Your child probably knows their way around a smartphone better than you think. They can navigate new apps, games, and social media platforms almost instinctively. But being digitally confident doesn’t necessarily mean being digitally safe.
A child who understands technology can still click on a fake giveaway, respond to someone impersonating a friend, or hand over account details to a scammer without realising what is happening. And it isn’t simply because children are careless.
Many online scams are deliberately designed to exploit the way people naturally make decisions. Understanding this can help parents teach children something more valuable than simply telling them, “Don’t click suspicious links.”
Why Do Online Scams Work?
A lot of cybercrime involves social engineering. Put simply, social engineering is when someone manipulates another person into doing something they normally wouldn’t do.
Instead of hacking through the security protecting an account, a scammer might simply convince its owner to hand over the information needed to access it.
For a child, that could be a message saying:
- “Your gaming account will be deleted unless you verify it now.”
- “Congratulations! You’ve won free game credits. Claim them here.”
- “This is my new account. My old one got blocked.”
Or even the classic: “Is this you in this video?” These messages might look simple, but they are designed to trigger a reaction.
Why Knowing About Scams Isn’t Always Enough
Research into social engineering has shown that cognitive biases can influence how people respond to cyber attacks.
Cognitive biases are essentially mental shortcuts our brains use when making decisions. Adults have them. Children have them. We all do. The problem is that scammers can exploit them.
Urgency is a good example. Imagine your child receives a message telling them they have ten minutes to verify their gaming account or lose everything they’ve earned.
Their first thought might not be, “Is this website legitimate?” It might simply be, “I don’t want to lose my account.”
Authority can have a similar effect. A message that appears to come from a teacher, gaming administrator or someone your child respects may immediately seem more trustworthy.
Then there’s social proof. If friends appear to be participating in a giveaway or sharing a particular link, joining in can feel perfectly safe.
And, of course, there’s curiosity. Sometimes “You won’t believe what they posted about you” is all it takes to get a click.
This is why knowing that scams exist doesn’t automatically make someone immune to them.
The Scams May Look Completely Normal
One challenge for parents is that an online scam doesn’t always look dangerous. Sometimes it looks exciting.
A child playing an online game might be offered free in-game currency or a rare item. The link takes them to what appears to be the game’s normal login page. They enter their username and password, and the scammer now has their account.
Other scams rely on trust – Someone could gain access to a friend’s social media account and start messaging people from it. When your child receives a message from someone they know, why would they immediately assume it’s a scammer?
AI is making this even more complicated. Fake images, convincing messages, voice cloning and other forms of impersonation are becoming increasingly accessible.
This means children need more than a list of scams to avoid. They need a way of thinking that still works when the next scam looks completely different.
Teach Them Three Things: Stop. Check. Ask.
We can’t prepare children for every scam they will encounter.
Instead, parents can teach a simple habit:
Stop: If a message creates urgency, excitement or fear, don’t immediately click, reply, pay or share information.
Take a moment. That short pause can interrupt exactly the reaction a scammer is trying to create.
Check:Â Ask a few questions.
- Who actually sent this?
- Does the account look genuine?
- Does the website address look right?
- Why would this person need my password or verification code?
- Can I confirm this another way?
Ask: If something still doesn’t feel right, ask a parent or another trusted adult before acting. Parents should make this part especially easy.
If children think admitting they clicked something suspicious will immediately result in losing their phone, gaming console or internet access, they may simply stop telling you when something goes wrong.
You want your child to feel comfortable saying: “Mum, I think I clicked something I shouldn’t have.”
That’s much easier to deal with quickly than discovering a compromised account days later.
Create a Family Verification Habit
The same rules should apply to adults.
Imagine receiving this WhatsApp message: “Mum, my phone is damaged. I’m using my friend’s number. I urgently need you to transfer some money.”
It sounds plausible. It creates urgency. And it relies on your relationship with the person the scammer is pretending to be.
Instead of immediately sending money, contact your child another way. Families can even agree on a private verification question or phrase for unusual requests.
As AI-generated voices and impersonation become more convincing, having a simple family verification habit could become increasingly useful.
Children also learn from watching us. If they see their parents checking unusual messages, questioning unexpected requests and protecting their accounts, those behaviors start to feel normal.
The One Skill That Predicts Better Mental Health in Children: Emotional Regulation
Don’t Rely on Your Child Spotting Every Scam
Education is important, but your child’s security shouldn’t depend entirely on them making the right decision every time.
Use technical protection too. Enable multi-factor authentication or passkeys where available. Avoid using the same password across email, gaming and social media accounts. Keep phones, tablets and apps updated, and regularly review the privacy settings on platforms your children use.
Parents should also pay attention to what information is publicly available about their children. A birthday here, school uniform there, location tag somewhere else and a public list of friends might seem harmless individually. Together, they can give someone enough information to create a much more convincing approach.
Good cybersecurity works in layers. We teach children safer behavior while also putting safeguards around them for the moments when they make mistakes.
What If Your Child Has Already Been Scammed?
First, don’t panic. Find out what happened and what information was shared.
If they entered a password, change it immediately and check whether that password was reused elsewhere. Secure the account, enable additional authentication and look for unusual activity.
Report suspicious accounts or messages through the relevant platform where appropriate.
Most importantly, talk about why the scam worked.
- Was there pressure to act quickly?
- Did it appear to come from someone they trusted?
- Was the offer simply too exciting to ignore?
That conversation can be more valuable than simply saying, “I told you not to click links.”
Digital Safety Is Becoming Part of Parenting
Parents don’t need to become cybersecurity experts.
But just as we teach children how to cross the road, protect their belongings and recognize unsafe situations, we also need to teach them how to navigate digital spaces safely.
The scams they encounter five years from now may look very different from those we see today. We won’t be able to warn them about everyone.
What we can give them is a habit that works even when the technology changes:
Stop. Check. Ask.
Because sometimes the most useful cybersecurity skill isn’t knowing how technology works. It’s knowing when something doesn’t feel right and taking a moment before you click.
About the Author
Ayomide Bode-Asa is a cybersecurity professional and researcher with an MSc in Cyber Security and Human Factors from Bournemouth University. His interests include social engineering, human factors in cybersecurity, threat detection, and practical approaches to cyber resilience.
He is a co-author of “An Overview of Social Engineering: The Role of Cognitive Biases Towards Social Engineering-Based Cyber-Attacks, Impacts and Countermeasures,” a research preprint examining how cognitive biases can influence susceptibility to social-engineering attacks and the measures that can help reduce these risks.
Further reading: [View the research preprint on ResearchGate]
