Protecting Children and Teens Online: A Clinical Perspective on Unrestricted Internet Access

A therapist’s perspective on online grooming, sextortion, cyberbullying, pornography, artificial intelligence, social media, gaming, and why parental oversight should continue through adolescence

I have an opinion about children and technology that may sound strict:

I do not recommend unrestricted, private internet access for children or teenagers under 18.

I am not saying an 18th birthday magically makes someone immune to poor judgment, exploitation, or harmful content. I am also not suggesting that a 17-year-old should be supervised in the same way as an eight-year-old.

I am saying that access and unrestricted access are very different things.

Children and teenagers can use technology. They can communicate with friends, complete homework, play games, use AI, learn to navigate social media, and gradually develop the skills they will need as adults.

But I do not believe a minor needs an internet-connected device that allows essentially unlimited, private communication with anyone in the world—with no meaningful parental visibility into what is happening.

The internet gives children access to an enormous amount of information and opportunity.

It also gives them access to pornography, sexual solicitation, strangers, sextortion, cyberbullying, self-harm content, anonymous communities, predatory adults, manipulative algorithms, and increasingly human-like AI companions.

And perhaps more importantly:

It gives those things access to your child.

I want parents to feel some anxiety when they think about that.

Not panic. Not paranoia. Not the belief that something terrible will inevitably happen.

Healthy anxiety.

The kind of anxiety that makes us put a fence around a swimming pool.

The kind that makes us lock medications and firearms.

The kind that makes us teach a teenager how to drive before handing over the keys.

Healthy fear tells us:

This matters. Pay attention. Take reasonable precautions.

The internet deserves that same respect.

This Is Not Just a “Screen-Time” Problem

Parents understandably worry about how many hours their children spend online.

But there is another question I believe is even more important:

What can my child access—and who can access my child?

A child does not need to spend six hours online for something serious to happen.

It can take minutes to receive pornography.

Minutes to send an image.

Minutes to receive a sexual solicitation.

Minutes for a humiliating picture to circulate through a school.

Minutes for a predator pretending to be another teenager to begin establishing a relationship.

The problem is not simply how long the door is open.

It is who is able to walk through it.

Patricia Alatorre Was 13 Years Old

For families in Bakersfield, this is not an abstract danger happening somewhere else.

Patricia Alatorre was a 13-year-old Bakersfield girl who met an adult man through social media.

In 2022, Armando Cruz pleaded guilty to charges including first-degree murder, rape, sexual offenses involving a minor, and possession of sexual material involving a minor in connection with Patricia's 2020 murder. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

There is something about Patricia's case that I desperately want parents to understand:

Your child can be physically inside your home while a dangerous adult is already inside your child's life.

The front door can be locked.

Mom and Dad can be downstairs.

Your daughter can be upstairs in her bedroom.

You can believe she is safe because she is home.

Meanwhile, someone you have never met may be privately developing a relationship with her through the device in her hand.

Physical proximity is no longer the same thing as supervision.

A 10-Year-Old Kern County Child and Roblox

Then, in April 2025, another frightening case happened here in Kern County.

Authorities said a 10-year-old girl from Taft had been communicating with a 27-year-old man through Roblox and Discord. After being reported missing from her home, she was found more than 250 miles away in Elk Grove with him. He was arrested on kidnapping and child-sex-related allegations. He denied the allegations when later interviewed from jail.

She was ten.

And Roblox was reportedly part of how the communication began.

That is why I want parents to stop automatically separating gaming from social media.

If a game allows messages, voice chat, friend requests, usernames, private conversations, or movement onto another platform, it creates many of the same risks.

The Kern County Sheriff's Office specifically reminded parents after the case to monitor children's electronic use and know who they are communicating with, noting that many apps and games contain messaging features.

A platform being popular with children does not mean every person interacting with children on that platform is a child.

“My Child Knows Not to Talk to Strangers” Is Not Enough

Teaching stranger safety is important.

But sophisticated grooming rarely feels like talking to a frightening stranger.

It can feel like talking to:

Someone who plays the same game.

Someone who thinks you're attractive.

Someone who appears to be another teenager.

Someone who understands why you're angry with your parents.

Someone who listens when you're lonely.

Someone who slowly introduces sexual topics.

Someone who asks you to move from a public platform to a private one.

Someone who gives you attention exactly when you need it.

