How children encounter harmful content online and what parents can do to reduce exposure and respond supportively.
Harmful Content is material online that is unsuitable or dangerous for children, including violence, hate, self-harm, pornography, or content that promotes risky behaviour.
Harmful content includes material that is violent, sexual, promotes self-harm, eating disorders, or extremist views. Children can encounter it accidentally through search engines, social media algorithms, or deliberately through peer sharing. Even a brief exposure can be distressing, and repeated exposure can normalise harmful behaviours.
Social media algorithms can inadvertently recommend progressively more extreme content based on a child's engagement patterns. Harmful content can also be shared directly in group chats, on forums, or through links from peers. Some content is deliberately designed to appear in search results that children might use, and age verification on many platforms is easily bypassed.
In your child's behaviour
On their device
Agree the 'close it and tell me' rule
Tell your child that if they ever see something that scares or upsets them they can close the screen, walk away, and come to you — and they will never be in trouble for it. Normalising that even adults see upsetting things online is what turns exposure into a conversation instead of a secret.
Switch on SafeSearch and content filters
Turn on SafeSearch in Google, Bing, and YouTube and enable the content restrictions built into the apps your child uses. They're not foolproof, but they cut down accidental exposure — treat them as one layer, not the whole answer.
Add family filtering across the whole home
Set up a family-friendly DNS service (such as CleanBrowsing or OpenDNS Family Shield) on your home router so filtering applies to every device on the network, not just the ones you've configured individually.
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.
This is practical educational content to support families. For case-specific concerns about a child's safety, contact the NSPCC helpline on 0808 800 5000 or your local safeguarding team.
Myth: Content filters keep my child safe from harmful content.
Fact: No filter is foolproof — children encounter distressing content through search, social feeds, autoplay, and links from peers. Filtering plus an open agreement ('tell me if you see something upsetting and you won't be in trouble') is what actually protects them.
Myth: Harmful content only means extreme things like graphic violence.
Fact: It also includes subtler, algorithm-amplified harms — pro-eating-disorder, self-harm, hateful, and misinformation content — that a feed can surface gradually. Talk about how feeds are engineered and what to do when something doesn't feel right.
Keep filtering on and co-view where you can. Agree they always tell a grown-up if they see something that scares or upsets them.
Explain that not everything online is true or suitable, that they can close and tell you about anything upsetting, and keep SafeSearch and content filters active.
Talk about what to do if they stumble on violent or sexual content, and how one video or post can lead a feed toward more of the same.
Discuss self-harm, eating-disorder, extremist, and misinformation content specifically, where to get support, and respect growing independence while keeping the door open.
Full conversation guides: upsetting content talk, talking about pornography
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