Professionals can mistake the consequences of exploitation for evidence that exploitation is not happening. When a child does not behave like the victim we expect to see, professional curiosity must increase, not compassion decrease.

A 15-year-old girl repeatedly goes missing. When she returns, she has a phone she cannot explain. She refuses to identify the adults she has been with. She becomes angry when questioned and continues contacting somebody professionals believe is harming her.  The language around her begins to change. She is described as defiant. Risk-taking. Secretive. Unwilling to engage. Some records suggest that she is making poor choices or placing herself at risk.

Those descriptions are not necessarily invented. They may accurately record what professionals can see. The problem begins when visible behaviour is treated as a complete explanation.

Another question is possible: what level of control would make returning feel safer than leaving?

That question does not assume that every missing episode, difficult relationship or offence is proof of exploitation. It does something more disciplined. It keeps the possibility of coercion open long enough for professionals to test it properly.

Behaviour is not the same as freedomChildren affected by exploitation do make decisions. They may choose when to answer a phone, what to tell a professional or whether to return to a location. But the existence of a decision does not tell us whether the child was free to make it.

A useful safeguarding assessment asks not only, ‘Did the child do this?’ It also asks, ‘What shaped the range of options available to them?’

Apparent choices may be constrained by threats, emotional dependency, debt, sexual-image blackmail, fear of retaliation, loyalty, shame, concern for siblings or friends, or the belief that nobody else can keep them safe. The Home Office guidance on county lines describes the use of violence, psychological control, blackmail, online entrapment and manufactured debt. It also recognises that child criminal exploitation may be present even where the activity appears consensual.

Exploitation rarely begins with its most frightening demand. It can begin with attention, money, status, protection, affection or belonging. What first feels like an opportunity can become a debt. What feels like a relationship can become surveillance. What looks from the outside like loyalty may, from the child’s position, be a survival strategy.

The Centre of expertise on child sexual abuse makes the same point in relation to sexual exploitation: apparent cooperation cannot be taken as consent where grooming, coercion and control are operating. Online and offline harm can overlap, including threats to share sexual or nude images.

We should therefore be careful with a simple question such as, ‘Why did they go back?’ Returning may not mean the child wants the harm. It may mean the child fears what will happen to them or somebody else if they refuse. It may mean the exploiter has become their main source of identity, protection or emotional connection. It may mean that leaving feels more dangerous than staying.

The Perfect Victim Test
Safeguarding systems can unconsciously operate a perfect victim test. The child most readily recognised as harmed is often the child who discloses early, gives a clear and consistent account, accepts professional language, cooperates with the police, cuts contact with the perpetrator and shows distress in a form adults recognise.
Real children may do none of those things.

A child may minimise what has happened. They may protect the person harming them. They may withdraw one part of their account, disclose another part later or communicate through anger, avoidance, running away or self-harm rather than words. Research summarised by the CSA Centre describes disclosure as a process, not a single event. Verbal disclosure during childhood is often low, some accounts are partial, and children may show through their behaviour what they cannot yet say directly.  If our threshold for belief is calm cooperation and immediate disengagement, we will miss many of the children whose circumstances are most controlled.

The language used in professional records then becomes critical. Phrases such as ‘putting herself at risk’, ‘involved in’, ‘choosing this lifestyle’ or ‘refusing to engage’ can move attention away from the adult creating the harm. The Children’s Society’s language guidance warns that victim-blaming language can reinforce shame, create barriers to disclosure and alter how other professionals understand and respond to the child.

Let’s tell the truth: sometimes the child’s presentation is difficult. They may be hostile, unreliable, frightening, harmful to others or exhausted by professionals. Compassion does not require us to pretend otherwise. It requires us to ask what the behaviour is communicating and who has gained from it.

When the child is also causing harmThe hardest cases are often those in which a child is both harmed and harming others. A criminally exploited child may carry drugs, hold a weapon, assault somebody, recruit a friend or introduce another child to an exploitative network. A sexually exploited child may facilitate access to peers or appear to defend an abusive group.

Recognising exploitation does not erase the harm caused to other children. Nor should safeguarding be confused with the absence of accountability. The task is to avoid a false choice between seeing a victim and seeing an offender.

A child can require protection, boundaries, intervention and accountability at the same time. What changes is the quality of our response. We examine who directed the behaviour, who benefited, what coercion or dependency existed, and what would reduce the likelihood of further harm. Punishing the visible child while leaving the controlling adult and the exploitative context untouched is not accountability. It is an incomplete response.

Every agency sees a fragment. Exploitation often becomes visible in fragments.

School
The fragment they may see: Absence, exclusion, falling attainment, new peers or sudden changes in presentation

Police
The fragment they may see: Missing episodes, possession, offending, repeated locations or contact with known adults

Health
The fragment they may see: Injuries, anxiety, self-harm, sexual-health concerns, substance use or repeated emergency attendance

Social care
The fragment they may see: Conflict at home, placement instability, family distress or concerns that do not fit an intra-familial model

Youth workers
The fragment they may see: Fear, new associations, unexplained money, changes in language, status or behaviour

Family
The fragment they may see: Small changes over time, unexplained routines, names, calls, gifts, threats or a child they no longer recognise

The failure happens when each fragment is treated as a separate problem. Absence becomes an education issue. Possession becomes a policing issue. Family conflict becomes a parenting issue. Injury becomes a health episode. Nobody asks whether the same person, place, phone, debt or threat connects them.

This is why multi-agency working is not a meeting held after concern has escalated. It is the active construction of a shared picture. The 2024 joint inspection of multi-agency responses to serious youth violence found that safeguarding needs, exploitation, trauma and wider needs were not always recognised. It also found that stronger partnerships collated information across agencies and responded rapidly, while ineffective information-sharing left disruption reactive rather than preventative.

Families belong in that shared picture. They may not hold every answer, and home is not safe for every child. But where parents, carers or siblings are safe, their observations should not be reduced to anxiety, poor boundaries or an inability to manage adolescence. Families often see the pattern between professional contacts. They notice the sequence, not just the episode.

The current London Assembly Police and Crime Committee investigation into grooming gangs in London is examining prevention, investigation, victim support and partnership working. Those questions cannot be answered by counting incidents alone. They require scrutiny of how signs were interpreted, whose account was believed, what agencies knew and whether anybody joined the fragments together.

