Category: Online Safety

Kids today utilize the internet for practically everything they do, from doing schoolwork, playing games, communicating with friends, watching movies and, sometimes, taking lessons. This also means that teenagers often click on links, create accounts and share information without realizing where it may end up.

Parents don’t have to oversee every click. There are several easy behaviors, that youngsters can take on to prevent many of the troubles that they are likely to encounter online.

1. Public Wi-Fi is convenient, but not necessarily the greatest location to login

Kids don’t just go on the internet at home. They utilize Wi-Fi at libraries, cafés, hotels and airports, sometimes to check school accounts, participate in an online course or just to chat with pals.

On an unfamiliar network you should be a bit more careful than you are on your home Wi-Fi. A VPN can also add an extra level of anonymity by encrypting the traffic between the device and the VPN service. This leads to a typical question parents ask: is a VPN safe? A good VPN is a great security tool, especially on public Wi-Fi, but it can’t protect a child from everything they might see online.

For example, a VPN won’t detect every bogus login page or prevent a person from typing a password on the wrong website. So, it’s as crucial to defend the connection itself as it is to know what you’re clicking on.

2. Links are not always what they seem

A notification can be from a game, school platform or streaming service requiring the user to “verify” their account. The URL then redirects them somewhere else. Tell kids to look at who sent a message before clicking links. A request for a password or payment information out of the blue is an excellent reason to stop and check.

Phishing also doesn’t always look blatantly fishy. Not all scams have horrible spelling or a ridiculous story behind it. A false login page can look almost identical to a website a child visits every week. If a notification warns that there is an issue with an account, it is generally safer to go directly to the well-known website, rather than clicking on the link in the message. If the alert is legitimate, then the same information should typically be accessible via the account itself.

3. Have different passwords for different sites

Having the same password for all accounts is easier, until one gets compromised. Then the same login data might also give someone access to a number of other accounts. Kids should have various passwords for essential accounts and utilize two-factor authentication when it’s available. They should also be aware that passwords are confidential, even if a friend requests for one.

To a child, sharing a game password with a best friend may not sound like a security problem. That still involves providing another person access to the account.

4. Personal information can build rapidly

Kids may know better than to post their home address. Other details are benign in themselves: a school name, a sports club, a date of birth, an outfit, a portrait taken away from home. These elements together can tell far more than you’d like.

Cameras can also leak information. Video calls need the same respect. A school certificate hung on the wall, family portraits or paperwork visible behind a youngster may all provide personal information without it being consciously offered. A simple background or virtual background can help.

5. Recheck the app permissions

A math app probably doesn’t need access to a child’s contact list. They might not need to be in a certain spot for a simple game. Parents should check permissions often and not provide every access upon install.

6. Stop delaying updates

It’s simple to hit “remind me later” when an update pops up, particularly if a child is in the middle of a game or needs the device for schoolwork. But upgrades aren’t only about bringing new features. Often they patch security weaknesses that might leave a phone, tablet or computer vulnerable to attack.

The UK’s National Cyber Security Center suggests applying software and app updates as soon as they are available and turning on automatic updates when possible. Every now and then check your child’s phone, tablet, browser and apps they use often. If there are automatic updates available, turning them on means one less security task to worry about.

7. Give the easiest technique to tell an adult

No security system works in all situations. A child could click on the wrong link, send an email they later regret, or get a message that makes them uncomfortable. What is about to follow is of the greatest significance.

Young people are more likely to seek help promptly knowing the first response will not be anger or loss of access to their devices. The safest children online are those who know the rules. It works a whole lot better if people know who to call if something goes wrong.

Chess is one of the few screen activities most parents feel good about: it builds patience, focus and the habit of thinking before acting. But an online chess class can mean anything from a vetted coach with a small group to an open video call with strangers, so it pays to ask a few safety questions before you sign up.

Here are the seven we would ask as parents.

1. Who exactly is the coach, and can you check?

A good online chess school names its coaches, shows their photos and lists verifiable credentials. In chess this is easy to check: titled and rated players have public profiles on the FIDE ratings website of the International Chess Federation, where you can see their name, country, title and rating history.

