My First Phone: Teaching Your Children To Stay Safe Using A Mobile Phone

There may come a point where your child starts asking for their first mobile phone. Depending on their age, this may be something that you want to start considering soon.

However, allowing a child to have complete control over a device that is connected to the internet may not be a great idea.

There are ways you can help to prepare your child for staying safe using a phone, and even do your part to help protect and monitor their content.

Be Wary Of Unknown Calls

No matter a person’s age, there may come a point where they receive a call from a number that isn’t listed within their contacts. For children, getting calls or texts from unknown numbers can be quite scary, especially if it hasn’t happened before, or they aren’t with you when it occurs. Telling your child to not answer any calls or texts that they don’t definitively recognise can be a good first start. If your child has access to a web browser on their phone, they could also use websites to check a phone number to see if it is a marketing or scam call. Should that be the case, you may then want to show your child how to block a number, if their phone has that capability, to prevent future calls.

Prioritise Child Safety

As your child reaches their teenage years, they may begin to have crushes on other people. Some young people may be tempted to send, or receive, explicit images of their girlfriend, boyfriend, or simply someone they are talking to. This can be problematic for a number of reasons, including due to the creation and possession of indecent images of children, as well as a lack of guarantee that the content will remain private. Teaching your child that it isn’t appropriate to send these images, and to tell a responsible person immediately if they receive them, could help to prevent child grooming from occurring, as well as keep your child away from illegal activity.

Monitor Within Reason

Although your child may be at an age where privacy is important to them, that doesn’t mean they can act as they wish. Just like you might check their school bag for any outstanding homework, you may also want to have things in place to check their phone. You don’t need to look through all of their messages, unless you have due cause, but you could use an app such as Family Link to keep an eye on their location, and even prevent certain apps from being downloaded or used. It could be a good idea to discuss this with your child, so that they are aware that some surveillance takes place. 

Spending time teaching your child about safety when using a smartphone could help to protect them from a variety of dangers. Alongside this, your child can then have the means to communicate with their friends, or even chat with you throughout the day.