Five questions to ask before calling it a choice1. Who benefits from what the child is doing?
Follow the benefit. Who receives the money, status, sexual access, information, transport, premises or new recruits? A child may be the most visible person in the chain while holding the least power.
2. What might happen if the child refuses?
Do not limit this to an explicit threat. Consider violence, humiliation, exposure of images, loss of protection, withdrawal of affection, debt, retaliation against family members or fear of police and services.
3. What threat, reward, debt or dependency is operating?
Map both pressure and attachment. Exploitation can be maintained by fear and by the child’s need for belonging. The reward does not cancel the coercion. It may be one of its mechanisms.
4. What information is held by other agencies or the family?
Ask what changes when the missing episode, school absence, injury, new phone, location, peer group and offence are placed on the same timeline. Identify who is responsible for building and updating that picture.
5. What would need to change for the child to feel safe enough to speak honestly?
Disclosure is affected by safety, trust and what the child believes will happen next. Consider who should speak with them, where, at what pace, and what practical protection can be offered before asking for more detail.

What a better professional response looks like

Greater curiosity must lead to different action, not simply more questions for the child.
A stronger response keeps a consistent trusted professional involved, avoids closing support because engagement is uneven, and builds a safety plan around the places and people connected to harm. It records facts clearly while separating observation from interpretation. It asks what can be disrupted around the adult, network or location, rather than placing the entire burden of safety on the child.

It also avoids repeated interrogation. The child should not have to produce a perfect disclosure for each new professional in order to remain eligible for belief. Information should move safely between agencies so that the child does not carry the system’s communication burden.

And it pays attention to language. Compare ‘she keeps choosing to return to him’ with ‘she has returned to contact with an adult about whom there are concerns regarding coercion and control’. The second formulation does not manufacture certainty. It keeps the safeguarding hypothesis visible and directs attention towards the adult’s behaviour.
Professional curiosity is not about removing all agency from children. It is about refusing to award adult freedom to a child whose choices may have been narrowed by fear, dependency and control.

The question we should leave withThe child who refuses help may be the child who has learned that help cannot protect them. The child who returns may be responding to a threat nobody has yet uncovered. The child who protects an adult may be protecting a sibling, a friend, their reputation or the only relationship they believe they have.

None of this means professionals should assume exploitation whenever a child takes a risk or commits an offence. It means we should be as curious about control as we are about conduct, and as interested in the adult creating the conditions as we are in the child reacting to them.

​The question is not simply why the child keeps returning. The question is what the person exploiting them has made them believe will happen if they do not.

Evidence and further reading
Home Office: Criminal exploitation of children and vulnerable adults, county lines. Defines child criminal exploitation and describes coercion, blackmail, online entrapment and debt bondage.
Centre of expertise on child sexual abuse: Child sexual exploitation. Summarises research on control, coercion, apparent cooperation and the overlap between online and offline exploitation.
Centre of expertise on child sexual abuse: Identifying and responding to disclosures. Explains disclosure as a process that may be partial, delayed, behavioural or non-verbal.
The Children’s Society: Appropriate Language, Child Exploitation. Shows how victim-blaming language can affect professional thinking, disclosure and support.
Joint inspectorates: Multi-agency responses to serious youth violence. Reports on identification, information-sharing, trauma, exploitation and joined-up safeguarding practice.
Department for Education: Working Together to Safeguard Children 2026. Current statutory guidance for multi-agency work to help, support and protect children in England.
London Assembly: Grooming gangs in London investigation. Sets out the committee’s current focus on prevention, investigation, victim support and partnership working.

A child does not need to have taken a sexual image for an image to be used against them.
Artificial intelligence can place a child’s face into something that never happened. It can alter an ordinary school photograph, generate a convincing likeness or create a sexualised image from almost nothing. It can then be used to humiliate, threaten, blackmail or control.
The image may be fake. The fear of walking into school after it has been shared is not. The messages are not. The laughter, threats and feeling that everybody is looking are not.
This is where the quality of the first professional response becomes critical.

Here is a real truth: The first professional response can either return some control to the child or take more of it away.

The technology is new. The use of shame, sexual humiliation, coercion and peer status is not.

AI image abuse can sit inside child-on-child abuse, bullying, sexual harassment, exploitation, extortion, domestic abuse, adult offending or a wider pattern of control. Sometimes the image is circulating. Sometimes the child has only been threatened with it. Sometimes there is a rumour that an image exists and the social harm has already begun. That complexity is why a simple instruction to confiscate a phone or report an account is not enough. The safeguarding response must address the child’s whole experience: what has happened, who may be involved, where the material may be travelling, whether threats are active and what the next hour or next school day now feels like.

A calm first response should reduce shame, establish safety and keep the child involved.
The reassurance that can accidentally minimiseAn adult may instinctively say, “But it is not really you.” The intention may be to reassure. The child may hear something very different: it is not real, so it does not count.

A better response separates the truth of the image from the truth of the impact:
Try saying: “Even if the image was created or altered by AI, what has happened to you matters. I am not going to treat this as less serious because the image is not real.”
That sentence does three things. It believes the impact. It avoids pretending the adult already knows every fact. It tells the child that the response will not depend on whether the technology produced a perfect fake.

First response is not investigation
When professionals are anxious, they often try to close every gap immediately.
Who made it? Exactly what can be seen? How many people received it? Can you show me the chat?

Those questions can turn a disclosure into an interview and expose the child to repeated viewing. They can also lead staff to create or retain copies they should never have held.
The first response has a narrower job. It should establish immediate safety, identify active threats or extortion, place responsibility with the safeguarding lead and gather only enough information to decide the next action.

Safer first-response questions versus questions to avoid:
What are you most worried might happen today?
not
Why did you let this happen?
Is anyone threatening you or asking for money, images or contact?
not
Show me every chat and send me the image.
Where do you believe it has been shared?
not
Exactly what can you see in it?
What are you worried adults might do that could make this worse?
not
Do you want us to do nothing?

Preserve information, not extra copies

The safest evidence response is disciplined. Record the child’s words, platform or group-chat name, usernames, dates, times, URLs, threats and decisions where this can be done without opening, copying or forwarding the image.

Do not ask a child to send or download it. Do not print it, save it to a case file or forward it to prove the concern. Do not conduct an informal search of the child’s device. Where police involvement is likely, seek advice about preservation and device handling before altering anything.

Removal remains important, but timing and method need coordination.
Report Remove can help an under-18 in the UK report nude or sexual imagery of themselves, including imagery created or altered using AI. The setting should not keep its own copy to support the request.

Safety cannot look like punishment
A child-centred plan considers the next hour, the next journey, the next lesson and the next online interaction. It asks who will meet the child, how they will move through the setting, what peer contact needs managing, what learning adjustments are wanted and when the plan will be reviewed.
It also asks a harder question: have we restricted the targeted child because that is administratively easier?
Removing the child from lessons, friendship groups, activities or their device may reduce immediate pressure. If every restriction lands on the child who was targeted, the safeguarding response can begin to feel like another punishment.

The alleged creator or sharer may need two responses
A child alleged to have created or shared a sexualised image may have caused serious harm. Clear boundaries and accountability are required.

