwords

    By age 6, many kids are logging into school apps, email or online games. This guide helps you teach your child how to create and protect strong passwords, one of the easiest ways to build lifelong digital safety habits.

    Digital Habits · Online Safety

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  • Practical Guide

    YouTube and Young Kids: Why It Is Risky and What to Do Instead

    YouTube has become a go-to babysitter for overwhelmed parents, but it is not always a safe or healthy choice for children under 5. This guide explains the risks and offers safer alternatives, plus five steps to take if you do use YouTube.

    Online Safety · Screen Time

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  • Practical Guide

    Protecting Your Toddler’s Digital Privacy

    Even before they can speak in full sentences, toddlers are building a digital footprint. This guide shows you how to keep your child’s data private from the very beginning.

    Online Safety · Phones & Devices

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  • Practical Guide

    What Kids Should Not Share Online

    Between the ages of 6 and 12, children are often too young to understand what oversharing really means. This guide helps you explain what not to share online, and why it matters.

    Digital Habits · Online Safety

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  • Practical Guide

    Teaching Kids to Search Safely

    Even innocent searches can bring up inappropriate, scary or confusing results. This guide helps you teach school-age kids to search more safely, and set up the right protections behind the scenes.

    Digital Habits · Online Safety

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  • Practical Guide

    Digital Permanence: Posting With the Future in Mind

    Teens often think online posts are temporary, but the internet has a long memory. This guide helps you talk with your teen about digital permanence and how to post, or not post, with their future in mind.

    Digital Habits · Online Safety

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  • Practical Guide

    Teaching Your Teen to Protect Their Online Privacy

    Teens are often told to be careful online, but rarely shown how. This guide helps you teach your teen clear, practical privacy strategies, from account settings and strong passwords to smart sharing, without being preachy or paranoid.

    Digital Habits · Online Safety

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  • Practical Guide

    Setting Up Device Safeguards at Home

    Children can stumble across websites and apps that are not safe for their age. This guide walks you through simple safeguards for computers, tablets, phones, YouTube and your home Wi-Fi, so you can create a safer online world for your child.

    Online Safety · Phones & Devices

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  • Practical Guide

    Finstas, Spam Accounts and Secret Profiles

    It is common for teens to have a second account for their “real” thoughts, jokes and private conversations. This guide helps you understand Finstas, spam accounts and burner apps, and talk with your teen about the risks and emotional cost of living a double life online.

    Online Safety · Social Media

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  • Practical Guide

    Online Strangers and Catfishing

    Not everyone online is who they say they are. This guide helps you teach your teen to spot red flags, recognize grooming tactics and stay in control when strangers slide into their digital space.

    Online Safety

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  • Practical Guide

    Handling Cyberbullying and Online Drama

    Online conflict is part of many teens’ digital lives, but when it crosses into bullying, exclusion or emotional harm, the effects can be serious. This guide helps you recognize cyberbullying, support your teen through online drama, and know when it’s time to ask for help.

    Bullying · Online Safety

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  • Practical Guide

    Gaming Safely

    Online gaming can be creative, social and fun, but multiplayer games can also introduce children to strangers, inappropriate conversations and other risks. This guide offers practical ways to make gaming safer without treating gaming itself as the enemy.

    Gaming · Online Safety

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  • Practical Guide

    Online Gaming, Voice Chat, and Who Your Child Plays With

    Your child may be sitting at home with a controller and headset, but gaming can put them in a room with people from almost anywhere. That doesn’t mean parents have to accept open communication with strangers as part of gaming. For younger children especially, parents can often restrict who can communicate with them, limit play to approved friends, and use the parental controls provided by the platform or game. As children grow, those protections can be paired with teaching them to make good decisions on their own. The goal isn’t maximum access or maximum restriction. It’s giving children the level of independence they’re ready to handle.

    Gaming · Online Safety

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