Facebook Messenger Safety Guide for Parents
How to set up Facebook Messenger safely for your child, including privacy controls and Messenger Kids as an alternative.
Messenger is Meta's standalone messaging app for texts, voice and video calls and group chats, linked to Facebook and Instagram accounts.
Official age
13+
We recommend
13+
Developer
Meta Platforms
Risks
4
Features to know about
Overview
Facebook Messenger is Meta's messaging platform, offering text, voice, and video communication. It is closely integrated with Facebook and Instagram. For children under 13, Meta offers Messenger Kids, a parent-controlled alternative with no ads and a supervised contact list. Teen Accounts (ages 13-17) set more protective defaults, and a parent who supervises a teen through Meta's Family Center can see who the teen has chatted with in the last 7 days, but not message content or group-chat names.
How children use it
Teenagers use Messenger primarily for text and video chat with friends and family, group conversations, and sharing photos and links. Many use it because their parents are on Facebook and it provides a convenient family communication tool. Group chats for school projects and social groups are common. Users can share their live location in a chat for up to one hour, and only the people in that chat can see where they are.
Main risks
Recommended privacy settings
Message Delivery
Location: Settings → Privacy & Safety → Message Delivery
Set to: Only Facebook friends can message directly
Controls who can send messages directly versus who gets filtered into message requests. Restrict to friends only.
Active Status
Location: Settings → Active Status
Set to: Off
Hides whether your child is currently online, reducing social pressure to respond immediately.
Story Privacy
Location: Settings → Story Privacy
Set to: Friends Only
Limits who can see Messenger Stories your child posts, keeping them within their known circle.
Parent actions
For under-13s, use Messenger Kids instead of the standard app and maintain full control over the contact list
Time: 15 minutes
Restrict message delivery to Facebook friends only and review your child's friend list to ensure everyone is known to them
Time: 10 minutes
Explain the risks of clicking links or accepting video calls from unfamiliar contacts
Time: 10 minutes
Related app guides
If you need to report this
In immediate danger: call 999. For non-emergency police matters, call 101.
Concerned about a child but it's not an emergency? NSPCC helpline 0808 800 5000. Childline for young people 0800 1111.
Myths & facts
Myth: Messenger Kids is just Facebook for children.
Fact: It's a separate, deliberately limited app: no ads, no in-app purchases, no Facebook profile created, and a contact list only a parent can add to. For under-13s it's genuinely one of the more controlled messaging options — the standard Messenger app is a different proposition entirely.
Myth: My child doesn't use Facebook, so Messenger isn't a concern.
Fact: Messenger runs perfectly well without ever opening Facebook, and many teenagers keep it for family and group chats while living on other platforms. A quietly kept account still needs its settings tightened — message delivery, Active Status, and who can find them.
Myth: Strangers can't reach my child because non-friends are filtered out.
Fact: Messages from non-friends land in a message requests folder your child can still open — and scams, fake giveaways and friendly-stranger approaches routinely start there. Restrict message delivery to friends, and teach them to treat message requests like junk mail.
Age by age
- 8-10
The standard Messenger app has a minimum age of 13, so at this age the right tool is Messenger Kids: you approve every contact, and it's a good low-stakes place to practise group-chat manners with cousins and grandparents before the real thing arrives.
- 11-13
Stay on Messenger Kids until 13. If they move to the standard app then, do the switch together: message delivery restricted to friends, Active Status off, and a joint look at the friend list — the rule being that everyone on it is someone they actually know, not a friend-of-a-friend collector's item.
- 14-16
The main risk at this age is scams: hacked friends' accounts sending 'is this you?' links, too-good marketplace offers, and video-call requests from accounts they half-recognise. Agree one habit — anything odd from a friend gets checked with that friend by another route before they click or reply.
- 17-plus
Focus on account hygiene: a strong password and two-factor authentication, because a hijacked Messenger account becomes a scam machine aimed at everyone they know. It's also worth a look at how visibility links across Facebook and Instagram, and which group chats they've been added to without asking.
Frequently Asked Questions
Related Resources
Sources
Explore more
Get more app safety guides
Practical updates on apps and online safety. No spam.