That same child may also be acting under coercion, copying peer behaviour, experiencing exploitation or lacking the developmental understanding adults assume. Safeguarding language should not disappear simply because a child is accused of causing harm.
Holding those two truths is not being soft. It is how settings protect every child without collapsing harm, intent, risk and need into a single judgement.

Policy will not speak for staff under pressure
Keeping Children Safe in Education 2026 explicitly recognises intimate images and videos generated using AI within child-on-child abuse. UKCIS guidance also covers AI-generated imagery and sets a clear expectation that staff should not view imagery, with exceptional viewing decisions reserved for the DSL or equivalent where necessary to safeguard the child. But policy is only the beginning.

A document cannot decide what a teaching assistant says when a frightened child tries to hand over a phone. It cannot rehearse the night worker’s response when a child in residential care discloses after hours. It cannot ensure that parent contact is calm, or that tomorrow’s return plan does not isolate the child further.

Staff need usable language, clear boundaries and a rehearsed route. They need to know what to notice, what to say and what not to do.

The question for every setting: How confident are the adults in your setting that they would know what to say first?

Start with the first hour
Smart Training & Consultancy has developed an AI Image Abuse First-Response range for schools, colleges and children’s homes:

• A free two-page First-Hour Guide for immediate staff use
• A full practitioner kit with child and parent scripts, evidence guidance, safety planning, peer response, supervision tools and templates
• A 60-minute staff briefing using realistic scenarios and local procedure mapping
• Organisational support for policy-to-practice review and wider safeguarding development

Next step:
Download the First-Hour Guide here for free,
Purchase the full practitioner kit here
Or go purchase the full staff implentation pack here
or alternatively book a staff briefing at smarttc.co.uk.
For organisational enquiries, email [email protected].

Sources and further reading

• Keeping Children Safe in Education 2026
• UKCIS: Sharing nudes and semi-nudes advice for education settings
• NCA: guidance on AI-manipulated images of children, July 2026
• IWF: AI child sexual abuse imagery parent safety guide
• Childline and IWF: Report Remove
• Crime and Policing Act 2026: child sexual abuse material factsheet

Publication note: KCSIE 2026 was published in July 2026 for implementation from 1 September 2026. Until 31 August 2026, schools and colleges should continue to use KCSIE 2025 while preparing for the new version. Verify local and national routes before use.

The UK government has announced plans to ban social media platforms from offering services to children under the age of 16.

For some people, this feels long overdue.
For others, it feels unrealistic, heavy-handed or too difficult to enforce.
For many parents, teachers, youth workers, social workers and safeguarding professionals, it probably feels like both things at once. Because the truth is complicated.

Children have experienced real harm online. That harm is not imagined. It is not simply adult panic. It is not just about “too much screen time”.  At the same time, a ban will not solve everything. It will not remove grooming. It will not end youth violence. It will not stop misogyny, bullying, exploitation or harmful content by itself.

So this article is not about easy slogans. It is about explaining what the proposed ban actually is, what it is not, what the evidence says, what the common myths get wrong, and what practitioners, parents and policymakers still need to understand.

What is the under-16 social media ban?
In June 2026, the UK government announced plans to stop social media platforms from offering their services to children under the age of 16.  The government says the first set of regulations should be laid before the end of 2026, with the changes expected to come into force in Spring 2027 (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology [DSIT], 2026a, 2026b).

At the time of writing, the full details are still being developed. That means the final platform list, enforcement process and technical age-checking requirements may still change. But the direction is clear: the government wants to make social media platforms responsible for keeping under-16s off certain services.

Which platforms could be included?
The government says it plans to follow a similar model to Australia. That means the ban is likely to apply to major user-to-user platforms designed for social interaction, where people can post content and be exposed to algorithmic feeds.
The platforms named by the government include:
Instagram
TikTok
Snapchat
YouTube
Facebook
X

The government has also said that some harmful features will be restricted for under-16s, including livestreaming and communication with strangers. These restrictions are expected to apply more widely, including on some gaming services (DSIT, 2026a, 2026b).
That is important, because many risks do not sit neatly inside one app.  Children can be contacted, pressured, groomed or exposed to harmful content across social media, gaming, livestreaming, messaging and private groups. In 2023 for example, a child was groomed over the course of a year through the music app Spotify (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-64262918)

What is not included?
This is where some of the confusion begins.
The proposed ban does not mean children are being banned from the whole internet, nor does it mean they won't be able to have mobile phones. 

The government says messaging services such as WhatsApp and Signal are not currently intended to be included in the social media ban (DSIT, 2026a, 2026b).
It also says children should still be able to go online for learning, news, games and staying in touch with known friends and family. Educational services, e-commerce platforms and music streaming services are not intended to be pulled into the ban by mistake (DSIT, 2026a, 2026b).

So this is not a total internet ban. It is a proposed restriction on certain social media services and high-risk features.

Will children be criminalised for using social media?
As currently described, no.
The legal responsibility is aimed at platforms, not children. The government’s own fact sheet says parents and children do not need to do anything right now, and that further guidance will be provided before the changes come into force in 2027 (DSIT, 2026b).
That distinction matters. Children should not be criminalised for being online. The purpose of the policy should be to make platforms safer and more accountable, not to create another way of punishing young people.

Why is this being considered?
The simple answer is this: children’s lives are now deeply digital.
Ofcom found that 96% of children aged 3 to 17 went online in 2024, and once children reach the age of 10 to 12, more than 99% go online (Ofcom, 2025).
Ofcom also found that 79% of children aged 3 to 17 had their own profile on at least one social media, messaging, video-sharing or livestreaming service (Ofcom, 2025).
This is not occasional exposure.
For many children, online life is part of everyday life. It is where they learn, talk, watch, compare, laugh, argue, explore identity, find information, seek support and build friendships. But it is also a place where there are many documented cases of children being bullied, groomed, shamed, threatened, sexualised, manipulated, exposed to violence or pulled into harmful networks.

How long are children spending online?
This needs careful explanation, because “screen time” can mean different things.
There is total online time.
There is social media time.
There is video watching.
There is messaging.
There is gaming.
There is homework.
There is passive scrolling.
There is late-night use.
There is compulsive use.
They are not all the same.
Ofcom’s 2026 passive measurement study of children aged 8 to 14 found that they spent an average of 3 hours and 36 minutes a day online across smartphones, tablets and computers. This rose with age, from 2 hours and 53 minutes among 8- to 9-year-olds to 4 hours and 19 minutes among 13- to 14-year-olds (Ofcom, 2026a).
But averages can hide a lot.  The same Ofcom study found that children aged 8 to 14 in the top quarter for online use were online for an average of 6 hours and 42 minutes a day. Among 10- to 12-year-olds in the top quarter, this rose to 7 hours the same for 13- to 14-year-olds in the top quarter,  Weekend use was higher than weekday use. 
.
Savanta’s 2026 research for the government found even higher self-reported social media use among children and young people whilst the Children’s Commissioner report from 2018, drawing on Ofcom figures, said more than 150,000 children aged 12 to 15 were spending over 8 hours a day online at the weekend (Children’s Commissioner for England, 2018). The same amount as an average working day.
So yes, some children are spending very long periods online, especially at weekends and that should concern us.

