Ages 2–5
What to focus on
Suggested setup
No personal device. On your phone or tablet, lock the screen to one app (Guided Access on iPhone and iPad or app pinning on Android) and choose what plays.
Internet safety and parental controls.
Screen time is only part of the question. Also ask what a child can see, who can reach them, what information they share, and whether a product encourages spending. A short session does not eliminate these concerns. #60, #102, #103
Teach one simple response early: stop, tell a trusted adult, then report and block. Say, “You can tell me even if you clicked something, replied, or broke a rule. I will help you.” #105
Parental controls are one layer of protection, not a guarantee. They work best alongside supervision and a child who knows they can come to you. The age guidance below is OSFP’s recommendation, not a research-proven cutoff. The right safeguards depend on your child and on the devices, apps, and access available to them. Adjust them as your child grows.
Kindergarten to 2nd grade
What to focus on
Suggested setup
A shared family device in a common room. Approved sites and apps only; chat and purchases off.
3rd to 5th grade
What to focus on
Check multiplayer chat, private messages, purchases, and links outside the activity before allowing a game or app. Practice telling an adult about upsetting content or contact. Risks can involve peers as well as unfamiliar people. #60, #104, #105
Teach that passwords and personal details stay private, and that a profile may not be who it says it is. #104, #105
Suggested setup
Chat with strangers off in every game; purchase approval on. If your child needs to reach you, consider a watch or basic phone before a smartphone.
6th to 8th grade
What to focus on
Talk directly about cyberbullying, pressure to send private images, and requests to keep an online relationship secret. Agree on whom your child can tell and how you will help. Use the response steps below. #103, #104, #105
Review together who can contact them, see their profile or location, and make purchases. Explain why you are checking and what you will look at. Ask permission before sharing someone else’s image. #62, #71, #105
Suggested setup
If your child has a phone: a supervised account, messages from contacts only, adult-site filtering, and devices charging outside the bedroom overnight.
9th to 12th grade
What to focus on
Keep discussing consent, image sharing, impersonation, and sexual blackmail. Make clear that your teen can seek help even if they broke a family rule or already sent something. #105
Suggested setup
Move from blocking toward agreed rules. Review privacy, location sharing, and who can contact them together.
Parental controls will always miss something. The protection that goes everywhere is a child who knows they can tell you anything.
Parental controls
Set up parental controls in layers.
No single setting covers everything. Each layer catches some of what the others miss. Start with the one closest to how your child gets online.
Home Wi-Fi
A family filter on your router covers every device on your network.
Each device
Built-in controls follow the device off your Wi-Fi: Screen Time on Apple, Family Link on Android.
Apps and games
Turn off chat with strangers, private messages, and purchases in each one.
Conversation
Tell your child what you are checking and why, and practice what to do if something goes wrong.
Step by step
- Open your router’s settings. Most internet providers have an app, or the address is printed on the router. Change the admin password if it is still the default.
- Turn on the router’s parental controls if it has them. Look for “Parental controls,” “Family,” or “Security.” Many let you pause the internet or set an overnight schedule.
- No built-in controls? Switch to a free family filter. In the router’s DNS settings, enter Cloudflare for Families (1.1.1.3 and 1.0.0.3) or OpenDNS FamilyShield (208.67.222.123 and 208.67.220.123). Both block adult and malware sites.
What it can’t do: It only covers your Wi-Fi. Cellular data, a friend’s network, or a VPN app gets around it, so set up each device too.
- Add your child to Family Sharing (Settings › your name › Family). This lets you manage their device from yours.
- Open Settings › Screen Time and choose your child.
- Content & Privacy Restrictions: turn on, then set Web Content to “Limit Adult Websites,” or allow only websites you choose for younger children. Set age ratings for apps, films, and TV.
- Communication Limits: allow calls and messages only from their contacts. Keep “Communication Safety” on to blur nude images.
- Ask to Buy: requires your approval for every download and purchase.
- Downtime: schedule overnight hours. Set a Screen Time passcode your child does not know.
For young children on your device: Settings › Accessibility › Guided Access locks the screen to one app until you enter a code.
- Install Google Family Link on your phone and create or link your child’s Google account.
- Google Play: require approval for downloads and purchases, and set content ratings.
- Chrome and Search: choose “Try to block explicit sites,” or “Only allow approved sites” for younger children. SafeSearch stays on.
- Screen time: set a daily limit and a bedtime, and block individual apps.
- Location: turn on only if you plan to use it.
For young children on your device: Settings › Security › App pinning keeps the screen on one app.
- Use the console’s free family app from your phone: Xbox Family Settings, PlayStation Family Management, or Nintendo Switch Parental Controls.
- Communication: turn off voice and text chat, or limit it to approved friends.
- Spending: require approval for purchases or set the spending limit to zero.
- Age ratings and play time: set a rating limit and a daily schedule.
- Check each game’s own settings. Popular games such as Roblox, Fortnite, and Minecraft have separate chat and spending controls. Lock them with a parent PIN.
- Windows: add your child to a Microsoft Family Safety group. Turn on web filtering, screen-time limits, and purchase approval.
- Mac: use Screen Time in System Settings, with the same options as the iPhone.
- Personal Chromebook: sign in with your child’s Family Link account.
- School-issued laptop or Chromebook: the school manages it. Ask what filter applies at home, and whether chat, games, or YouTube are reachable.
Keep computers in a shared room rather than a bedroom.
- Make a kids’ profile in each streaming service with an age rating, and lock adult profiles with a PIN.
