Shaka
A parent’s guide

How to keep your kids safe online

There is no single setting that makes the internet safe for a kid. What works is a few plain layers, set at the right age, plus a kid who knows they can tell you when something goes wrong. Here is how we would do it, in the order we would do it.

The short answer. Put filtering on the browser your kid actually uses, not just on the router. Turn on safe search and lock it. Keep devices out of bedrooms overnight. Match the amount of internet to the kid in front of you rather than to their birthday, and widen it as they show you they can handle it. Tell your kid exactly what you can see, so they are never surprised by it. And agree, out loud, that they will never be in trouble for telling you something upsetting happened.

What actually puts kids at risk online

Most parents picture one risk: a kid stumbling onto pornography. That one is real, and it is usually accidental rather than sought out. But it is only one of four, and the other three are the ones filters alone do not catch.

A good setup handles the first one almost entirely, helps with the fourth, and mostly just gives you a way in to talk about the middle two. Anyone who tells you software solves all four is selling something.

Where to start: five layers, in order

Do these in order. The first two take an evening; the rest are ongoing.

  1. Filter the browser, not just the network. Router-level filtering stops working the moment your kid is on cellular data or a friend’s wifi. The filter that actually travels with them is the one inside the browser app on their device. Whatever you choose, it should apply everywhere the device goes.
  2. Force safe search on, and lock it. Google, Bing, YouTube and TikTok all have a safe or restricted mode. All of them can be switched off by the kid unless something holds them on. Check that whatever you set cannot be undone from the device.
  3. Set the device limits. Apple Screen Time and Google Family Link handle bedtime, downtime, app installs and purchases. These are worth the setup hour. They are also the layer kids most often find a way around, so treat them as a help, not a wall.
  4. Agree the ground rules out loud. Where devices live overnight, whether headphones are allowed at dinner, who your kid is allowed to talk to in a game. Written on the fridge beats stored in an app.
  5. Keep the door open. The single highest-value sentence in this whole guide: “If anything online ever upsets you or scares you, you can tell me and you will not lose the device.” Kids hide things when telling you costs them their connection to friends. Take that cost away and you will hear about problems while they are still small.

What to do at each age

Ages are a rough guide, not a rule. A cautious nine-year-old and a headstrong nine-year-old need different internets. Go by the kid.

Under 5

No open internet, and no search. At this age a kid does not need the web; they need a handful of places you picked. Use a browser or app that only opens sites on an allow list, watch alongside them where you can, and skip anything with a comment section or a chat.

Ages 5 to 9

Search arrives, and with it the first real accidents. Turn on safe search and make sure it cannot be turned off. Keep browsing to shared spaces in the house. Start naming things out loud: that ads are trying to sell you something, that not everyone online is who they say they are, that some pages are made for grown-ups. Autoplay is the main hazard at this age, so turn it off wherever you can find the setting.

Ages 10 to 12

This is the hinge. Kids get their own device, friends get group chats, and the gap between what they can reach and what they are ready for is at its widest. Keep a filter on, but move from blocking silently to blocking with a reason and a way to ask you about it. Talk about pornography before they find it, because at this age many do, and the first conversation should not be a reaction to something you discovered. Set up the games they play with them, and turn off chat with strangers.

Ages 13 and up

Hard blocks start working against you. A teenager who feels policed will do their browsing on a friend’s phone, where you have no view at all and no way to help. Shift from control to visibility: keep the worst categories closed, let most of the web through, and make sure they know what you can see. Talk about the things filters cannot touch, which by now are the ones that matter most: what they send, what a screenshot does, who is in the group chat, and what to do when someone they do not know starts being very friendly.

Do device parental controls handle all of this?

No, and it is worth being precise about why. Screen Time and Family Link are good at the outside of the experience: how long, which apps, what time of night, what can be installed. They are much weaker inside the browser, because the browser they are restricting was built for adults and every rule is a patch on top of that. Safari’s content restriction, for example, is a blunt on/off that over-blocks harmless pages and still misses plenty.

So use them. Just do not expect them to be the whole answer, and do not be surprised when your kid works out a way around them. Most do, eventually, and a kid finding the workaround is not a sign that you failed; it is a sign that the layer was doing its job until it stopped.

How to talk to your kid about it

The technical setup buys you time. The conversations are what actually keep a kid safe, because they are the only layer that still works when your kid is at a friend’s house.

What to do when something goes wrong

Something will, eventually. A plan beats a panic.