Is screen time itself the problem?
​Not always.
This is one of the most important points in the whole debate.
The evidence does not support a lazy argument that every hour online is automatically harmful. A UK longitudinal study using data from Understanding Society found little evidence that more time spent on social media alone was associated with later mental health problems in UK adolescents (Plackett et al., 2023).
That matters. It means we should not simply say, “More screen time equals more harm.”

But that does not mean there is no harm.

Other research suggests that risk may be more closely linked to what young people are doing online, what they are exposed to, whether their use becomes compulsive, whether it affects sleep, whether it damages self-esteem, and whether online pressure spills into offline life. A 2025 JAMA study found that high or increasing addictive use of social media, mobile phones or video games was associated with suicidal thoughts, suicidal behaviours and worse mental health among young people. The study also found that baseline total screen time alone was not independently associated with those outcomes once addictive use patterns were considered (Xiao et al., 2025).

That is a crucial distinction.

The issue is not only how long children are online.
The issue is whether they can switch off.
Whether they feel pulled back.
Whether they are sleeping.
Whether they are being contacted.
Whether they are being humiliated.
Whether they are being groomed.
Whether they are being threatened.
Whether they are being fed violent, sexualised or distressing content.
Whether they are using the online world for support, or being harmed through it.

What are the benefits of being online?
The online world is not only harmful. For many children, it is useful, enjoyable and important. Ofcom found that many children and young people identify real benefits from being online. Teenagers use the internet for schoolwork, friendships, hobbies, information, news, causes they care about and support (Ofcom, 2025). For some children, especially those who are isolated, disabled, neurodivergent, LGBTQ+, anxious, bullied, rural or struggling to find belonging offline, online spaces can provide connection and identity.
However there are also harms.

What are the harms?
The harms are not imaginary.
Ofcom found that girls were more likely than boys to experience nasty or hurtful interactions online, 34% compared with 28% (Ofcom, 2025).  The Youth Endowment Fund found that 70% of teenagers aged 13 to 17 in England and Wales had encountered real-life violence on social media in the previous 12 months. Only 6% said they had actively searched for it (Youth Endowment Fund, 2024).

Those findings are quite serious. Many children are not looking for violent content. It is finding them. The same YEF research found exposure to weapons, gang activity, fights and sexual violence or threats. It also found that some children felt less safe in their local area after seeing weapons content online (Youth Endowment Fund, 2024). That should be a concern for any parent, any practitoner, in fact for anyone working in youth held spaces. Fear changes behaviour. If a young person sees knives, threats and fights online, they may start to feel that violence is everywhere. If they feel violence is everywhere, they may feel they need protection.If they feel they need protection, carrying a weapon may start to feel rational, even when it increases their risk. If then, in the same spaces that they are watching the violence the purchase of weapons is just a few clicks away it changes everything.

That is how online harm can become offline danger.

This is why this matters for youth violence and exploitation. Before and after every incident, there is often a digital footprint.
A post before an incident.
A message after it.
A rumour.
A threat.
A recording.
A repost.
A group chat.
A humiliation.
A dare.
A challenge.
A comment that turns pain into performance.

Social media may not cause every violent incident. But it can act as a conduit.
It can make conflict travel faster.
It can make humiliation harder to escape.
It can turn violence into status.
It can make fear spread.
It can keep retaliation alive.
It can pull children into group pressure that adults do not see.
It can allow exploiters to contact, monitor, groom, threaten or control children.

The Home Office’s county lines guidance recognises that child criminal exploitation can happen through technology, including social media, messaging apps, gaming sites and other online services (Home Office, 2023). That means practitioners cannot treat online behaviour as separate from safeguarding. A child’s phone may hold the missing piece of the risk picture and again this is another area of contention where social media and phone companies refuse to hand over the information that can unlock a childs online activity.

Myth 1: “The ban has already come in”
No.
The ban has been announced, but it is not yet fully in force.
The government expects the first set of regulations to be laid before the end of 2026, with changes expected to be implemented in Spring 2027 (DSIT, 2026a, 2026b).
So families, schools and practitioners do not need to act as if the ban is already operating. But they do need to prepare for the fact that the rules are changing.

Myth 2: “Children are being banned from the whole internet”
No.
The proposed ban is aimed at certain social media platforms and high-risk features. It does not ban children from going online for learning, games, news or staying in touch with known friends and family (DSIT, 2026b).
WhatsApp and Signal are not currently intended to be included in the social media ban (DSIT, 2026a, 2026b).
That is important, but it also raises a safeguarding question.
If children cannot access some mainstream social media platforms, where will they go instead?
Will risk move into messaging apps?
Gaming chat?
Private groups?
Borrowed accounts?
Older siblings’ accounts?
Alternative platforms?
The ban may close some doors. It will not remove every route.

Myth 3: “Children will just use VPNs”
This argument is everywhere, but it is not true.
Reasearch from Australia's ban shows that young people did not simply migrate to VPNs. VPN's are not free, often requiring a credit or debit card to access. Children will go where their friends are and if the majority of their friends can't access VPN's the easier option is just to use platforms with weaker age restrictions, others used simpler methods such as changing dates of birth, using new accounts, borrowing accounts or using older relatives’ details (Nansen et al., 2026).

Myth 5: “The ban will stop grooming”
No.
The ban may reduce some routes into grooming. It may make some platforms less accessible to under-16s. It may reduce exposure to strangers, livestreaming and algorithmic feeds.
But grooming is adaptive.
It can move across platforms.
It can begin in public and shift into private messages.
It can happen through gaming.
It can happen through image-sharing.
It can happen through debt.
It can happen through relationships.
It can happen offline and be reinforced online.
It can happen through fear, shame, loyalty, threats or emotional dependency.
The ban may change the route. It will not remove the risk.

That is why practitioners must keep asking digital safeguarding questions, even after restrictions come in.
Who can contact this child?
Who are they speaking to privately?
Are they using more than one account?
Has anyone asked them to send images?
Has anyone threatened to expose them?
Are they being pressured through group chats?
Are online threats shaping offline behaviour?
Are they frightened of what might be posted?
Those questions will still matter.