- YouTube: for children under 13, use YouTube Kids set to approved content only, or a supervised account through Family Link. Turn off autoplay.
- Smart TVs and streaming boxes: set a PIN for purchases and app installs.
Even in a kids’ app or with kids’ settings on, our recommendation for children is to allow only occasional, supervised content you choose, not an open feed they control. #84
If your child needs to reach you, a smartphone is not the only choice. #59
- A kids’ smartwatch for calls, texts, and location with approved contacts.
- A basic phone for calls and texts, without apps or a browser.
- A phone built for children that ships without a browser or app store and lets you approve contacts and apps.
If you choose a smartphone, set it up with Screen Time or Family Link before you hand it over. It is easier to loosen settings later than to add them.
Questions for school and child care
Alongside our five learning questions, ask about any device or app your child uses there:
What can students reach?
Can students reach unrelated games, video feeds, open searches, or chats through the assigned device or app?
Who can contact them?
Which contact and sharing features are restricted, and how are staff supervising use?
What data is collected?
What student information does the service collect, who can access it, and does it include advertising or purchases?
Who responds?
Who responds when a child encounters bullying, sexual content, or concerning contact? How are families informed and students supported?
If something happens
Whether it is bullying or a sexual threat, respond calmly. The child deserves help, not blame. For sexual threats or blackmail, these steps follow NCMEC’s advice. #105
- Stop the contact
- Help your child step away and stop replying.
- Keep the evidence
- Save messages and profiles rather than deleting them.
- Report and block
- Use the platform’s reporting tools, then block the account. Involve the school when classmates are involved.
- Don’t pay or cooperate
- Paying or cooperating rarely ends the threats. Seek help instead.
What the research shows
These findings support our recommendation to avoid open-ended internet access in early childhood and elementary school.
Exploitation123 studies
Meta-analysis · Strength: ModerateOnline sexual exploitation and unwanted sexual contact are documented risks for children and teens worldwide.1
1What this does and doesn’t tell usEstimates varied widely by study and region and cannot be applied directly to an individual elementary-age child.
Read the summaryCyberbullyingAges 8–19
Meta-analysis · Strength: ModerateAcross 27 long-term studies, cyberbullying had a small average association with later mental-health symptoms.2
2What this does and doesn’t tell usObservational evidence does not settle causation or capture every child’s experience.
Read the summaryAdvertisingYoung children
Cross-sectional · Strength: ModerateAdvertising appeared in 95% of 135 sampled apps for young children.3
3What this does and doesn’t tell usA 2019 sample; it does not measure every current app.
Read the summaryIn-game purchasesAges 7–14
Qualitative study · Strength: PreliminaryChildren described in-game currency and purchases as confusing and hard to understand.4
4What this does and doesn’t tell usInterviews with 22 children; it does not measure every current platform.
Read the summaryNone of these studies shows that every online activity is harmful or that a particular filter guarantees safety.
Sources
Original studies, evidence reports, and official guidance are linked below. The research library provides fuller summaries and methodological limitations.
- #59.Barzilay, R., Pimentel, S. D., Tran, K. T., Visoki, E., Pagliaccio, D., & Auerbach, R. P. (2025). Smartphone ownership, age of smartphone acquisition, and health outcomes in early adolescence. Pediatrics, 157(1), e2025072941. (opens in a new tab) Library summary →
- #60.Hardwick, T., & Carter, M. (2025). "They're scamming me": How children experience and conceptualize harm in game monetization. In Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM. (opens in a new tab) Library summary →
- #62.Munzer, T., Parga-Belinkie, J., Milkovich, L. M., Tomopoulos, S., Ajumobi, T., Cross, C., Gerwin, R., Madigan, S., & Council on Communications and Media. (2026). Digital ecosystems, children, and adolescents: Policy statement. Pediatrics, 157(2), e2025075320. doi.org/10.1542/peds.2025-075320 (opens in a new tab) Library summary →
- #71.American Psychological Association. (2023). Health advisory on social media use in adolescence. Washington, DC: APA. apa.org (opens in a new tab) Library summary →
- #84.Meyer, M., Adkins, V., Yuan, N., Weeks, H. M., Chang, Y.-J., & Radesky, J. (2019). Advertising in young children’s apps: A content analysis. Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics, 40(1), 32–39. doi:10.1097/DBP.0000000000000622 (opens in a new tab) Library summary →
- #102.Munzer, T., Milkovich, L. M., Madigan, S., et al., & Council on Communications and Media. (2026). Digital ecosystems, children, and adolescents: Technical report. Pediatrics, 157(2), e2025075321. doi:10.1542/peds.2025-075321 (opens in a new tab) Library summary →
- #103.Fry, D., Krzeczkowska, A., Ren, J., Lu, M., Fang, X., & Into the Light Index Study Group. (2025). Prevalence estimates and nature of online child sexual exploitation and abuse: A systematic review and meta-analysis. The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, 9(3), 184–193. doi:10.1016/S2352-4642(24)00329-8 (opens in a new tab) Library summary →
- #104.Lee, J., Choo, H., Zhang, Y., Cheung, H. S., Zhang, Q., & Ang, R. P. (2026; first published online 2025). Cyberbullying victimization and mental health symptoms among children and adolescents: A meta-analysis of longitudinal studies. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 27(2), 391–406. doi:10.1177/15248380241313051 (opens in a new tab) Library summary →
- #105.National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. (n.d.). Sextortion: Overview and what to do. Accessed September 28, 2026. (opens in a new tab) Library summary →