Fewer than half of parents use parental controls on their kids’ devices – but this isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Open communication may be the key to online safety for kids, alongside parental controls, experts say.
Despite the rise in online safety tools for kids, a new report reveals that most families simply aren’t using them. But researchers say parental controls aren't the only, or even best, way to keep kids safe.
A survey by the Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI), released earlier this year, has found that just over half (51%) of parents use parental controls on their child’s tablet – and even fewer use them on smartphones (47%), laptops (43%), game consoles (35%) or smart TVs (38%). FOSI surveyed 1,000 children aged 10 to 17 and 1,000 parents of children in the same age range in the US, between February and March 2025.
While at first, this might seem to show that parents aren’t protecting their kids online, experts say this could actually reflect a deeper problem: the tools just aren’t good enough.
“Our findings show that even as parental controls become more available, adoption remains low,” Stephen Balkam, CEO and founder of FOSI, writes on their website. “This research shows that open communication remains one of the most powerful tools parents have to support their children’s digital wellbeing.”
How are parents limiting their children’s online activity?
FOSI’s survey showed that parents of children who had lower screen times were more likely to use parental controls.
Parents who used controls were most concerned about their children’s safety when posting on social media, inappropriate content, predatory behaviour, misinformation, and spending too long on screens. Meanwhile, the kids were more worried about online scams and fraud.
While less than half of parents used inbuilt restrictions on most devices, over two thirds of parents restrict their kids’ screen time.
Parents of girls were more likely to limit their social media usage, while parents of boys were more likely to restrict their time on video games. And lots of parents had a rule about finishing homework and chores before their kids were allowed on screens.
Why are so many parents not using parental controls?
In the report, FOSI suggests that parents might be “overwhelmed” with the wide variety of parental controls on offer, and struggle to use them effectively.
Sara M. Grimes and Riley McNair, two researchers who’ve spent years interviewing families about their digital habits, wrote in The Conversation that the issue is less about parents’ digital literacy and more about poor design.
“Parental controls don’t always work as promised, offer little context about how settings affect gameplay, and force binary choices that don’t align with household rules or with children’s maturity levels,” they write.
Some parental controls can affect how certain games and websites work but don’t explain this clearly for parents, which can lead to tensions between parents and children if they can’t use their apps and devices in the ways they want to.
Sara and Riley also say that many of the parents choose to trust their kids rather than impose top-down restrictions on them, after having conversations about online behaviour and making sure their children are using devices in supervised areas.
Talking could be a better way to keep kids safe online
“The use of parental controls doesn’t necessarily translate to increased child safety. In fact, using parental controls can create a disconnect between parents and children on key safety issues,” say Sara and Riley.
For example, some of the children that they have worked with don’t know that their parents used parental controls, or therefore why they might be necessary.
“In this context, parents’ efforts to protect their children had the unintended side effect of obscuring vital knowledge, leaving the children unaware of some of the key risks associated with playing online,” Sara and Riley say.
Instead, chatting about it openly can be a better way to help your child stay safe online.
The FOSI survey shows that 89% of kids already feel comfortable turning to their parents if something online makes them feel unsafe.
However, the survey also shows a big disconnect in what parents think their kids get up to online and what they actually do — for example, 50% parents said their children had scrolled on social media in the last week, but 60% of children said they had. And 25% of parents thought their children had been reading books and articles online, but only 19% of children actually had.
So, having a completely open discussion about tech use can be really beneficial.
“Open communication between parents and children on safety topics fosters trust, which increases the likelihood kids will turn to their parents for help when something dangerous happens,” say Sara and Riley. “It enables children to build resiliency, which in turn reduces the risk they’ll be harmed by negative online encounters.”
The FOSI report found that in households where families talked about online safety regularly (i.e. at least six times a year) both parents and children were more likely to think that parental controls help to keep them safe online. In other words: parental controls work best as part of a bigger conversation.
“Families would benefit from making parental controls and safety settings a family affair. Kids and parents have a lot to learn from each other about the digital world,” Sara and Riley say.