Myth 6: “This is just moral panic”
This is one of the weakest arguments against action.
Yes, some public debate about children and technology can become exaggerated.
But the evidence does not support the idea that online harm is invented.

Ofcom’s evidence shows children encounter nasty, worrying and harmful experiences online (Ofcom, 2025). YEF’s evidence shows high levels of exposure to real-life violence on social media (Youth Endowment Fund, 2024). NSPCC evidence shows online platforms and private messaging are used in grooming and sexual communication offences against children (NSPCC, 2025).

For those of us working around safeguarding, exploitation and youth violence, this is not abstract.
We have seen school fights organised online.
We have seen threats escalate through posts.
We have seen humiliation become a motive.
We have seen violence filmed for status.
We have seen children pressured through group chats.
We have seen online content affect how safe young people feel in their local area.
Calling that moral panic lets platforms off the hook.

Myth 7: “Parents should just manage it”
Parents matter. Boundaries matter. Conversations at home matter.
But it is unfair and unrealistic to place the main responsibility on parents.
Many parents are stretched. Many are working long hours. Many are dealing with poverty, housing stress, SEND needs, mental health concerns, family pressures and school issues. Many do not fully understand the platforms their children use. Many are trying hard and still feel outpaced.

Ofcom found that more than half of 8- to 17-year-olds with profiles had more than one profile on the same type of service (Ofcom, 2025). Some children have one account for family to see, one for close friends, and another that feels more like the “real me”.
That makes monitoring much more complicated than simply saying, “Check their phone.”
Parents have a role.
But families cannot regulate billion-pound digital environments from the kitchen table.

Myth 8: “Schools can solve it with online safety lessons”
Schools have a vital role. Online safety education matters.
Ofcom found that 92% of 8- to 17-year-olds could recall having at least one school lesson about being online and possible risks (Ofcom, 2025).
That is positive. But education is not the same as regulation.
A school lesson cannot redesign an algorithm.
A poster cannot stop a child being contacted at midnight.
A teacher cannot monitor every group chat.
A DSL cannot control every platform feature.
Schools should teach digital safety, but they should not be left to absorb the consequences of platform design.

Myth 9: “Social media companies are neutral”
They are not.
Platforms do not simply host content. They design the environment.
They decide what is recommended.
They decide what is rewarded.
They decide what keeps users scrolling.
They decide what features are available.
They decide how easy it is for strangers to connect.
They decide how hard it is to report harm.
They decide how quickly harmful content is removed.
They decide whether a child is pulled deeper into a feed.
The government itself has said that algorithmic feeds can intensify exposure to dangerous, distressing or overly engaging material (DSIT, 2026a).
That matters.
If a platform recommends harmful content, it is not neutral.
If a platform allows strangers to contact children, it is not neutral.
If a platform profits from attention while children absorb the harm, it is not neutral.
I think it is worth pointing out that social media companies have a vested interest in resisting a ban, Some sources have estimated they stand to lose in total around £1.3bn in advertising revenue by stopping access to under 16's to social media (https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/jun/17/uk-social-media-ban-digital-advertising-snapchat-instagram-youtube). Those sort of figures should concern us. Its enough for any company to put their needs above the needs of a child or to consider any form of safeguarding.

Myth 10: “Online spaces are only dangerous”
This is false.
Online spaces can be protective. They can help children learn, connect, create, seek advice and feel less alone.

For some children, online communities may be the only place they feel understood.
That is why the answer cannot be “online bad, offline good”.
The issue is not whether children should ever benefit from the internet.
The issue is whether children should be placed inside commercial systems that expose them to preventable harm, while families and schools are expected to carry the consequences.

We can defend children’s need for connection while still demanding that platforms stop exposing them to avoidable risk.

My personal view
My view is that I support strong action against social media companies, including age-based restrictions.
Not because I think a ban solves everything.
It does not.
It may be part of the answer.
It may help reset the norm.
It may support parents.
It may force platforms to take age seriously.
It may reduce some exposure to harmful features and algorithmic feeds.

But it will not solve the deeper issues by itself.
It will not replace youth work.
It will not replace family support.
It will not replace mental health services.
It will not replace early intervention.
It will not replace contextual safeguarding.
It will not solve poverty, exclusion, racism, trauma, SEND gaps or violence in communities.

The ban should be a line in the sand, not a substitute for support.

What should practitioners take from this?
The most important thing is not to stop asking questions.
If anything, the ban should sharpen our digital safeguarding practice not step back from it.
We should ask:
What platforms is this child using?
Do they have more than one account?
Who can contact them privately?
Are they part of group chats adults do not know about?
Have they seen weapons, fights or threats online?
Are they scared of what might be posted?
Are they being humiliated?
Are they being pressured to respond?
Are images being used to control them?
Are online threats linked to offline behaviour?
Is their sleep being affected?
Can they switch off?
Does being online help them feel connected, or does it make them feel unsafe?

These questions are not extras. They are crucial safeguarding ones.

Not because I think every child online is unsafe.
They are not.
Not because I think parents, schools and practitioners have no role.
They absolutely do.
But because we have reached a point where too much responsibility has been pushed onto children, families, teachers and frontline workers, while the companies designing and profiting from these environments continue to present themselves as if they are only passive hosts.

That is not good enough.

When children are being exposed to violence, grooming, sexual pressure, misogyny, humiliation, threats and compulsive design, we cannot keep calling this individual choice.
When families are stretched, we cannot simply say, “Monitor it better.”
When schools are stretched, we cannot simply say, “Teach another lesson.”
When practitioners are stretched, we cannot simply say, “Spot every digital risk.”
And when platforms are shaping the environment, we cannot let them deny responsibility for the harm that environment creates.

If this were smoking, gambling, unsafe products or dangerous public spaces, we would not rely only on guidance and good intentions.
We would regulate.

The ban must be implemented carefully. It must protect privacy. It must avoid isolating vulnerable children. It must not drive harm into less visible places without adults noticing. It must not become another way of blaming children. And it must not become an excuse for failing to invest in youth work, safeguarding, mental health, family support and early intervention.

But as a line in the sand, I understand it.

Children should not be left to survive systems adults have failed to control.
The real test is not whether the ban sounds tough.
The real test is whether children are safer.

