How to Keep Children Safe in Online Games

Games are where most children meet strangers online. Not social media, which is the usual focus, but the voice chat in a game they have been playing happily for two years.

Why games specifically

Four features combine in a way few other places do. There is open voice or text chat with people who are not friends. There is a shared activity that builds rapport quickly, which is exactly how a relationship is formed. There is often a way to send items or currency, which creates obligation. And parents tend to see gaming as the safer option, so it is supervised less than social media.

That combination is the reason safeguarding organisations report a large share of online grooming beginning in games.

The settings that matter

Different in every game, and worth an hour once.

• Voice and text chat: off, or restricted to friends only. This is the single biggest lever.
• Who can send friend requests: nobody, or friends of friends.
• Profile visibility: private. Usernames should not contain a real name, age or school.
• Purchases: no stored card, password required, and check whether the console account has a balance.
• Screen time and shutdown: where the platform offers it, because ending a game mid-match is what causes most of the conflict.

The conversations

People are not always who they say. Somebody claiming to be eleven may not be. Say it once, plainly, without making the game frightening.

Gifts create obligation. This is the one children do not anticipate. Free currency, a rare item, help levelling up. If somebody gives you something and then asks for something, come and tell me.

Never move to another app. A request to continue on a different platform, especially a private one, is the most common escalation step and is worth naming as a specific thing to report.

Nothing about you. No school, no area, no photographs, no daily routine.

You will not lose the game for telling me. Say it in advance and mean it.

Play it with them

More useful than any setting, and easier while they are young. Play the game occasionally, badly. Ask who they play with and how they know them. Let them explain the mechanics to you, which they will enjoy far more than being asked whether they are safe.

A parent who understands the game is a parent a child can describe a problem to without first explaining the whole world it happened in. That gap is a real reason children do not report.

The money question

Loot boxes and in-game currency are designed with the same mechanisms as gambling, and the resemblance is not accidental. Several countries have regulated them for that reason. Worth discussing openly rather than only blocking: what the odds are, why the currency is not priced in real money, and why the packs cost slightly more than the bundle you can buy.

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