by wizzwizz4 | 2026-01-02 16:04:59+00:00
Children are not wise compared to online predators, but they will notice when things are getting fishy. Maybe that's after they've made their first few silly mistakes (maybe they've given the predator their home address, several photographs, all their friends' contact details, and the one password they use for everything), but they will notice before anything seriously bad happens. But just because they'll notice, that doesn't mean they'll take an appropriate action; and it doesn't mean they won't be convinced that actually, it's fine. The child needs to know that they can come to you for advice, and that there will be no repercussions if the situation is benign, even if they've broken the rules: the concrete threat of (even mild) parental punishment for rule-breaking will be more salient than a mild situational suspicion.

"These are the rules, you are to follow the rules, breaking them would be foolish and breaking them in secret would be even more foolish, but they are always up for discussion, and if you do break them you can still come to me for advice without getting in trouble, and I'd much rather you tell me than that I find out on my own" is a principle that can be imparted to a child. You do actually have to tell it to them, though, in several different ways over a period of time, and you have to be consistent about it. Children aren't wise, but they are clever, they can spot patterns, and they'll tend to believe your actions over your words if the two conflict.

You do not want to set up a situation where a predator can blackmail a child using the threat of your punishment. Parent, yes, but parent consistently enough and well enough that such threats are an obvious bluff that the child knows to ignore (and report to you: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46465829), and going online can be as safe for your child as playing in the local neighbourhood.

The rules for young children safely using the internet unsupervised would be extremely absurd for an adult: they include things like "do not use any search engines (ask me if you want a new website)" and "do not create accounts on services (without permission)". Young children must also be kept away from content aggregators, or anything with an automatic recommendation system (e.g. Pinterest, YouTube, modern news sites, Reddit, HN). But hyperlinks on proper webpages are perfectly safe: a child isn't going to end up anywhere they shouldn't by clicking on hyperlinks if they check the URLs first and avoid the places they aren't allowed, just like a child isn't going to end up anywhere they shouldn't, wandering the high street, if they know to avoid roads and building sites. You don't need to tell a 6-year-old "stay away from porn sites", just like you don't need to tell them "don't go in that sex shop", because (a) they won't find it; and (b) even if they do, there are more general rules ("never tell a computer system that you're over 13 if you're not, and ideally not even if you are") that'll prevent any harm from occurring.

And just as you'd have conversations with a child about "where have you been?", and have them show you their favourite spots occasionally, you should also do so with unsupervised internet activity. Unsupervised does not mean ignored, after all.