References

Children’s Commissioner for England. (2018). Playing out: A Children’s Commissioner’s report on the importance to children of play and physical activity.
Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. (2026a). Social media to be banned for under-16s in landmark government move to give kids their childhood back.
Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. (2026b). Fact sheet: New rules to protect children online.
Home Office. (2023). Criminal exploitation of children and vulnerable adults: County lines guidance.
Maza, M. T., Fox, K. A., Kwon, S. J., Flannery, J. E., Lindquist, K. A., Prinstein, M. J., & Telzer, E. H. (2023). Association of habitual checking behaviors on social media with longitudinal functional brain development. JAMA Pediatrics, 177(2), 160–167.
Nansen, B., Jaynes, V., & Kennedy, J. (2026). From phreaking to sneaking: Children’s circumvention of social media age verification systems.
NSPCC. (2025). Data shows how criminals are using private messaging platforms to manipulate and groom children.
Ofcom. (2025). Children and parents: Media use and attitudes report 2025.
Ofcom. (2026a). Children’s passive online measurement report.
Plackett, R., Sheringham, J., & Dykxhoorn, J. (2023). The longitudinal impact of social media use on UK adolescents’ mental health: Longitudinal observational study. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 25, e43213.
Savanta. (2026). Children’s wellbeing online: Social media quantitative report.
Xiao, Y., Meng, Y., Brown, T. T., Keyes, K. M., & Mann, J. J. (2025). Addictive screen use trajectories and suicidal behaviors, suicidal ideation, and mental health in US youths. JAMA, 334(3), 219–228.
Youth Endowment Fund. (2024). What role does social media play in violence affecting young people?

Sexual Exploitation Awareness Week always brings a wave of activity across the sector — social media campaigns, awareness graphics, training sessions, and well‑intentioned reminders about the realities of harm. All of this has value. But awareness on its own doesn’t keep young people safe. What keeps them safe is clarity. What keeps them safe is practitioners who understand the dynamics of exploitation deeply enough to see beyond the surface.
This week offers us a moment to pause, recalibrate, and ground ourselves in what exploitation actually looks like today. It’s a chance to step back from the noise and reconnect with the truths that genuinely shift practice — the truths that help us see young people with compassion, context, and curiosity.
Below are the core messages and red flags that practitioners should be centring this week. Not as a checklist, but as a way of seeing. A lens. A posture.
1. Sexual exploitation is not about “choice.”
One of the most persistent and harmful myths in safeguarding is the idea that young people “choose” exploitation. In reality, their decisions are shaped by trauma, belonging, fear, survival, and the need for connection. Exploiters understand this intimately — and they use it to their advantage.

When we frame exploitation as a “choice,” we unintentionally reinforce the exploiter’s narrative. We shift responsibility onto the child instead of the systems, contexts, and individuals who created the conditions for harm.
Why this matters:

• “Choice” language hides coercion
• It blames the child for the harm done to them
• It obscures the structural conditions that make exploitation possible

A young person returning to an exploiter is not consent — it’s survival. It’s attachment. It’s fear. It’s the absence of safer alternatives.

2. Exploitation rarely looks like the stereotypes.
The familiar “older man in a car” image is outdated and often misleading. Modern exploitation is far more subtle, relational, and embedded in everyday life.
Today, exploitation is frequently:

• Peer‑on‑peer — older teens exploiting younger ones
• Online‑facilitated — grooming, sextortion, image‑based abuse
• Embedded in friendships or romantic dynamics
• Framed as loyalty, love, protection, or belonging

If we only look for the stereotype, we will miss most cases. Exploitation often looks like a relationship the young person values — and that’s precisely why it’s so powerful.

3. Vulnerability comes from systems, not “bad decisions.”
Exploitation doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It thrives where systems fail and where young people are left without safety, stability, or connection.
Young people are not “risky.” Their contexts are.
Key drivers of vulnerability include:

• Poverty
• Racism and discrimination
• School exclusion
• Community violence
• Immigration precarity
• Unstable housing
• Unmet mental health needs
• Trauma and loss

When practitioners focus solely on “risky behaviour,” they miss the structural conditions that create vulnerability in the first place. We must shift from blaming young people to interrogating the environments around them.

4. Behaviour is communication.
When words feel unsafe or unavailable, behaviour becomes the language young people use to communicate distress.
Distress may show up as:

• Anger
• Withdrawal
• Hypersexualised behaviour
• Going missing
• Substance use
• Defending or protecting an exploiter

These behaviours are not the problem; they are the signal. Punitive responses silence young people and strengthen the exploiter’s hold. Curiosity, connection, and relational safety are the intervention.

5. The Red Flags That Matter Most
These indicators reflect real‑world exploitation patterns — not outdated checklists. They help practitioners tune into the relational, digital, behavioural, and environmental cues that often go unnoticed.
Relationship Red Flags

• Sudden new relationships with older peers or adults
• Someone speaking for the young person
• Rapid escalation, secrecy, or intensity
• Defending someone who is harming them (trauma bonding)​

Digital Red Flags

• Pressure to send images
• Sextortion threats
• Multiple or hidden accounts
• Sudden influx of followers or DMs
• Being added to older peer group chats

Behavioural Red Flags

• Exhaustion or falling asleep in class
• Sudden aggression or withdrawal
• Going missing in short, patterned bursts
• Unexplained money, clothes, or tech
• Hypersexualised language or behaviour

Environmental Red Flags

• Unsafe adults around schools or youth spaces
• Cars waiting outside at unusual times
• Older peers recruiting younger ones
• Community rumours about “parties,” “links,” or “mandem”

Young people often disclose risk indirectly. Coded language is usually a form of safety strategy, not a coincidence.

Final Thought
​Sexual Exploitation Awareness Week isn’t about generating noise — it’s about sharpening our lens. It’s about returning to the fundamentals that help us see young people clearly and respond with the depth they deserve.
When practitioners see clearly, young people are safer. When we move from blame to understanding, we create space for disclosure. When we centre trauma, context, and relationships, we disrupt exploitation at its roots.
This week. Every week. Clarity is safeguarding.

​Every safeguarding professional, youth worker, teacher and frontline staff member knows this feeling: You finish the term or the project. You hit the break. But you don’t feel rested.
Because real exhaustion isn’t about the hours – it’s about what the hours held.

This work asks us to hold risk, absorb trauma, navigate systems, and show up for others even when we’re running on empty.

That’s why I created this reflective series: Five critical questions to ask yourself over the summer break if you want to come back stronger. Each one grounded in real practice, shaped by lived experience, and designed to help you reset before the work restarts.
Not a checklist. Not another wellbeing slogan. Just honest reflection that helps you come back with clarity, courage and purpose.

Question 1: What part of this work is still breaking your heart – and what part is keeping it beating?
We carry stories. We carry faces. We carry the ones we couldn’t reach, the moments that left a mark. And we carry hope, too – the child who trusted us, the family who turned a corner, the time we knew we made a difference. This work breaks you and builds you. Knowing which parts are doing what is vital for survival.

In one of my early frontline roles, I worked with a young man who had been exploited into county lines activity. We got close to a breakthrough, but a systems delay meant the intervention came too late. He disappeared. That haunts me. But not long after, I worked with a girl who recognised the signs in herself and reached out early. We helped her rewrite her path. That’s what keeps me going.