Be cautious with listings that only show a first name or a nickname, or that say “experienced coach” without anything you can verify. You would not drop your child at a club run by an anonymous adult; an online class deserves the same standard.

2. Where does the lesson actually take place?

Ask which platform the class uses and who controls it. The safest set-ups share a few features:

• the lesson link is private and only works for enrolled children;
• the coach (not the children) controls who is admitted to the room;
• children cannot privately message each other or the coach through the lesson tool;
• there is no public chat open to people outside the class.

If the answer is “we’ll send a link on WhatsApp” or “join our open server”, keep asking.

3. How big is the group, and who else is in it?

Small groups are better for learning, a coach can only really watch four or five children’s moves at once, and they are also easier to supervise. Ask how many children are in a group, whether groups are matched by age, and whether adults or older teenagers ever join the same class. A group of similar-age children of similar level is both safer and more fun.

4. Is the camera required, and are lessons recorded?

Some schools ask children to keep cameras on so the coach can see they are engaged; others make it optional. Either can be reasonable. What matters is that the school tells you clearly. Ask:

• whether lessons are recorded, who can watch the recordings and how long they are kept;
• whether you can sit in on a lesson or watch from the next room;
• whether screenshots or clips of children are ever used in marketing (they should not be without your written consent).

5. What personal data do they collect about your child?

A chess class needs very little: your child’s first name, age and level, and your contact details as the parent. Be wary of sign-up forms that ask a child to create their own account with an email address, a full date of birth or a photo. In the United States, services for children under 13 must follow COPPA, the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule, and obtain verifiable parental consent before collecting a child’s personal information; a reputable school will make that process visible and will have a readable privacy policy written for parents.

6. What happens between lessons?

Most good programs give homework, usually short chess puzzles,  and many use online platforms for it. That is a good thing, as long as you know where your child will be practising. Ask whether homework happens inside the school’s own platform or on a public chess website, and if it is a public site, whether the school recommends child-safe settings such as disabling chat and only playing against computer opponents or friends. Free platforms like Lichess offer a “kid mode” that switches off chat and social features, worth turning on for any young player.

7. Can you cancel easily, and is there a trial?

Safety is also about not being locked in. A trustworthy school lets you try a lesson or a short first month, shows the full price before you pay, and lets you cancel online without a phone call. If the terms are hard to find before checkout, that tells you something about how the school treats parents.

A quick checklist before the first lesson

• Coach’s full name and credentials checked
• Private lesson room, admitted by the coach
• No private messaging between children
• Group size and age range confirmed
• Recording and camera policy explained
• Privacy policy read; you, not your child, created the account
• Homework platform set to child-safe mode
• Clear price and online cancellation

Comparing options

Not every family needs a live class. Free sites and apps are excellent for practice, and some children enjoy a self-paced course. If you are weighing the different kinds of chess classes, free platforms, kid-safe apps, class marketplaces, private tutors and dedicated academies, this overview of the best online chess classes for kids compares them side by side, including prices.

A good sign is a school that publishes its safeguarding and online safety practices for parents: who the coaches are, how lesson rooms are run and what happens to your child’s data. Every school should be able to show you this before the first lesson.

The bottom line

Chess is one of the healthiest things a child can do on a screen. The board is the same whether it is wooden or digital; what changes online is who else is in the room. Ask the seven questions above, and you will quickly separate the schools that have thought about your child’s safety from the ones that have not.

A child who wants a pet rabbit will probably have questions before the rabbit comes home, and a lot of kids now type those questions into a chatbot first. The answer usually arrives fast, sounds confident, and reads like it came from someone who’s kept rabbits for years. Some of it will be right. Some of it will be too fuzzy to act on, and a line or two might be flat wrong.

That mix makes pet care a good place to practice checking an AI answer. The topic is concrete, trustworthy sources are easy to find, and the stakes are real without being scary. The routine below walks a child through asking, sorting, checking, and scoring one answer, and it takes about half an hour at the kitchen table.