In April 2026, a 24-year-old man was sentenced to 40 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to crimes involving minors as young as 12. Federal prosecutors said he used Instagram, Snapchat, Telegram and X to target children, obtain sexual material and, in one case, meet and sexually abuse a 12-year-old child.

Children do not have to be foolish for grooming to work.

Grooming is specifically designed to overcome a child's defenses.

The American Psychological Association notes that adolescents differ substantially in maturity and vulnerability and recommends adult monitoring in early adolescence, with autonomy increasing gradually as maturity and digital literacy increase. APA also notes that the brain systems involved in sensitivity to peer attention and reinforcement become especially active in adolescence while mature self-control continues developing.

Teenagers are not unintelligent.

They are still developing.

There is a difference.

Sextortion Can Become an Emergency in Five Minutes

I particularly want parents of teenage boys to understand financial sextortion.

Imagine being 15.

An attractive girl follows you.

She starts talking to you.

She sends a picture.

She asks for one back.

You send it.

Then suddenly the person sends screenshots of your followers.

Your mother.

Your teammates.

Your classmates.

Your school.

And the message changes:

Pay me or everyone gets this picture.

The FBI warns that financially motivated sextortion schemes can escalate in as little as five minutes. Victims are commonly boys ages 14–17, although any child can be targeted.

The FBI and Homeland Security Investigations previously documented more than 13,000 reports involving minors over an 18-month period, involving at least 12,600 victims and at least 20 suicides.

These children may be convinced that their lives are over.

They may feel too humiliated to tell their parents.

That is why every child should hear this before they ever need it:

If you send a picture you regret, tell me.

If somebody threatens you, tell me.

If someone says they are going to send something to everyone you know, tell me.

You may have broken one of our rules.

We will deal with that later.

First, we protect you.

Sexual Exploitation Can Happen on a Massive Scale

One predator can now reach hundreds or thousands of children.

In September 2025, a 31-year-old man pleaded guilty in a federal case involving at least 68 children between ages 13 and 16. Prosecutors said he used Instagram, Snapchat, Discord and other applications while pretending to be a teenager, coercing children into producing sexual images and videos. He also pleaded guilty to sex trafficking five minors.

In another 2026 case, a New York man was sentenced to 50 years in federal prison after prosecutors said he had sent sexual messages to thousands of minor girls on Snapchat and TikTok and successfully coerced several girls ages 15 and 16 into producing explicit material.

One offender.

One phone.

Potentially thousands of children.

That scale of access did not exist for previous generations of predators.

Trafficking Does Not Always Begin With a Kidnapping

Many parents picture sex trafficking as a stranger grabbing a child from a parking lot.

That can obscure another route into exploitation:

Relationship-building.

In a federal case filed in January 2026, prosecutors alleged that an adult contacted a minor through social media, learned that she was struggling at home, promised to help her, and persuaded her to travel across state lines. Authorities allege that once she arrived, she learned that the intention was to force her into commercial sex. Those charges remain allegations unless proven in court.

In a separate case that resulted in a guilty plea in July 2026, a man admitted that he had first met a girl through a social-media app when she was approximately 14. Years of communication preceded the events that ultimately resulted in his guilty plea to child sex trafficking.

That matters because vulnerability often looks incredibly ordinary.

Feeling misunderstood.

Being angry with Mom.

Wanting a boyfriend.

Wanting independence.

Feeling insecure.

Wanting money.

Feeling lonely.

Wanting somebody who seems to finally understand you.

Those are not signs of a bad child.

Those are normal adolescent vulnerabilities.

Predators know that.

Cyberbullying Means Children Sometimes Never Get to Leave School

Before smartphones, a child being bullied could at least physically come home.

Today the social environment can follow a child everywhere.

Into the car.

Into the kitchen.

Into the bathroom.

Into bed.

At midnight.

A humiliating image can reach an entire school before a parent knows it exists.

A group chat never has to close.

Exclusion can be publicly visible.

Cruel comments can accumulate likes and reactions.

And a child can reread a painful message over and over again.

Here in Bakersfield, 13-year-old Sarah Ullmann, an eighth-grade student at Rosedale Middle School, died in 2018. Her family reported publicly that she had struggled with depression after being bullied by peers through social media.

Clinically, it would be inappropriate to claim that cyberbullying alone caused her suicide. Suicide is complex and usually involves multiple interacting factors.

But her family's account still matters.

Children should not have to manage serious online harassment alone simply because it is occurring through a phone rather than in a school hallway.