Here's My Learning: Reflection isn’t indulgent. It’s data. It tells you what still matters – and what still needs healing.

I Want You to Consider: Write down one name you still carry, and why. Then write down one moment that still fuels you. That contrast will tell you more about your motivation than any job description ever could.

Question 2: Are you still working like it’s an emergency – when what’s needed is longevity?
​Crisis mode is seductive. Fast decisions. Urgency. The adrenaline rush of feeling needed. But if you’re always responding, when do you get to build?

The emergency phase of safeguarding work is important – but it’s meant to be temporary. Too many practitioners get stuck there. High-alert becomes normal. And eventually, the crash comes.

During the pandemic, many of us were in survival mode. Everything was a priority. But I noticed some colleagues didn’t switch back when the pace eased. They burned out trying to maintain crisis speed in a recovery phase. The ones who lasted were those who made room for planning, pacing and rest.

Here's My Learning: You weren’t built to live on high alert. The system might reward short bursts of heroics – but it’s the steady practitioners who change lives over the long term.

I Want You to Consider: Where in your week do you pause to think? To review? To ask whether this pace is still needed? Your impact over time depends on your ability to sustain, not just respond.

Question 3: Where are you most effective – and where are you just exhausted?Some tasks look productive.
But they’re really just draining. Some relationships look professional. But they’re quietly depleting. Some roles look impressive. But they’re not where your real value lives.
We need to distinguish between what’s emotionally loud and what’s strategically useful.

I once took on a role that was strategic and high-profile, but left me feeling disconnected from young people. I was constantly in meetings, but rarely in rooms where change was happening. I realised I was most effective when I was designing programmes and mentoring teams – not when I was firefighting other people’s agendas.

Here's My Learning: Being effective isn’t about doing the most – it’s about doing what matters most.

I Want You to Consider: List three areas of your work: one that energises you, one that drains you, and one where you’re unsure. What would it look like to spend 20% more time in the energising zone? What would have to shift?

Question 4: What’s one boundary you need to reinforce to avoid burnout after the summer break?
Let’s be honest. We’ve all let boundaries slip. The late-night email replies. The cancelled lunch breaks. The extra shift we didn’t have capacity for.
And while it’s often done with good intentions, it slowly becomes unsustainable. Worse, it sets a precedent that your needs come last.

One practitioner I trained told me she hadn’t had a full day off in months. Every weekend, she was checking in with young people because she didn’t trust that anyone else would. That’s not dedication. That’s a system failure being carried by a single human being.

Here's My Learning: Burnout doesn’t happen because you’re weak. It happens because the system expects you to be limitless. Boundaries are how you stay human inside a machine.

I Want You to Consider: What is one situation where you say "yes" out of habit, guilt or fear? What would it take to say "not right now" – and believe that the world won’t fall apart?

Question 5: Who’s holding space for you? And if the answer is “no one” – what are you going to do about it?30 Days of Reflection: Home Truths Card Set
We’re trained to hold space for others. To stay calm. To listen deeply. To carry stories. But very few people ask us how we’re doing – and even fewer of us know how to answer.

Here's My Example: In a recent training, someone said: “I don’t talk to anyone about what I see at work. My friends don’t get it. My manager’s too busy. So I just box it up.” We can’t let silence become our coping strategy. I also was asked to help out a friend with their interviews and one of the applicants said that when a work colleague was becoming upset at work because they had family issues he encouraged them to 'get stuck into the work even more as that was the only way things would get better" Needless to say my feedback to them was that it was not the best approach to take.

Here's My Learning: Even the strongest practitioners need places where they can be real. Peer support, supervision, therapy – whatever it is, find it. You can’t pour from an empty vessel.

I Want You to Consider: What would it look like to build your own version of a "holding team"? Who helps you make sense of the noise? Who offers presence, not solutions? Invest in those people – and let them in.

Final Thoughts: 
You don’t need to fix everything over summer. You just need to come back more grounded, more self-aware, and more honest about what you need.

These five questions are a starting point. Not for guilt. But for growth.

If you found this useful, share it with your team or use it in your next reflective supervision.

And if your team needs structured space to reflect, grow and reconnect with purpose, check out the 30 days of Reflection Home Truths Card Set available to download now.

The image above says everything in two lines.
On one side, a professional voice saying:
“You’re not old enough to decide.”
On the other side, the street whispering:
“You’re old enough to deliver.”

That is the brutal contradiction that defines the lives of so many young people caught up in criminal exploitation.

We tell children they’re too young to choose their subjects. Too young to vote. Too young to live on their own. Too young to make decisions about their future.

And yet, exploiters see them as exactly old enough.
Old enough to carry drugs.
Old enough to hold or use weapons.
Old enough to be sexualised
Old enough to take risks with their freedom and their lives.

Here’s the sharpest truth of all: while practitioners and society see them as children, as boys and girls, groomers see them as men and women. 

Why this Contradiction Matters
So the question isn’t just “Why did this child get involved?”
It’s “Who told them they could?”
Because children rarely step into danger alone. Someone invited them in. Someone gave them the words, the validation, the illusion of power.
And the truth is this: when the system says “wait your turn,” the streets say, “your turn is now.”

The Practitioner’s Dilemma
Let me be really honest here.
In my work with practitioners, police officers, probation workers, youth workers, teachers, social workers — I hear a pattern in how they speak to young people.
It often goes like this:

• “What you’re doing is wrong.”
• “You’ve messed things up.”
• “You need to listen to me because I’ve got the answers.”
• “No, you can’t.”

And I get it.
Those messages come from a place of care, frustration, even desperation to protect.
But here’s the tragedy: that’s the very space exploiters step into.

While professionals are saying, “No, you can’t,” exploiters are saying, “Yes, you can.”
While the system points out mistakes, exploiters point out potential.
While adults frame failure, exploiters frame possibility.
One voice says: “You’re a problem.”
The other says: “You’re unstoppable.”

Now imagine you’re 14 years old. Which voice do you lean towards?

This is the weaponisation of language that exploiters know all too well. After all, they’re masters of it.
I’ve even heard of them setting young people up with lines like this:

“I bet your mum says you can’t. I bet your dad says you won’t. I bet your teachers don’t believe in you. But me? I do.”

It’s devastatingly effective.

Not long ago, I was speaking with a young girl. She said to me:

"Mum didn’t get him. Dad didn’t get him. But he got me. And that’s why I’m down for him."

That’s how this works. Not with threats at the start. Not with force. But with words. With a promise that sounds like belief, but is really a trap.

