Remote learning puts children online for hours a day — for school, for homework, for staying in touch. That extra exposure brings extra risk, and keeping kids safe online during remote learning needs more than a lecture about “stranger danger”. Australia’s eSafety Commissioner — the world’s first dedicated online safety regulator — provides the framework Australian families should use. This guide translates it into practical action: the real risks, the settings to configure today, age-by-age checklists, and exactly what to do when something goes wrong.
Keeping kids safe online: the risks, honestly assessed
Let’s calibrate before we panic. eSafety’s research shows 97% of Australian children aged 3–10 are online outside school — being online is normal childhood now, not a danger zone. The risks worth managing:
- Unwanted contact and grooming: the most serious risk. Predators use games, social apps and messaging to build trust with children. Remote learning increases exposure simply through more hours online.
- Cyberbullying: persistent, often anonymous, and it follows the child home — there’s no escape at 3pm. Australia’s Antibullying Rapid Review identified cyberbullying and image-based abuse as key areas for action.
- Inappropriate content: pornography, violent content, self-harm material — encountered through search, ads, links from peers, or algorithmic recommendations. Often accidental, always distressing.
- Scams and phishing: children are credulous targets — fake game currency offers, phishing links in chats, “free Robux” scams that harvest credentials or parents’ payment details.
- Privacy erosion: oversharing personal information (school name, location, photos) that can identify or locate a child.
- AI-generated harms: deepfakes and AI-generated imagery are an emerging risk eSafety specifically flags — including non-consensual intimate imagery of minors, which constitutes abuse and must be reported to police.
The good news: 93% of parents of 10–17 year-olds report having online safety conversations with their children. You’re not alone in this, and the resources are excellent. eSafety’s Online Safety Book for parents (updated September 2026) is the single best free resource — bookmark it.
Today: the 30-minute safety setup
Do this today, before anything else:
- Update everything: operating systems, browsers, apps. Updates patch the security holes attackers actually use.
- Enable parental controls: Apple Screen Time or Google Family Link — set content filters, app limits and purchase approvals. Do it on every device your child touches.
- Lock down the router: change the default admin password (most people never do), enable the firewall, and consider scheduled internet pauses overnight.
- Privacy settings audit: go through each app your child uses — set profiles to private, disable location sharing, turn off contact syncing. eSafety’s eSafety Guide gives step-by-step privacy instructions for every major app and game.
- Strong, unique passwords: every account gets its own password; use a password manager. Teach kids never to share passwords — even with friends.
- Two-factor authentication: enable it on your child’s important accounts (and yours).
- Webcam covers: cheap, effective, and a visible reminder about camera awareness — especially for younger kids on video lessons.
Age-by-age safety checklists
Ages 5–8: the walled garden
- Devices used in shared family spaces only — no tablets in bedrooms.
- Whitelist approach: they use approved apps/sites; everything else needs asking.
- No unsupervised video chat, messaging or voice chat in games.
- Teach the core rule: never share your name, school, address or photos with anyone online — practise saying it until it’s automatic.
- Co-view regularly; ask “what are you playing/watching?” with genuine curiosity.
- eSafety’s Early Years program messages: be safe, be kind, ask for help.
Ages 9–12: supervised independence
- Introduce the concept of a digital footprint: everything posted lasts. Use real examples (not scare stories).
- Allow messaging with known friends, with you aware of which apps — no secret accounts.
- Teach scam recognition: “free” game currency, too-good-to-be-true offers, links from strangers. Practise spotting them together.
- Start the cyberbullying conversation before it happens: what it looks like, that it’s never their fault, that telling you is always safe.
- Agree on rules together — kids follow rules they helped make far better than imposed ones.
- Keep devices out of bedrooms overnight (the charging station rule).
Ages 13+: coaching, not controlling
- Shift from monitoring to mentoring: regular conversations about what’s happening in their digital life.
- Discuss social media age restrictions honestly — many platforms now prevent under-16s from holding accounts; use eSafety’s guidance on age restrictions as the conversation starter, not the lecture.
- Cover the serious topics directly: sexting pressures, image-based abuse (it’s illegal, and victims should tell immediately), and that AI-generated imagery of real people without consent is abuse.
- Teach critical thinking about algorithms and AI: only about a quarter of parents discuss how algorithms shape what kids see — be in that quarter.
- Maintain the safety net visibly: “if anything ever goes wrong online, I will help you fix it — you will not be in trouble for telling me.” Say it explicitly, repeatedly.
Cyberbullying: prevention and response
Prevention: the best defence is a child who’ll tell you early. That requires the no-punishment promise above, plus normalising the conversation — “anything weird happen online this week?” as casually as “how was school?” Teach them not to respond to provocations (responses fuel bullies), to save evidence (screenshots with timestamps), and to use block and report functions — which exist on every major platform.
Response — if it’s happening now:
- Believe them, stay calm. Your reaction determines whether they ever tell you again.
- Document everything: screenshots, dates, usernames, URLs. Don’t delete — evidence matters.
- Block and report on the platform first — most have dedicated bullying report flows.
- Tell the school if it involves classmates — schools have obligations under national anti-bullying standards.
- Report to eSafety at esafety.gov.au/report if the platform doesn’t act or the content is seriously harmful. eSafety can order removal of cyberbullying material targeting Australian children — a power few parents know about.
- Police if there are threats of violence, sexual content involving minors, or stalking behaviour.
