Five to Eight

Between five and eight a child moves from being shown things to choosing them, and the arrangement has to change with that.

What is new

Searching, which produces results nobody chose.

Games with other players, which is the first contact risk.

Reading, which opens most of the internet.

School devices and school accounts, governed by somebody else.

And other children's devices, which is where a lot of first exposure happens and which no setting reaches.

The arrangement

Network filtering on at home, which does most of the work at this age.

Safe search enforced on the account rather than set in the browser, because a browser setting resets and an account setting follows them.

Child account on the platform, with install approval on.

Voice chat with strangers off in any game that has it, which is the highest-value setting at this age.

And devices used in shared rooms rather than bedrooms, which is a rhythm decision that solves several problems at once.

Beginning the explanation

Short, concrete, and about upset rather than about danger.

"Some things on the internet are horrible and hard to forget, so this device stops most of them."

"If something makes you feel funny or scared, tell me and you will not be in trouble" — said more than once, and meant.

That second sentence is the foundation of everything in the later stages, and this is the age to establish it.

Games and other players

The first place a child talks to somebody they do not know.

Which is normal, is mostly fine, and needs one rule: nothing personal — no school, no address, no photos — and tell me if somebody asks.

Friends-only chat where the game allows it.

And an interest from the adult in what they are playing, which is worth more than any setting because it makes the telling easy.

What goes wrong at this age

A recommendation chain leading somewhere unexpected on a video platform.

An in-game purchase prompt tapped repeatedly.

A friend showing them something on an unfiltered device.

And a game chat where an adult is present, which is rare and is the reason for the voice chat setting.

Screen time at this age

A rhythm rather than a total: not before school, not before bed, and not during meals.

Which children accept when it is consistent, and argue with endlessly when it is negotiated each time.

The argument is the cost, not the screen, and a fixed rule removes it.

What to check

Is safe search enforced on the account, not just switched on in the browser?

Can your child talk to strangers in any game they currently play?

Have you asked them, recently, what they would do if something upset them?

And do they know that telling you carries no penalty — which is checkable by asking, and the answer is sometimes not what a parent expects.

What this changes

Establishing the no-penalty rule at this age, before it is needed, is what makes it credible at thirteen.

A rule introduced during a crisis is not believed.

The check

Ask what they would do if something on a screen upset them, and listen for whether telling you is in the answer..

School accounts

This is the age at which a school account usually appears, with its own filtering and frequently its own monitoring.

Ask what applies and tell the child, because a flagged search on a school device is a distressing way to discover that somebody was watching.

Worth knowing

Games with other players are the first place a child talks to somebody they do not know, which is normal and needs one rule: nothing personal, and tell me if anybody asks for it.

One more thing

Devices in shared rooms rather than bedrooms at this age solves several problems at once and is easier to establish now than to introduce later.