How to Protect Your Child From Pornography Online: Settings and the Early Talk
A practical checklist to protect children from pornography online: home Wi-Fi filters, phone and tablet settings, safe search, gaming and app controls, where devices live at night, and the early talk that works better than any filter.
No filter is perfect. Children find gaps, friends have phones, and settings change with every update. So think of protection as layers, like a house: a fence, a lock, a light on, and a child who knows what to do if someone gets in anyway.
The last layer matters most.
Layer 1: the home connection
- Turn on your internet provider’s family filter. Most providers in most countries offer one free. Look in your account settings or call them.
- Or set a family filter on the router. Some routers have one built in. Others let you use a family-safe DNS service.
This covers every device on your home Wi-Fi, including visitors’ phones. It doesn’t cover mobile data or other people’s Wi-Fi.
Layer 2: each device
- Phones and tablets: use the built-in parental controls. On Apple devices that’s Screen Time; on Android, Google Family Link. Set content limits for age, block adult websites, and require your approval for new apps.
- Mobile data: ask the phone company to keep adult content blocked on your child’s number.
- Computers and consoles: each has a family or child account. Set one up instead of letting the child use yours.
- Safe search: turn it on in every search engine and in video apps, and lock it if you can.
Layer 3: apps and games
Pornography often comes through apps that aren’t about pornography: chats, social media, video sites and games with open messaging.
- Check the minimum age of every app. Many are 13 and up.
- Set messaging to friends only, or off, for young children.
- Turn off contact from strangers in games.
- Learn the app’s report and block buttons, and show your child.
See Roblox, Discord and Chat in Games for the common ones.
Layer 4: where devices live
This one costs nothing and works better than most settings:
- Screens in shared rooms, especially for younger children.
- No phones or tablets in bedrooms at night. Charge them in the kitchen or your room.
- You know the passcodes, for children under a certain age you agree on together.
Build it with your child using the Screen plan, so it’s a family rule, not a punishment.
The early talk, which matters more than any filter
Before they get their own device, and again every year:
“One day you might see pictures or videos of people with no clothes on, or doing grown-up things. It might be an accident, or someone might send it. It’s not your fault. Close it, and come and tell me. You’ll never be in trouble for telling.”
For older children, add: “If anyone, even someone you know, asks you for a picture of your body, or sends you one, tell me. That’s never okay, and it’s never your fault.”
A filter blocks some things. A child who tells you blocks the harm.
Check again every few months
Apps update, children grow, and settings reset. Put a reminder in your calendar.
Sources
- Internet Matters. Parental controls guides. internetmatters.org
- NSPCC. Parental controls. nspcc.org.uk
Next step
This weekend, do two things: turn on the family filter on your home internet, and move every device to charge outside the bedrooms at night. Screen plan → Phone agreement →