Support the child through it: cyberbullying’s harm comes largely from its inescapability. Professional support (Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800, headspace) is there for a reason — use it early, not as a last resort.
Gaming safety during remote learning
Remote learning downtime often means more gaming — and games are where many safety issues concentrate:
- Voice chat: the highest-risk feature. For under-12s, disable or restrict to known friends. For teens, discuss who’s on the other end — “teammates” in random matchmaking are strangers.
- Friend requests: the rule is simple — only accept people you know in real life. Practise saying no to the “but they’re really good at the game” pressure.
- In-game purchases: require approval for every transaction; better yet, use gift cards with fixed balances instead of linked credit cards.
- Game choice: check age ratings (the Classification system exists for a reason) and look up games on eSafety’s Guide before downloading.
- Streaming and sharing: kids posting gaming videos publicly can inadvertently share personal details — check what’s visible and audible in their content.
Remote learning platforms: school-specific safety
When learning moves online for school (not just homework), the school’s own platforms become part of your child’s digital life. Worth checking:
- Know what platforms the school uses — video conferencing, learning management systems, messaging apps. Ask the teacher for the list if you don’t have it.
- Video lesson behaviour: teach kids to check their background before turning cameras on, use blurred/virtual backgrounds where available, keep microphones muted unless speaking, and never share meeting links publicly.
- School accounts vs personal accounts: schoolwork should happen on school-provided accounts, which typically have stronger protections and monitoring. Personal accounts shouldn’t be used for class.
- Class chat behaviour: the same kindness rules apply in a Google Classroom comment thread as in the playground — and everything is written down. Remind kids that screenshots last forever.
- Ask the school about its policies: what monitoring exists, how incidents are handled, who to contact. Good schools have clear answers; vague answers are worth following up.
Passwords, accounts and the practical basics
Unsexy but essential — most “hacks” of children’s accounts are just guessed or shared passwords:
- One password per account. When one site leaks (and they do), password reuse hands attackers every other account. A password manager solves this — set one up for the family.
- Passphrases for kids: four random words (“correct horse battery staple” style) are both stronger and more memorable than complex gibberish. Let young kids pick their own silly phrase.
- Never share passwords — not with best friends, not with boyfriends/girlfriends. Frame it as: sharing a password gives someone the power to become you online.
- Parent-held recovery: for young children’s accounts, parents should hold the recovery email. For teens, agree that you’ll only use it in emergencies — and mean it.
- Log out on shared devices: school computers, library machines, friends’ tablets. Make it a reflex.
- Check active sessions periodically: most major accounts show logged-in devices — an unfamiliar device is worth investigating.
What to ask your child’s school
Safety is a partnership — schools carry part of the load. Questions worth asking at the next parent-teacher interaction:
- What online safety education does the school deliver, and at what year levels?
- What happens if my child encounters a safety issue on a school platform — who do I contact, and what’s the response process?
- Does the school filter and monitor its network and devices? What about BYOD?
- How does the school handle incidents between students that happen online outside school hours?
- Are there parent information sessions on online safety? (If not, suggest one — eSafety provides free resources schools can use.)
Schools with strong answers are doing their part; schools with vague answers need parent pressure to improve. Either way, you now know where the gaps are.
When something goes wrong: the parent’s playbook
- Stay calm, thank them for telling you. This is the moment everything else depends on.
- Don’t confiscate the device as punishment. It teaches them to hide problems, not to avoid them. (Temporary supervised use during an incident is different from punishment-confiscation.)
- Assess severity: upsetting content vs. ongoing bullying vs. sexual exploitation vs. threats — each has a different response path.
- Preserve evidence before blocking/deleting.
- Use the reporting ladder: platform → school (if relevant) → eSafety → police, escalating as needed.
- Get support: for your child (Kids Helpline, headspace, school counsellor) and for yourself — parenting through an online safety incident is stressful, and support services help parents too.
- Review and adjust: after the incident, revisit the settings and rules together — not as punishment, but as learning.
The grandparent and carer briefing
Safety rules collapse if other carers don’t know them. A one-page briefing for grandparents, babysitters and ex-partners covers: which apps are allowed, the no-personal-information rule, what to do if something upsetting appears (stay calm, don’t delete, call you), and your contact number for anything uncertain. Grandparents are often the weak link — not from carelessness but from unfamiliarity. A 15-minute walkthrough of the devices and rules, delivered without condescension, closes the gap. The same briefing works for sleepovers: “these are our family’s online rules — they apply at friends’ houses too” gives your child language to use when peer pressure hits.
Keeping kids safe online long-term: building digital resilience
Controls and rules are the short game. The long game is raising a child who navigates the digital world wisely without you — because eventually, they will. eSafety frames this around four capabilities: respect (for self and others online), responsibility (for actions and information), resilience (recovering from bad experiences), and critical reasoning (questioning what they see).
You build these through thousands of small conversations, not one big talk. The dinner-table “anything interesting online today?”, the joint eye-roll at an obvious scam, the discussion about why that influencer’s life isn’t real — this is digital parenting. It’s not a separate chore; it’s woven into the relationship. And the data is encouraging: the vast majority of Australian parents are already having these conversations, with eSafety research showing safety talks now start as young as age three. Join them, keep going, and remember — the goal was never a risk-free internet. It’s a child who can handle the real one. For the screen-time side of healthy digital habits, see our guide to screen time and online learning, and for day-to-day learning support, supporting your child’s online learning at home.