What Every Parent Should Know About Their Child's Online Safety This School Year

A new academic year typically means more screen time for children, more homework conducted online, and more independent use of apps, games, and AI tools.

Recent research and regulatory developments from 2026 make clear that the risks children face online are evolving quickly, and that parental guidance needs to evolve with them.

• A major 2026 study of over 7,000 children and teenagers found a significant rise in exposure to online scams and misleading information, alongside sharp growth in children's use of generative AI chatbots.

• Children increasingly treat AI chatbot responses as authoritative, despite these tools being capable of confidently stating incorrect information.

• Child-safety experts are now advising parents to reconsider publicly posting images of their children, citing growing risks from AI-driven image misuse.

• Regulatory bodies are formalizing online safety oversight, the UK's updated safeguarding guidance for schools now mandates annual reviews of filtering and monitoring systems and explicitly addresses AI chatbots and companion apps.

• Effective protection depends less on any single tool and more on consistent communication, shared privacy expectations, and age-appropriate parental oversight.

The shifting landscape: what recent research shows

According to CyberSafeKids' tenth annual report, which surveyed more than 7,000 children and teenagers, a growing proportion of young people report encountering scams and fabricated information online, a trend the report's authors describe as continuing to climb rather than stabilizing. The same report documents what it calls "explosive growth" in children's use of generative AI chatbots, both for schoolwork and everyday queries.

This shift introduces a specific risk that didn't exist at scale even a few years ago: children are increasingly relying on AI-generated responses as a primary source of information, without necessarily understanding that these systems can present incorrect information with the same confident tone as accurate information. Unlike a search engine returning multiple sources to compare, a chatbot delivers a single, conversational answer, which can make it harder for a young user to recognize when something warrants a second opinion.

The sharenting reconsideration

A separate but related development concerns parents' own online behavior rather than their children's. Child-safety advocates have begun actively recommending that parents reconsider the practice of publicly posting photos of their children, often referred to as "sharenting," citing the growing capability of AI tools to misuse publicly available images. This represents a meaningful shift from just a few years ago, when sharing children's photos online was rarely questioned as a default practice. Parents evaluating their own social media habits is now considered as relevant to a child's digital safety as monitoring the child's own device use.

Regulatory momentum: schools are being held to a higher standard

Institutional responses are also catching up to the pace of these risks. In the UK, the statutory safeguarding guidance for schools and colleges, Keeping Children Safe in Education 2026, now requires that filtering and monitoring systems be formally reviewed at least once every academic year, with accountability explicitly assigned to senior leadership rather than delegated solely to IT staff or third-party providers. Notably, the guidance's risk framework has also been updated to explicitly cover generative AI applications, including chatbots and companion-style systems, for the first time.

While this specific guidance applies to UK schools, it reflects a broader international pattern: regulators and institutions are treating AI-related risk to children as a distinct, formally recognized category rather than folding it into general internet safety guidance. Parents in any jurisdiction may find it useful to ask their own child's school what filtering, monitoring, and AI-usage policies are currently in place.

Practical guidance for parents

A few habits, none of which require specialized technical knowledge, meaningfully reduce a child's exposure to these evolving risks:

Maintain ongoing, low-pressure conversation rather than a single "internet safety talk." Ask periodically and casually which apps, games, or AI tools your child is using, the same way you might ask about their day. Children are more forthcoming when the topic feels routine rather than confrontational.

Set privacy expectations collaboratively. Children are considerably more likely to respect boundaries they had a hand in setting than rules imposed without discussion.

Apply the same skepticism to AI-generated answers that you would to an unverified claim from any other source. Encourage children to treat a chatbot's response as a starting point requiring verification, not a final answer.

Reconsider your own posting habits regarding your children's images, particularly on public or loosely restricted accounts, and involve your child in that decision once they're old enough to have a view on it.

Remove any barrier to disclosure. The most significant protective factor is a child's confidence that they can report something confusing or uncomfortable without facing punishment or having their access to devices revoked as a consequence. Children who fear losing access are considerably less likely to report problems early.

FAQ: Children's Online Safety

Why is children's growing use of AI chatbots a safety concern?

AI chatbots can present incorrect information with the same confident tone as accurate information. Children who treat chatbot responses as automatically reliable, rather than verifying important information, are at greater risk of acting on false or misleading content.

Should parents stop posting photos of their children online?

Child-safety experts are increasingly recommending caution rather than an outright ban, citing growing risks from AI-driven image misuse. Parents are advised to reconsider the audience and visibility settings of any content involving their children.

What should a parent do if their child reports an uncomfortable online interaction?

Respond without punishment or immediate restriction of device access. Children are considerably more likely to disclose future concerns if their first experience of doing so was met with support rather than consequences.

Are schools required to monitor children's online safety?

Requirements vary by jurisdiction. In the UK, schools are now required to formally review filtering and monitoring systems annually under updated statutory guidance. Parents in other regions should ask their child's school directly about current policy.