  1. Stay calm out loud, whatever you feel. Your reaction sets the price of the next disclosure.
  2. Keep the evidence. Screenshot before you block or delete, especially for harassment or contact from an adult.
  3. Block and report inside the app or game where it happened.
  4. Escalate when an adult is involved. In the United States, contact from an adult seeking a child, or any sexual image of a minor, goes to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children’s CyberTipline at report.cybertip.org, or call 1-800-843-5678. For an immediate danger, call 911.
  5. Do not take the device away as the first move unless safety requires it. If telling you costs a kid their phone, the next thing goes unreported.

Two other places worth knowing: Common Sense Media for age ratings on specific games, shows and apps, and Thorn for research-backed scripts on talking to kids about online sexual risk.

Where Shaka fits

We build one of these layers, so read this part with that in mind.

Shaka Surf is the browser layer: a web browser built for kids rather than an adult browser with restrictions bolted on. It moves through four age levels, from a small set of allowed sites for the youngest kids up to the open web behind a filter for teenagers, and you promote your kid when you both think they are ready. Wave Watch™ reads each page as it loads and either lets it through, warns, or covers it with the reason and a button to ask you about it. The parent app, Shaka Safe, shows you where they went.

The part we care most about is the part that is not a filter: your kid sees the same timeline you do, and the first screen they ever open explains exactly what you can see. No hidden mode, no silent tightening. That is the thing that keeps an older kid browsing where you can still help them.

What Shaka does not do: it is a browser, so it does not cover games, messaging apps, or what happens on someone else’s device. Layers three, four and five on the list above are still yours. Shaka Surf and Shaka Safe are launching on the App Store; you can join the waitlist to hear when.

Questions parents ask

At what age should I give my kid internet access?

There is no single right age, and going by birthday is what gets parents into trouble in both directions. A better test is readiness: can your kid tell you when something upsets them, do they understand that people online are not always who they say, and can they stop when you ask? Most families start with a small set of allowed sites well before they allow open search, and open search well before they allow chat with strangers. Widen one thing at a time.

Is Apple Screen Time enough to keep my kid safe online?

It is a good layer and not a complete answer. Screen Time is strong on time limits, app access, downtime and purchase approval. It is weak inside the browser: the web content filter is blunt, it over-blocks ordinary pages while still missing others, and it gives you no view of what your kid actually saw. Keep Screen Time for the limits and add a filter to the browser itself.

Should I use monitoring software that shows me everything my kid does?

Be careful with the covert kind. Full monitoring works for a while and then tends to fail badly, because kids find out, and the day they do is the day they move their real online life to a device you cannot see. If you do monitor, tell your kid what you can see and stick to it. Visible, limited monitoring holds up over years; secret monitoring usually buys you months and costs you the relationship you needed for the teenage part.

What is the difference between a content filter and parental controls?

Parental controls sit at the device or account level and manage access: how long, which apps, what time. A content filter looks at the actual page or video and decides whether it is appropriate. You want both. Device controls without a filter leave the whole web open during allowed hours, and a filter without device controls leaves a kid on a screen at 2am.

Can my kid get around a filter?

Eventually, many can. VPNs, a friend’s phone, a school laptop, a different browser. This is an argument for layers rather than an argument against filtering. The filter buys you the years where a kid could not have handled it, and the relationship you build in those years is what keeps them safe afterwards. Choose tools that fail closed, meaning they block when they are unsure, and check occasionally that the setup is still doing what you think.

Where should devices live at night?

Outside the bedroom, charging somewhere shared. This is the single highest-return rule in the whole guide, and it costs nothing. Most of what parents worry about happens late, alone, in the dark. Make it a family rule that applies to adults too, and it stops feeling like a punishment.

How do I talk to my kid about pornography?

Before they see it, not after. Somewhere around nine or ten for most kids, earlier if they have older siblings or unsupervised access. Keep it short and unembarrassed: that it exists, that it is made for adults, that it shows sex in a way that is not like real relationships, and above all that they will not be in trouble if they see it, by accident or on purpose, and come tell you. The goal of the first conversation is only to make the second one possible.

My kid is a teenager. Is it too late to start?

No, but the approach has to change. Hard blocking a fifteen-year-old who has had open access mostly relocates their browsing somewhere you cannot see. Start with a conversation about what you are worried about, agree what stays closed, be transparent about what you can see, and leave most of the web open. Visibility and trust do more at this age than restriction does.

Shaka helps families build relationships and have healthy conversations. Not monitor each other.

The browser layer, handled

Shaka Surf covers the part of this guide that a browser can cover. Join the waitlist and you’ll get one email the day it lands on the App Store, and a short note now and then before that.

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