I think of a 15-year-old boy I once worked with. On paper, he was still a child, living at home, dependent on adults for nearly everything. But the groomers around him called him “big man.” They told him he was “running things,” that he was making more money than his teachers ever would. Society still saw a boy. Exploiters convinced him he was already a man. And he bought into it, until the day he was arrested.

Suddenly, the courts agreed with the exploiters: he was treated like an adult.

Or the 14-year-old girl who told me through tears, “He called me his queen.”

To her parents, she was still a child, innocent, vulnerable, not ready to make decisions about her own life. But to the man exploiting her, she was “grown,” “mature,” “ready.”
He told her she was special, old enough for love, old enough for loyalty.
And she believed him, because he framed her as something her parents and teachers didn’t: capable.

That’s the cruel reality. Children who are still developing, still searching for identity, are recast by exploiters as adults. Not because they are — but because it makes them useful.

So, what do we do with this reality?

We have to flip the script.

Instead of telling young people what they can’t do, we need to show them what they can do.
Instead of treating them as liabilities, we need to see them as futures.
Instead of shutting them down, we need to open doors.

That doesn’t mean we ignore risks or brush over harmful behaviour. It means we learn to frame hope as strongly as exploiters frame harm.

Because here’s the truth: exploiters don’t just recruit with money or fear. They recruit with belief. False belief, yes, but belief all the same.

If we want to compete with that, we need to believe in our young people harder than anyone else does. And we need to let them hear it.

Reflection questions for every practitioner
I want to leave you with three questions to carry back into your work.

1. When I speak to a young person, do my words open possibilities, or close them?
2. Could the way I frame their behaviour be making the exploiter’s voice louder in their head?
3. If the only message they remembered from me was one sentence, would it build hope or build shame?

Final thought:
That image — “You’re not old enough to decide. You’re old enough to deliver.” 
is the tug-of-war every child caught in exploitation feels.

And here’s the reality: whichever voice feels louder is the one they’ll follow.

It is our responsibility to make sure it isn’t the voice that says: “You’re old enough to deliver.”

Children aren’t commodities. They’re futures. And every future is worth protecting.

Every choice matters. Every word counts. Every child deserves hope.

If you want to approach things in a different way, you are in the right place, check out our awareness and consultancy services right here.

I found out about the 'Family Sharing' feature when I was conducting a recent interview with a father about how he kept his young children safe online. Prior to that I must admit I knew nothing about it. Being involved in designing interventions that combat youth crime I always get asked by practitioners and parents for ways they can help monitor and support young people more effectively. Let's be honest, technology is moving at an incredible pace. The internet is a space that is so unregulated and un-policed that there is rarely a day that goes by without me being informed of some image or video being circulated of a young person being chased or stabbed or some young girl being pushed into some equally horrendous act. You can't blame parents for being concerned about what their children are exposed to. How are they actually supposed to keep up with what is going on in their young children's lives when new apps are being launched almost every day.

Given that the Family Sharing feature promises so much I decided to take it for a bit of a test run. I have to be honest iPhones are not really my thing but supporting young people in the physical, mental and online spaces definitely is and in many ways the fact that I am not a huge fan of their product makes me the best guinea pig.

What it is and what the benefits are
The 'Family Sharing' feature was made available to the users of the iPhone 8 onwards. Once activated, essentially what it provides is an 'Admin approval level' to the phones in the same way that an employer would to a worker's mobile phone or laptop. With it you can set age restrictions barring certain sites, keywords, apps, content and purchases. Should the person with the sharing feature enabled try to download something deemed 'questionable' then the adult who activated the feature on the child's phone will be alerted for their approval for which they can choose to either accept or deny. The same thing applies to purchases for which adults can share their purchases with children. It is also possible for the adult to check a child's browsing history with the click of a button.

The new iOS (iphone operating system) upgrade was launched recently and with it screen time can also be monitored, giving parents a better understanding of how much time their kids spend using apps or  visit websites or being on their devices overall. A parent can set time limits for specific apps and they can also nominate another family member as a parent/guardian, This enables parents or caregivers to always on the same page.
​
Using Family Sharing, locations can be shared with the rest of the family automatically. Want to know where your son or daughter is? Just check the app, Need them to know you are running late? Get them to check the app. Need to find your lost or stolen phone? Check the app and call the police. Plus, all of Apple products - the phone, the watch and even the Macbook are all interconnected through the app.

These are without a doubt unique features and in my opinion demonstrate how well Apple thought through what they were doing as they knew their gear would be highly desirable by young people and wanted to really remove concerns that parents might have.

But...there are some drawbacks...
​Firstly, it has to be said that one of the biggest drawbacks is that this is an Apple only product. If your son wants the iPhone and your daughter say wants the Samsung S52 (or whatever the latest model is) and you have the Huawei Pro then you are screwed. There is no cross platform functionality. At all.

Secondly, I know this sounds obvious but the location functionality can be abused. Lets be honest, we were all kids once and...well,...lets just say we knew how to get around things. If you know your family member can monitor your location there is nothing to say that you couldn't leave your phone where you are expected to be and go off and do something else. Want to look like you are at school, give the phone to your friend while you disappear for a little bit, no biggie.

Another key thing is the apps and how much does the average parent know about the apps that their children enjoy? I had it set up with a couple of family members checking out apps for me. A few hours later a couple of apps flashed up on my phone for approval. I did a quick Google check on them and then typed in the name of the app followed by the words 'parental concern' just so that I could see what other parents had to say and low and behold the truth was in front of me. But I am IT literate, what average parent cooking dinner with a child screaming at them to accept the app because all their friends have it will really do that kind of digging? I honestly think many apps will be accepted by parents because they simply don't know enough about them.

Another thing I quickly realised is that I could not shield purchases from the rest of those in the Family Sharing group (tracks with questionable lyrics for example). In order to hide it from the 'Purchased tab' so they couldn't download it you actually have to do it through your computer through iTunes rather than your phone. There was at least a heart-stopping hour whilst I sought to get to a machine log in and made the changes, If they had already downloaded the app or song before I hid it, the song or app or movie stays on their device and can’t be hidden or undone.

Finally, the set up time does take a while, especially for newbies. Now I'm going to be straight with you, I'm pretty good when it comes to computers and apps and for me it was a little bit testing. The best way I would describe is it took about the same level of understanding as setting up a kids account on a Kindle Fire. That said, for the average parent or caregiver who knows nothing other than how to log into their work computer or do general surfing its better to call up Apple and get them to lead you through the process and what is needed otherwise you could end up in problems later on down the line. 

Overall...
The Family Sharing feature can be an advantageous one providing parents and guardians with a whole host of features that they can use to limit and monitor their children's activity online. Whilst it may not be perfect the key thing I noted was it is a tool to keep young people safe but it can only be used as that; a tool. Even with the App, it does not replace good ol fashioned care and attention.