Teenagers and the privacy conversation that works

Parental controls work on a nine-year-old. By thirteen or fourteen, a determined teenager routes around them in an afternoon, and the attempt costs you the thing that actually protects them: being someone they will tell.

So the job changes. It stops being control and becomes information.

Four facts, delivered once

Not a lecture. Four things, said plainly, probably in a car where nobody has to make eye contact.

1. Nothing disappears. Anything can be screenshotted, including things that promise otherwise. This is not a reason to be frightened, it is a reason to assume permanence.

2. People lie about who they are. Stated as a fact about the world, not a warning about their judgement.

3. If anyone asks for money, it is a scam — including a friend. Especially a friend, because that means the friend's account has been taken over.

4. Sextortion is a specific crime, it is common, and reporting it works. This is the conversation adults skip and the one that matters most. Say: *if someone ever has an image of you and threatens to share it, do not pay, stop replying, and tell me. You will not be in trouble, not even if you sent it yourself.* There is a full page on it at sextortion.

That fourth one saves lives. Say it before it is needed, because afterwards is too late.

Settings worth doing together

Together, with the reasoning explained, and their agreement. A setting they understand survives; one you imposed gets reversed.

• Private accounts on Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat.
• Turn off precise location in each app, and check what has it in the phone's own settings.
• Snap Map on Ghost Mode. Broadcasting a live location to a friends list of two hundred is

something most teenagers switch off once they see it on a map.

• Who can message and who can comment, restricted to people they follow.
• Two-factor on everything, particularly the account they would be most upset to lose. That is

usually the persuasive one.

• Review connected apps — the quizzes and filters that got permissions years ago.

What not to do

Do not read their messages covertly. If it is found — and it usually is — you trade a small amount of information for the entire relationship. The moment they stop telling you things is the moment you actually lost visibility.

Do not use "I'll take your phone away" as the response to a problem. It is the single reason teenagers hide things, and hiding is what makes a bad situation dangerous.

Do not demand their passwords. Agree instead that you can ask, and that they will answer.

The one rule that earns its keep

Nobody gets in trouble for telling you. Including when they broke a rule to get there. Including at two in the morning.

You are not trying to prevent every mistake, which is not available. You are trying to be the person they ring when one happens, which is.