Look at What Is Happening to Meta in Court

If all of this still sounds like overly cautious parenting, I think parents should pay attention to what is happening legally to Meta, the company behind Instagram and Facebook.

These are no longer merely hypothetical concerns raised by worried parents.

They are the subject of litigation involving states across the country and financial consequences measured in billions of dollars.

A proposed settlement worth up to $17 billion

On August 26, 2026, California Attorney General Rob Bonta and a bipartisan coalition of 51 attorneys generalannounced a proposed settlement with Meta.

The states' lawsuit alleged, among other things, that Meta designed features on Instagram and Facebook that encouraged excessive and compulsive use among children and teenagers, harmed young users, misled families about platform safety, and improperly collected information from some children under 13.

Meta agreed to potential payments of up to $17 billion over ten years to the states. California is expected to receive approximately $1.5 billion to $2.1 billion if the settlement receives court approval. The proposed settlement does not constitute an admission by Meta that every allegation is true, and as of September 2026 it remains subject to court approval.

But perhaps even more striking to me as a parent and therapist are the changes Meta agreed to make.

For users under 18, the proposed agreement includes:

• A default two-hour daily limit that only a parent can override.

• A default block on Instagram and Facebook between midnight and 6 a.m. that only a parent can override.

• Default restrictions on notifications overnight and during the school day.

• Enhanced parental-supervision tools.

• Stronger systems for identifying users under 18 and removing children under 13.

• No visible like or reaction counts for minors.

• Restrictions on cosmetic-procedure filters.

• The option for minors to use a non-personalized feed rather than one algorithmically tailored to maximize engagement.

• Independent auditing of Meta's compliance.

I want parents to really think about that.

A legal agreement involving one of the largest social-media companies in the world is imposing default time limits, overnight restrictions, age protections and parental control for users through age 17.

Those are exactly the kinds of boundaries parents are sometimes made to feel are unreasonable.

They aren't.

Then there is New Mexico: $942 million

New Mexico's case went further.

In March 2026, a jury found Meta liable for 75,000 violations of the state's consumer-protection law and imposed $375 million in civil penalties. The state's investigation had included undercover accounts representing children under 14 that encountered explicit material and contact from adults. Meta disputed the allegations and indicated it would challenge the result.

Then, in August 2026, a New Mexico court entered a final judgment ordering another $567 million and imposing court-supervised reforms addressing protections for children on Facebook and Instagram.

Together, the New Mexico proceedings brought Meta's financial exposure in that case to approximately $942 million.

Again, litigation and appeals matter, and parents should not interpret every allegation in every lawsuit as a proven scientific fact.

But we also should not pretend this is insignificant.

One company is facing a court judgment approaching $1 billion in one state and has agreed to a proposed nationwide settlement worth up to $17 billion in litigation centered specifically on children, teenagers, platform design, mental health, privacy and safety.

I do not think the appropriate parental response is:

I'm sure unrestricted access is probably fine.

I think the appropriate response is:

I should pay attention.

Social media is not inherently harmful to every adolescent. The APA explicitly recognizes that online interaction can provide connection, information and support for some young people. Effects vary depending on the child, their vulnerabilities, what they encounter and how they use the platform.

But recognizing potential benefits is very different from assuming a child should have unlimited access.

We can allow technology without surrendering supervision.

And Now We Have AI

This is the newest part of the conversation.

Children can now have hours-long conversations with artificial-intelligence systems capable of appearing warm, interested, empathic and extraordinarily human.

AI can be useful.

It can help with learning, brainstorming, creativity and information.

But I believe a child having an extensive, secret emotional relationship with an AI system deserves parental attention.

In 2024, the mother of 14-year-old Sewell Setzer III filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Character.AI after her son died by suicide. The lawsuit alleges that Sewell developed an intense emotional attachment to a chatbot and that his interactions with it became psychologically and sexually inappropriate. These are allegations in litigation, not proof that the chatbot alone caused his death.

Then the parents of 16-year-old Adam Raine sued OpenAI after his 2025 suicide. Their lawsuit alleges that during months of conversations, ChatGPT responded dangerously to discussions about self-harm. OpenAI has disputed legal responsibility. Again, a lawsuit is not proof that AI caused a suicide.

But parents do not need a court to determine causation before recognizing a new parenting question:

Do I know what my child is telling an AI system?

And:

Is AI becoming the place my child takes feelings they are afraid to bring to another human being?

AI now belongs in the family internet-safety conversation.

Pornography Is No Longer Difficult for Children to Encounter

There is also pornography.

