Online safety: pre-teens 9-11 years

Why online safety matters for pre-teens

Children aged 9-11 years often have their own devices and go online by themselves. They use digital technology and the internet for doing schoolwork and homework, playing games, watching and creating videos, streaming TV shows and movies, listening to or downloading music, connecting with friends and family, and general browsing. They might be communicating with other people through in-game chat and messaging apps like Messenger Kids.

Because pre-teens might be online more independently, including with older children, they’ll come across online safety risks.

You can help your child learn to be safe online. You can also take practical online safety precautions. This will protect your child from online safety risks. And it will also help your child make the most of learning, exploring, creating and connecting with others online.

As your child gets older, you’ll need to review risks and strategies for handling them. Our article on online safety for teenagers has ideas.

Online safety risks for pre-teens

There are 4 main kinds of online safety risks for pre-teens.

Content risks
These risks include content that’s upsetting, disgusting or otherwise uncomfortable. This might include:

pornography or sexually explicit content in music videos, movies and online games
real or simulated violence
content that’s designed to shock or scare
harmful user-generated content, like sites about drug use, self-harm, suicide or negative body image
hateful information like racist images or text
deepfakes, misinformation and fake news.

Contact risks
These risks include people that children don’t know or adults posing as children. For example, children might be persuaded to share personal information or images with strangers. Or they might be invited to provide contact details after clicking on a pop-up message or while playing an online game.

Conduct risks
These risks include behaving in inappropriate or hurtful ways or being the victim of this kind of behaviour. Examples include:

cyberbullying
sexting
impersonating others online
creating content that reveals information about other people
buying something without permission
having trouble regulating online time.

Contract risks
These risks include signing up to contracts, subscriptions or terms and conditions that children aren’t aware of or don’t fully understand. As a result, children might:

be open to identity theft or fraud
get inappropriate digital marketing messages or scam messages
have their personal or family data collected
agree to buy things or pay money without realising.

Helping pre-teens learn about online safety

It’s important to help your child learn how to be safe and responsible online. When your child is a safe and responsible internet user, they’ll be better able to avoid the content, contract, contact and conduct risks above. And when risks come up, they’ll be more likely to know what to do or to ask for your help.

Good ways to do this include:

being a role model
talking with your child about online experiences and content
helping your child build a positive online reputation
showing your child how to take care with privacy and personal information
showing your child how to handle online privacy.

It’s OK if your approach to online safety is different from that of other families. If you’ve thought it through and involved your child and family, you’re helping to keep your child safe online.

Being a role model for online safety

Role-modelling is a powerful and positive way to guide your child’s online behaviour.

You can model safe internet use by using digital technology and the internet in the way you want your child to use it, now and in the future. For example, you might keep internet-connected devices out of bedrooms and bathrooms, and use technology for positive purposes like sending supportive messages to friends or communicating with family.

Talking about online experiences and content

Sharing negative online experiences with trusted adults is the best way for pre-teens to deal with online risks. So talking openly about your own online experiences will encourage your child to talk to you if they have a bad online experience.

It’s also good for your child to share positive online experiences with you. You can get your child talking by asking them to explain the apps, games and content they enjoy watching or creating. You might say, ‘Who are your favourite streamers on Twitch? What games do they play? What do you like about them?’

It’s good to encourage your child to develop a sense of what they like and don’t like on the internet and to explain their choices to friends. You might say, ‘That video seemed to make you uncomfortable. It’s OK to tell your friends that you’d rather not watch videos like that’.

You could also explain that not all online information is true or helpful. For example, some information is made up or deliberately misleading. Encouraging your child to think critically about online content helps your child develop the skills they need to avoid inappropriate online content.

And it’s important for your child to understand that if something online seems too good to be true, it probably isn’t true.

Going online with your child is one of the best ways to help your child learn about online safety. It gives your child a chance to show you what they enjoy doing online. And it gives you the chance to show them how to enjoy those things in a safe way.

Helping pre-teens build positive online reputations

Your child’s online reputation is shaped by their online activities. This means your child needs to understand the consequences of uploading photos, videos and other personal content. Once this content is online, it’s very hard to get rid of and will become part of your child’s permanent online reputation. Also, photos and content can be altered or shared without your child’s permission.

It’s a good idea to encourage your child to think about the online content or behaviour their future self might be comfortable with. For example, you might say, ‘Some photos and videos might seem OK to you now, but you might feel differently about them in the future and not want people to see them’.

You could agree that your child shows you posts, images and other content, and you discuss them before your child uploads them.

Showing pre-teens how to take care with online privacy

It’s important for your child to be careful about what they share with people they don’t know.

You might say, ‘There are bad people on the internet. We don’t want them to know where we live. Never give your name, address, date of birth, school or personal photos to anyone online. Tell me if anyone asks you for personal information’. It might help to compare online and offline behaviour by saying something like, ‘You wouldn’t give that information to a stranger at the bus stop, would you?’

Your child also needs to be careful about information they enter on gaming sites like Roblox or Minecraft, online competition entry forms and so on. You could agree with your child that they’ll check with you before filling out online competitions or memberships. And read terms and conditions with your child before agreeing to them.

And your child should be careful about clicking pop-ups. Some pop-ups that seem safe can lead to pornography sites or ask for personal or financial information.

It’s a good idea to show your child how to check and choose appropriate privacy and safety settings on any devices, websites, programs and apps, and explain why this is important. You can also talk about how personal data is collected on YouTube, TV streaming apps, gaming platforms and so on.

You might find that your child is more up to date with changing privacy and safety settings than you are. You can make the most of this by asking your child to share what they know about these topics. Then you and your child can work together to adjust the settings on all your devices and apps.

Practical precautions to protect pre-teens from online safety risks

It’s important to help your child learn how to be safe online, but it’s also important to take practical precautions to protect your child from online risks of all kinds – content, contract, contact and conduct.

Where and how your child goes online

Create a family media plan, and involve your child. Your plan could cover things like screen-free areas in your house and what online behaviour is OK.
Chat with other parents about their online safety rules before deciding whether your child can go to a friend’s house. For example, is your child’s friend allowed to use social media, play R-rated video games, or use a device in the bedroom?
If your child uses public wi-fi to access their accounts, explain that the wi-fi is public and not secure.

What your child does online

Check that games, online videos, websites, TV programs and messenger apps are appropriate for your child. You can do this by looking at reviews on Common Sense Media or Children and Media Australia.
Switch off one-click purchasing and agree on rules about in-app and other online purchases. For example, you might say, ‘If you want to buy something in a game, ask me first and we’ll talk about it’.

How you guide your child’s online activities

Avoid using internet filters that restrict what your child can see. This might encourage your child to go online in unfiltered environments. Or your child might feel they can’t talk to you about a negative online experience because they’re worried about getting into trouble for not using a filter.
Show your child how to use safe search settings on browsers.
If your child or their friends have older siblings, talk to them about what the older children might be viewing and let them know it’s OK to tell older children that they feel uncomfortable. For example, you could say something like, ‘It’s OK to tell older children that you don’t want to watch something.’
If you use TV streaming services, set up profiles for different household members. This can make it less likely that your child will come across inappropriate content.

Try to avoid using surveillance apps to monitor your child’s online activity. This can send the message that you don’t trust your child. It’s better to talk openly about your own online experiences and encourage your child to do the same.