Why a Pet Question Works for Practice

Safe Search Kids recently laid out an explain-and-change check for AI homework, where a parent asks a child to explain one step of an AI-assisted answer and then changes the problem slightly. That routine tests whether a child understands a method. This one tests something right next to it: whether the facts in an AI answer hold up when someone goes looking. Both habits matter, because kids are using these tools for a lot more than math.

In Pew Research Center’s 2025 teen survey, 57% of U.S. teens ages 13 to 17 said they’d used chatbots to search for information, and 54% said they’d used them for help with schoolwork. Searching for information is the more common use, and it’s also the one where a wrong answer can slip by unnoticed. A math answer can be tested by redoing the problem. A factual claim about what rabbits eat can only be tested against another source.

Pet care questions are a smart place to start that kind of testing. Rabbits in particular have specific, well-documented dietary needs, so there are clear right and wrong answers to compare against. Veterinary schools and rescue groups publish feeding guidelines with actual numbers in them. That gives a child a fair target to check against instead of a pile of conflicting opinions.

Step One: Ask a Real Question and Save the Answer

Let the child write the question in their own words. Something like “What should a pet rabbit eat every day?” works well, followed by a narrower one: “How much food does a 6-pound adult rabbit need?” The second question matters because it asks for amounts, and amounts are where vague answers tend to show. Copy both answers onto paper or into a document before closing the chat, since asking again can produce a different response.

For this walkthrough, imagine the chatbot’s answer says rabbits should eat mostly hay, that alfalfa hay is a great everyday choice, and that fresh vegetables like lettuce round out the diet. It adds that rabbits need “a small amount of pellets” and suggests following the directions on the bag. That’s an illustrative answer written for this exercise, but it’s typical of the shape these responses take. It sounds sensible, it’s mostly in the right neighborhood, and it doesn’t commit to a single number.

Step Two: Break the Answer Into Separate Claims

A paragraph is hard to check all at once, so the next job is splitting it into individual claims. Ask the child to underline each thing the answer says is true and rewrite it on its own line. The sample answer breaks into four claims: hay should be most of the diet, alfalfa is a good everyday hay, lettuce is a good vegetable, and a rabbit needs a small amount of pellets. Writing them separately makes it obvious that one answer can be partly right and partly wrong.

Next to each claim, leave room for one of three marks. “Held up” means a trustworthy source agrees, and “vague” means the claim might be true but doesn’t say enough to act on. “Wrong” means a trustworthy source says something different. Kids sometimes want a fourth mark for “couldn’t find out,” and that’s a fair addition, because not finding an answer is useful information too.

Step Three: Check Each Claim Against a Vet Source

The best sources for pet care come from people who treat animals for a living. NC State’s veterinary hospital rabbit guidelines are a strong pick because they’re written for owners and include specific amounts. For adult rabbits, the hospital recommends unlimited fresh grass hay such as timothy, orchard grass, or oat, along with 2 to 4 cups of leafy greens and 1/4 to 1/2 cup of pellets per 6 pounds of body weight each day. It also lists foods to avoid and explains why each one causes trouble.

Now the child can start marking. “Mostly hay” held up. “Alfalfa is a great everyday choice” is wrong for an adult rabbit, since the NC State guidelines say adults shouldn’t get alfalfa because its high calcium content can lead to urinary stones. Alfalfa is fine for young, growing rabbits, which makes this a satisfying catch: the chatbot took something true for one age group and stated it as though it covered every rabbit.

Lettuce lands somewhere between vague and wrong. The vet guidelines include lettuce among acceptable vegetables but specifically exclude iceberg, which they say can cause diarrhea. An answer that just says “lettuce” leaves a child free to grab the one kind that causes problems. “A small amount of pellets” gets marked vague, since a child can’t measure “small” and bag directions vary from brand to brand.

Step Four: See What a Specific, Checkable Answer Looks Like

Once a child has spotted vague claims, it helps to show them the opposite. The product page for a timothy-based pellet with a guaranteed analysis works well as an example, because it commits to numbers someone can verify. That page lists crude fiber at 25% minimum and 29% maximum, crude protein at 14% minimum, and a recommended age of 7 months or older. Its feeding instructions call for 1/4 to 1/2 cup per 6 pounds of body weight for rabbits between 1 and 5 years old.

