Advice for parents of under 5s
- Supervise use - We recommend this age group only have supervised access to technology. This means that they should only be using technology when fully supported by a parent or carer.
- Use family devices, accounts and services – Use child friendly devices and services like children’s tablets and child versions of popular video sites.
- Check content first – Check the content on apps and games each time before use and turn off features like ‘autoplay’ so you can be in control of what is shown next.
- Set up your parental controls – make use of safety settings across your home Wi-Fi, devices and accounts. You can find out more by visiting our parental controls page.
- Start safety conversations - it’s important to start talking about safety online as soon as your child is using technology. Visit our Techosaurus page for age-appropriate resources.
- Establish healthy habits - Make technology use purposeful from a young age by making sure it’s playing a positive role in your family. You can do this by watching and enjoying age-appropriate online videos together.
Advice for parents of children under 10 years old
- Enable access to devices with limited features - Device usage at this age is best kept to devices with limited capability. This could include tablets without data and non-smart phones that only allow calls and texts.
- Keep tech use visible in the home - Try to keep tech use in shared family spaces or used with bedroom doors open. This will allow you to support your child and be more aware of what they are doing online.
- Follow age ratings – Apps, sites and games come with age ratings which are important to follow. You can find out the age rating on the website for the platform or by visiting Common Sense Media’s reviews.
- Use safety settings – Explore the in-app and device safety settings with your child and check them regularly to make sure they are still in place.
- Revisit parental controls – as children grow up and need the internet more for schoolwork you may want to adjust your parental controls. Keep checking these regularly to make sure they are in place.
- Have regular safety conversations – at this age online safety conversations should be happening regularly. Visit our advice on talking to your child about online safety.
- Build healthy habits - acknowledge the positives it brings as part of your safety conversations and agree rules and boundaries together as a family.
Advice for parents of pre-teens and teens
- Follow age requirements - Many popular Apps, sites and games are 13+, it’s important to check and follow these with pre-teens.
- Speak to phone providers - If your child owns their own smartphone then contact the service provider to make sure it is registered as a child's device. This means additional safety restrictions can be put in place.
- Support your child with their settings - Support your child to manage their safety and wellbeing settings across devices and accounts.
- Focus on regular safety conversations – It’s important to keep conversations regular at this age. Check our advice on tackling challenging conversations including tips for how to use technology to support you with this.
- Share youth facing help and support - Make sure your child knows about services that can help like Childline. You could start by sharing the online safety advice content and the Report Remove tool created by the IWF and Childline.
- Revisit parental controls – you will likely need to revisit your parental controls again at this age and adjust them. Keep checking these regularly to make sure they are in place.
- Explore healthy habits together – Healthy habits work best when all the family agrees to following them. This could be agreeing to charge devices away from beds to support sleep and not using devices during mealtimes to help take breaks.
Advice for parents of children with SEND
- Parents are best placed to know their child – This is particularly true for children with SEND. We recommend parents consider the right age and stage for their child based off the level of support they need.
- Make use of tech to support – We know tech can be vital for communication, learning and sensory or emotional regulation for children with special educational needs. It’s important that children continue to receive access that is right for them.
- Explore all relevant strategies – While age-based recommendations may not be appropriate they can instead be approached as a list of practical strategies for parents to explore.
- Use resources tailored to children with SEND – We worked with Ambitious about Autism to create tailored advice and resources for parents to use with their children.
TRUST toolkit for your child's first phone
If your child is about to get their first phone or a new device, then it’s a great idea to plan ahead for how they will use it safely. We have partnered with Vodafone to create a toolkit of activities to help you feel confident about starting this journey together as a family.
Frequently asked questions from parents and carers
It’s important to remember every child and every family is different and will have differing views on technology ownership and usage. Giving a child independent access won’t mean they will necessarily experience harm online, but they should be very clear about what to do if something happens that does trouble them.
If your child already has their own device or account, consider if you could make it for your whole family instead. Make sure safety, privacy and wellbeing settings are turned on and devices don’t have passwords which aren’t known to you. Finally, agree rules and boundaries for use, have regular safety conversations and make sure your child knows about the support they can access via services like Childline.
Talk to your child about why they want it and what they would use it for. It may be that you could increase access to the apps and games they want on family devices and accounts. Check with other parents and school about guidelines, and review age ratings together with your child.
We know families don't always agree on the right age to give their child a device or their own account. When one family member chooses to allow access earlier this can be challenging. Turn on all safety settings and talk to your child about online safety. If possible, discuss shared rules and boundaries for online activities with the family member. If you are not able to do that, breakdown your households’ rules and boundaries to things you want from your child when they are with you (e.g. set time limits) and healthy and safe habits they can always have (e.g. asking for help, adjusting notifications settings).
It is a parent’s choice if and when they want to allow their child access to devices and online platforms. Whether your child has access at home or not they will still likely have some access through school, clubs and friends so it’s important to discuss online safety with them in any case and explain why you’d prefer to delay access.
Agreeing rules and boundaries for the family is an important step in managing time online. Talk to your child about their online activities and agree time limits that work for them. For example, if a game play lasts 20 minutes you may want to base time limits around that. You could consider limiting time on certain days to start with as well, for example weekdays.
We would also recommend exploring wellbeing features with your child and turning off features like autoplay and notifications as this can make it harder to take regular breaks. Finally, make sure you are also modelling healthy behaviours including taking regular breaks and not using devices during family time.
The age of 13 is often used for age requirements across popular apps and sites. This age was originally set for data laws preventing companies from holding data of under 13s without parental consent. Games age ratings are based on the PEGI age rating system which reviews content within a game to make a judgement on age requirements. You can read more about apps and games in our online safety guides for parents.
Find out what children and parents think about access to phones and social media as well as what evidence tells us about it’s impact.
