Who Is Your Child Talking To?

He told you it was a friend from school. He has been playing with him most evenings for a month. Then you mention it at the school gate and discover that nobody at school has ever heard of him.

Where contact actually starts

Not on dark corners of the internet. In ordinary games with voice chat, in comment sections, in the friend-suggestion mechanics of mainstream apps. The initial contact is almost always pleasant, generous and unremarkable — someone helpful, someone funny, someone who gives your child items in a game.

The warning signs

• Moving the conversation to a different app, especially one that deletes messages.
• Gifts: game currency, skins, top-ups, or offers to buy something real.
• Excessive flattery, or heavy sympathy about how nobody else understands them.
• 'Don't tell your parents, they'll take it the wrong way.'
• Late-night contact, or your child becoming secretive about their screen.
• Asking about who else is home, or when parents are out.
• Any request for photographs, video, or use of a camera.

Rules that work better than bans

1. 01
   Real names, real faces

   Voice chat only with people they know offline. It is a clear, enforceable line, and it covers most of the risk.

2. 02
   Public rooms, public spaces

   Devices used in shared rooms up to at least twelve; overnight charging outside bedrooms for everyone.

3. 03
   The no-blame guarantee

   Explicitly stated and honoured. This is your most valuable safeguarding tool, and it is free.

4. 04
   No new apps without a conversation

   Not permission-as-power, but a two-minute discussion of who is on it and how messaging works.

5. 05
   Know the report button

   Show them how to report and block in the games they actually play, tonight.

The balance

It is worth saying plainly: most online friendships are exactly what they appear to be, and for many young people — particularly those who struggle socially in person — they are genuinely valuable. The aim is not suspicion of every headset. It is a household where a strange message gets reported at the dinner table the same evening.