Child Online Safety: What to Say (and What Not To)
Fewer than one in five children who experience online harm tell a trusted adult about it.1 This is not primarily a child online safety awareness problem, as most parents already know online safety risks exist. The problem is a conversation problem, which has a practical solution.
Today, a free tool called the Conversation Guide Generator is live on the CSG Resource Hub. It is built for parents, teachers and DSLs who know something needs to be said, but are not sure how to say it.
Why Most Parents and Teachers Don’t Know What to Say About Online Safety
I have presented on the topic of child online safety. The question I get asked most often is not “what are the risks?” Parents know the risks, they have seen the headlines and they worry.
The question I get asked most is: “What do I actually say?”
What do you say to an eight-year-old about grooming that informs without terrifying? How do you ask a fourteen-year-old about sextortion without making them feel interrogated or embarrassed? What is the opening line for a Year 9 teacher who suspects something is wrong? What does a DSL say in the first sixty seconds after a child online safety disclosure?
That gap, between knowing something is wrong and knowing what to say about it, is where children fall through. The research on why fewer than one in five tell a trusted adult is consistent, children have learned, from watching how adults react, that telling someone might make everything worse. Their device gets taken away, the conversation turns into a lecture or the adult panics. The child learns, next time, stay quiet.
That is not a parenting failure, it is a communication failure. Luckily, communication failures are fixable.
Free Online Safety Conversation Guide for Parents, Teachers and DSLs
The Conversation Guide Generator is free to use on the CSG Resource Hub. You pick five things: your role (parent, teacher, or DSL), the child’s age, the platform or app, the concern, and whether a disclosure has already happened. The tool builds a plain-English online safety conversation guide with six sections:
How to open the conversation
Age-appropriate language guidance
What not to say, and why
Questions to ask
What to do after
How to follow up if they shut down
Nine online safety concerns are covered: grooming, sextortion and image-based abuse, cyberbullying, screen time and device overuse, radicalisation, self-harm online, AI risks (deepfakes, companions and chatbots), stranger contact, and explicit content exposure.
Five age groups: under 8, 8 to 10, 11 to 13, 14 to 16, and 17 to 18. Every output adapts to role, age, platform, and whether the conversation is preventative or post-disclosure. It also prints cleanly for parent evenings, safeguarding folders, or keeping on your desk.
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How to Talk to a Child About Online Safety: Why the Conversation Is the Protection
The single most protective factor in child online safety is not parental controls or platform regulation, though both matter. It is whether a child believes an adult will respond well if they say something.
That belief is created or destroyed one conversation at a time.
I have seen what happens when children do not tell anyone and would rather keep it a secret. I built this tool because I know the gap is real and I know it is closeable. You do not need to be an online safety expert. You need the right words at the right moment.
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As always, thank you for your support. Please share this across your social media, and if you do have any comments, questions, or concerns, then feel free to reach out to me via the Social page, as I am always happy to spend some time helping to protect children online.
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If you or a child you know needs support:
Childline: 0800 1111 | childline.org.uk
Available 24/7, 365 days a year. Free, confidential, and here for every child.
Internet Matters Pulse Report, 2025. “Fewer than 1 in 5 victims of online harm tell a trusted adult, primarily due to fear of device confiscation.” Accessed May 2026 at internetmatters.org