Put that feeding range next to the NC State range and the two match. The child can also see that the pellet is timothy-based, which lines up with the vet guidance against alfalfa for adults, and that it’s meant for rabbits past the young, fast-growing stage. Every one of those details can be checked against something else, which is exactly what the chatbot’s “small amount” couldn’t offer.

This is a good moment to add one more point: specific doesn’t automatically mean true. A product page is written by a company that sells the product, so its claims still deserve a second look, and that’s why comparing it to the vet hospital’s numbers matters. Specific answers can be checked, while vague ones can’t. A child who learns to expect numbers, units, ages, and conditions in an answer is also learning to ask sharper follow-up questions.

Step Five: Score the Answer and Ask a Better Question

Tally the marks. In the sample, one claim held up, one was wrong, and two were vague, which is a pretty common result for a broad question. Ask the child what the score tells them. Most kids land on something reasonable, like “the chatbot was a decent place to start, but I wouldn’t feed my rabbit based on it alone.”

Then have them return to the chatbot with a sharper prompt built from what they learned. “How many cups of timothy pellets should a 6-pound adult rabbit eat per day, and which source says so?” is a much harder question to answer vaguely. If the chatbot names a source, the child checks whether that source exists and actually says what the chatbot claims. That step turns a single fact-check into the habits of a good internet skeptic, where “How would I know?” becomes the first question a child asks.

Know Where the Practice Run Ends

Diet questions make good practice because there’s time to check. Health problems don’t always allow for that. The NC State guidelines warn that a rabbit that hasn’t eaten or pooped for more than 24 hours needs a veterinarian right away, since its digestive tract can slow down or stop. That’s a useful line to draw out loud with a child: a chatbot can help with learning about care, but a sick animal needs a person with training.

The same logic applies well beyond pets. Questions about medicine, allergies, and safety deserve the same checking routine, with an adult involved and a professional as the final word. A child who’s practiced on rabbit food will recognize a vague or overly broad answer when the stakes are higher.

Running the Routine Again

The whole exercise comes down to four moves: ask, split, check, and score. After a run or two, kids start doing parts of it without being prompted, noticing when an answer skips amounts or treats one age group as if it covered everyone. Pick a new topic each time, such as caring for a goldfish, growing tomatoes, or packing for a camping trip. Each one has trustworthy sources and specific details worth checking.

Keep the scorecards if your child enjoys them. A stack of marked-up answers shows patterns over time, like which kinds of questions get vague replies and which get solid ones. That record says more than any single verdict about whether AI is good or bad. It shows a child that checking is a skill they can get faster at, and that the answer on the screen is a draft they’re allowed to question.

Your child asks for a picture of “a dragon reading a book,” and a few seconds later, there it is. No pencils, no drawing skills, just a sentence typed into a box. For many kids, AI art tools feel like magic. For parents, they raise reasonable questions about safety, honesty, and what kids are actually learning.

The good news is that these tools don’t have to be off-limits. With a few ground rules and some shared curiosity, they can support creativity while keeping kids safe. Here’s what to know before your family starts experimenting.

Why Kids Are Drawn to These Tools

Most children love the immediate payoff. They describe an idea, and the tool turns it into something visible. That’s appealing for kids who have vivid imaginations but don’t yet have the drawing skills to match, and it’s especially appealing to teens who want custom visuals for presentations, stories, or social posts.

Kids also tend to find these tools through friends, school assignments, or apps they already use. Image generation is now built into many search engines, design programs, and video editors, so your child may encounter it without ever seeking it out. That makes it worth talking about early, rather than waiting until it becomes a habit.

A recent survey from the UK online safety charity Internet Matters found that a large share of children have already used a generative AI tool, and that many parents feel behind on understanding what these tools actually do. Its parent’s guide to AI is a useful starting point for getting up to speed on the terminology and the tools your child is likely to run into.

What Kids Can Learn From Them

Used thoughtfully, AI image tools can build real skills.

• Descriptive writing. A vague prompt produces a vague picture. Kids quickly learn that specific details, such as setting, mood, colors, and style, get better results, which is good practice for clear writing.

