Parenting digital natives report 2018

Our report focuses on the experiences of parents of children aged 4 to 16. The report focuses on parents as a whole as well as separate categories:

• Pre-school (ages 4-5)
• Young children (ages 6-10)
• Pre-teens (ages 11-13)
• Teens (aged 11-16)

The research reveals 3 key concerns across age groups:

• Talking to strangers online: Contact risks of children potentially talking to other players in games who are much older than them.
• Sharing personal information with strangers: Conduct risks of children sharing their location on social media or oversharing other personal information.
• Impacts of social media on wellbeing: Conduct risks of obsessively using social media or feeling the need to be constantly connected with friends or followers.

More parents are aware of parental controls than those who actually use them. This could be due to the difficulty many parents experience with understanding parental controls. As such, there is a need for parental controls to be more accessible for wider parent audiences.

Parents’ wants fall into 4 categories:

• Understanding what parental controls do and how to use them;
• What language to adopt when speaking with children about online risks;
• A single source of information they can use to stay informed;
• Greater support from schools to reinforce messaging at home.