Cyber Safety for Kids

This is the practical, technical half of online safety: the habits worth building before they are needed rather than after. None of it requires expertise, and most of it is a single evening of setup plus a few conversations.

Passwords

The rule children are usually given is complexity. The rule that matters more is that passwords are not reused, because the common way an account is lost is not guessing but a leak somewhere else.

Three unrelated words are easier for a child to remember and harder to break than a short scramble of symbols. A password manager, including the one built into the browser, is a reasonable thing to set up together at around eleven.

And the social rule: passwords are not shared with friends, however close. This one needs saying explicitly, because sharing a password reads as an act of trust at twelve.

Two-factor authentication

Turn it on for their email, because whoever controls the email can reset everything else. This is the highest-value fifteen minutes in this whole article.

Recognising a scam

Children are targeted with the same tricks as adults, dressed differently: free game currency, a giveaway, an account upgrade, a message from a friend whose account has been taken. The common feature is urgency plus a link.

Teach one habit rather than a list: if a message wants you to hurry, stop. Check with the person another way. Nothing legitimate expires in four minutes.

The trail

Worth explaining honestly rather than as a warning. Things posted can be screenshotted, kept and resurfaced, including in apps that promise otherwise. Accounts set to private are private from the public, not from the platform or from a friend who takes a photograph of the screen.

The useful question, and it works better than any rule: would you be comfortable if this were still around in five years.

Public wifi and devices

Do not log in to anything that matters on shared or public wifi. Log out of accounts on borrowed devices. Lock the phone with a code that is not their birthday.

What to do when something goes wrong

Have this conversation before it does. Do not delete anything, because it may be evidence. Screenshot it. Block and report. Tell an adult. And from your side: help first, consequences later if at all.

Children hide problems mainly because they expect to lose the device. If the predictable outcome of telling you is losing the thing their friendships live in, they will take their chances alone.

The setup evening

Do it together rather than to them, at around ten or eleven. Strong distinct passwords on the accounts that matter, two-factor on the email, privacy settings reviewed, location sharing off except where deliberate, payment methods removed. A child who helped configure it understands it, and is far likelier to tell you when something changes.

If you are worried about a specific situation, contact your local child protection service or a specialist online safety helpline.