The 10 internet safety rules for kids that survive contact with a real family, in a printable set
10 internet safety rules for kids, phrased the way a parent would actually say them at the kitchen table rather than the way a policy document would. Short enough to remember, blunt enough to argue with.
Most rule lists fail in the same way. They are written to be defensible, not sayable, they address the child and exempt the adult, and they describe apps that will have changed by the time the poster fades. The set below is deliberately the other thing: ten sentences a parent can say out loud without sounding like a leaflet, each one a rule the whole household keeps.
The 10 internet safety rules
Read them once in order. Then pick the three that describe a problem you actually have.
Screens live in shared rooms
Homework at the kitchen table beats homework behind a closed door, for maths and for everything else.
You are not the last to know
Agree that whatever happens online, telling you never makes the punishment worse.
Real names, real photos, real addresses stay home
The rule everyone can recite and almost nobody keeps.
Friends online are strangers until they are not
Playing together for a month is not the same as knowing someone. Meeting up means a parent knows first.
Money asks a grown-up
Skins, coins, passes, free trials: every purchase and every card number goes through you.
Screens have a bedtime
Phones sleep in the kitchen, not under the pillow. Yours too; the rule only works if it is a house rule.
The block button is not rude
Nobody owes a stranger a reply. Block early, block often, and never feel bad about it.
Screenshots before deletions
If something nasty happens, keep the evidence first, then block, then report, then talk.
Passwords are family secrets, not friendship tests
Sharing a password to prove trust is how accounts get lost. A shared family password manager is how they do not.
When in doubt, ask out loud
A weird message, a too-good prize, a scary pop-up: reading it aloud to someone breaks its spell. At any age.
Why these ten, and not a longer list
Every rule here does one of three jobs: it puts screens where they can be seen, it keeps the channel to an adult open, or it slows down the two moments where damage happens, money and strangers. Anything that did not do one of those jobs was cut, which is why there is no rule about specific apps and none about screen-time numbers. Those change; these do not. That is also why there are 10 internet safety rules and not thirty: a list nobody finishes reading protects nobody.
The second rule carries more weight than the other nine combined. A child who believes that telling you makes the punishment worse will not tell you, and every other rule then depends on you noticing things unaided. Internet safety rules for kids work when the child is on the same side of them as you are, and rule two is what puts them there.
Rule five is the one parents underestimate. In-game purchases are the most common way money leaves a household through a child’s device, usually in small amounts that nobody queries until the statement arrives. Making every purchase pass through an adult is not about the money; it is a checkpoint that catches a lot of other things on the way past.
The printable version, for the fridge and the wall
There are two printable layouts. The fridge sheet fits the ten rules on one page in a size readable from standing distance, and the poster version drops the explanations so the rules can be read across a classroom. Both print from a normal browser with no login, no email address and nothing branded at your children.
A printable set on the fridge does something a bookmark cannot: it puts the rules in the room where the arguing happens. Households that print them tend to end up with a crossed-out rule and one written in by hand, which is the format doing its job.
Adapting the rules for kids of different ages
Under about seven, keep three rules and make them concrete: where the device lives, who may be spoken to, when it goes back. Abstractions do not land yet, and physical rules do.
From seven to eleven, the full ten make sense as written, and this is the age at which the shared-room rule buys the most. Between twelve and fifteen, expect to renegotiate: a rule imposed at that age gets tested, while a rule agreed to gets kept. Above fifteen, most of these have become conversations instead of rules, with one exception: the money rule stays a rule.
If you want the setup side to match, the device configuration for each age band is in the parental controls wizard, which asks for the age and gives the exact menu path in place of general advice.
Using them with students in a classroom
Teachers tend to use the set in two ways. As a discussion starter, the trick is to hand out the ten and ask which one their household would refuse; the disagreement is the lesson. As a poster, it works better with the explanations removed, which is what the wall version does.
The quiz pairs with it directly: same ten themes, ten questions, instant marking and a certificate. Classes tend to score well on the stranger rules and badly on the password one, which is a useful thing to know before you plan the follow-up lesson. The classroom kit has the answer key and both age variants.
Questions about the internet safety rules
What age are these internet safety rules written for?
The wording suits roughly ages seven to fourteen as it stands. Below that, keep three rules instead of ten and make them physical: where the tablet lives, when it goes back. Above it, the rules stop being instructions and become the basis for a negotiation, which is the point at that age.
Do I have to use all ten?
No, and a household that keeps four rules is in better shape than one that has ten on the fridge and enforces none. Pick the three that match what actually happens in your house this month, agree them out loud, and add the rest when those have stopped needing to be mentioned.
How do I stop a rule being ignored within a week?
Two things do most of the work: the adults keep it too, and there is a stated consequence that is not the removal of the device. If the only penalty is confiscation, a child weighs telling you against losing their phone — and stops telling you. Rule two exists to prevent exactly that trade.
Can I print these for a classroom wall?
Yes. The printable layout is free, needs no login and carries no branding aimed at pupils. Teachers generally want the poster version for the wall and the single-page version to send home, and both print from a normal browser.
Are rules enough on their own?
They cover the half that technology cannot. The other half is configuring the devices, which is a one-evening job with the controls wizard. Rules without setup rely entirely on compliance; setup without rules breaks the moment your child is on somebody else’s device.
What if my child breaks a rule badly?
Deal with the incident and keep the rule. The most common mistake is to respond to one breach by withdrawing trust generally, which teaches concealment. Handle what happened, restate the rule, and if it was a scam or a threatening message, keep the evidence first; that is covered on the scam websites page.