What parents can do without over policing
Launch library · evergreen read
Parents often want to protect their children online without creating a relationship built primarily on surveillance, which can undermine trust and make a young person less likely to bring forward a genuine concern when one actually arises. Trust, once damaged in this way, can be genuinely difficult to rebuild quickly.
A useful middle ground generally involves setting clear, agreed expectations, staying genuinely curious about a young person's online world, and using platform safety settings appropriately. This is preferred over relying on covert monitoring as the primary protective strategy, which tends to breed resentment rather than genuine openness over time and distance.
Trust built through open conversation tends to be more protective over the long term than close surveillance ever manages to be. A young person who feels able to talk openly is considerably more likely to raise a concern early, before a difficult situation has had time to develop further or deepen.