• Revising a prompt after a disappointing result teaches kids that the first attempt is rarely the final one.

• Visual literacy. Comparing what they imagined with what the tool produced opens conversations about composition, style, and what makes an image work.

None of this replaces drawing, painting, or building things by hand, and it shouldn’t. Think of it as one creative tool among many.

The Risks Worth Taking Seriously

Creative potential aside, there are real concerns for families to weigh.

Privacy and uploads. Many generators let users upload a reference photo to guide the result. That’s convenient, but it also means personal images, sometimes including faces of your child, friends, or siblings, are being sent to a company’s servers. Before your child uploads anything personal, it’s worth reading through what happens to that data.

Realistic fakes of real people. The same technology that makes a friendly cartoon can also produce believable images of actual people. Kids should understand that making a fake picture of a classmate, even as a joke, can hurt someone and can break school rules or, in some cases, the law.

Age requirements. Many online services set a minimum age of 13, tied to U.S. children’s privacy rules. The FTC’s COPPA FAQ explains the background in plain language. Whatever the tool’s policy, check it before your child creates an account, and consider setting the account up yourself.

Unpredictable results. Filters help, but no system is perfect. Prompts can occasionally return images that aren’t appropriate for a child, which is one reason shared, in-the-room use works better than private use for younger kids.

Honesty in schoolwork. If an assignment asks for original artwork or research, AI-generated images may not be acceptable. Kids should check with their teacher rather than assume. Common Sense Media’s Parents’ Ultimate Guide to Generative AI covers this question well, alongside plain-language explanations of terms like hallucinations and deepfakes that make these conversations easier to start at home.

Ground Rules to Set Before the First Prompt

A short set of family expectations goes further than a long lecture. Here are some to consider:

1. Use it together at first. Sit beside your child for the first few sessions and watch how they write prompts and react to results.
2. No photos of people. Keep uploads to drawings, toys, landscapes, or other non-personal images.
3. No real people as subjects. That includes classmates, teachers, celebrities, and family members.
4. Keep it private by default. Save creations to a device or folder before sharing anything publicly, and talk about where sharing is appropriate.
5. Label AI-made images. If a picture goes into a project or gets shared, say it was generated by AI.
6. Tell an adult about anything uncomfortable. Make it clear that your child won’t be in trouble for reporting a strange result.

Trying a Tool Together

Reading about these tools only goes so far. Many families find it easier to set rules after seeing one in action. If you’d like to experiment side by side, a free AI image generator such as CapCut’s offers a low-stakes way to see how prompts turn into pictures. It supports both text descriptions and reference images, lets users choose between different image models, and includes basic editing options like cropping and color adjustments after an image is generated.

A few suggestions if you try it, or any similar tool:

• Read the terms and age policy first, and let an adult handle account setup.
• Start with a silly, low-stakes prompt, like an imaginary animal or a fantasy landscape.
• Skip the photo upload feature until you’ve talked through the privacy points above.
• Ask your child to explain their choices. Why that style? What would they change? The conversation is often more valuable than the image.

Every platform handles data, content filtering, and licensing differently, so treat any tool as something to review rather than approve once and forget.

Turning It Into a Media Literacy Lesson

Kids who make AI images quickly learn how easy it is to create something convincing that isn’t real. That’s a useful lesson if you point it out deliberately. Ask questions like:

• Could someone mistake this picture for a photograph?
• What clues might show an image was made by AI?
• Why might someone create a fake image on purpose?
• How would you check whether a surprising picture online is real?

These questions connect directly to broader digital literacy skills, which is a topic we cover in more depth in our guide on teaching kids about misinformation online.

Keep the Conversation Going

AI image tools will keep changing, and new features and apps will appear faster than any parent can track. What lasts is the habit of talking openly about what your child is making and why. Kids who feel comfortable showing you their creations are far more likely to come to you when something goes wrong.

Approached with curiosity and a few sensible boundaries, AI image generation can be a fun, imaginative addition to your child’s digital life, as long as they know it works best alongside pencils, paper, and plenty of real-world creativity.