A nationally representative Common Sense Media survey of American teenagers ages 13–17 found that 73% reported having seen online pornography.

Among those who had seen it, 54% reported seeing pornography by age 13, including 15% who reported first seeing it before age 11. Some children intentionally sought pornography; others encountered it accidentally.

Whatever a family's religious, moral or cultural beliefs about sexuality may be, I think we should be able to agree on something basic:

A nine-year-old should not have to process explicit adult sexual material alone.

A child should not stumble onto pornography and then spend months privately trying to understand what they saw.

A teenager should not receive most of their education about sexuality, consent, bodies and intimacy from pornography.

Filters are helpful.

Conversations are essential.

But filters are not parenting.

“My Child Needs the Internet for School”

Sometimes they do.

But needing technology for a specific purpose does not require unrestricted access.

A child can complete homework on a computer in a shared family area.

Parents can approve necessary applications.

Browsers and app stores can be restricted.

School devices can remain in common spaces.

A teenager can use a laptop to write an essay without simultaneously needing unrestricted access to Snapchat at 1 a.m.

Needing Google Classroom does not automatically require carrying the entire internet into a bedroom overnight.

“I Need to Track My Child”

I understand that completely.

GPS tracking can be useful.

But GPS does not require unrestricted internet access either.

Families can use:

• GPS-capable watches.

• Dedicated location trackers.

• Basic phones.

• Restricted smartphones.

• Devices that allow only approved contacts and applications.

• Parental-control systems that restrict installation of new apps.

And remember:

Knowing where your child's phone is does not tell you who is communicating with your child through it.

GPS solves one problem.

It does not solve the others.

“My Child Needs to Contact Me”

I agree.

Children should be able to reach their parents.

But calling Mom does not require TikTok, Discord, unrestricted browsing, private messaging with strangers and an open app store.

Depending on age and circumstances, families can use a basic calling-and-texting phone, a cellular watch, a restricted smartphone, or a family device.

There are far more options than:

Either my child has an unrestricted iPhone or I have no way to contact them.

“But I Trust My Teenager”

This is probably the argument I hear most.

And this isn't fundamentally about whether your teenager is trustworthy.

You can trust your child and still recognize that other people may intentionally deceive them.

I can trust my teenager and know that teenagers occasionally act impulsively.

I can trust my teenager and know that curiosity is normal.

I can trust my teenager and recognize that loneliness can temporarily change judgment.

I can trust my teenager and still know that adults can manipulate children.

I can trust my teenager while acknowledging that one terrible night is different from how they behave during the other 364 days of the year.

Safety measures are not accusations.

When you tell your teenager to wear a seat belt, you aren't saying:

I think you're irresponsible.

You're saying:

You are valuable enough for me to take predictable risks seriously.

Privacy Is Not the Same Thing as Secrecy

Teenagers need privacy.

That is developmentally appropriate.

They need private thoughts.

They need journals.

They need conversations with trusted friends.

They need time away from their parents.

They need opportunities to make decisions independently.

They need increasing autonomy.

But respecting a teenager's privacy does not require giving them an entirely secret digital life.

There is a significant difference between:

I am not reading every text between you and your best friend

and

I have absolutely no idea what applications you use, who you communicate with, what accounts you have, or what happens on your phone after midnight.

The amount of oversight should change dramatically between childhood and late adolescence.

A 17-year-old should ordinarily have considerably more independence than a 10-year-old.

But I believe parental involvement should remain until adulthood.

What Supervised Internet Access Can Actually Look Like

For younger children, I recommend substantial direct supervision.

Internet-connected devices stay primarily in shared spaces.

Parents know which games children play.

Communication features are disabled or closely supervised.

Children do not privately communicate with unknown people.

As children become teenagers, supervision changes.

Parents may not need to read every harmless conversation.

But they should know what platforms their teenager uses.

They should know what accounts exist.

They should understand the privacy settings.

They should know whether disappearing messages or hidden accounts are being used.

They should have an agreed-upon way to check devices when necessary.

And I strongly recommend that internet-connected devices sleep outside children's bedrooms.

Nothing especially developmentally valuable is happening on Snapchat at 2:00 in the morning.

Independence should increase as teenagers demonstrate maturity, honesty and digital competence.

That is not punishment.

That is how we teach independence: gradually.

The goal is not permanent surveillance.

The goal is preparing a child to eventually manage these risks without you.

Teach Your Child This Before They Ever Need It

There is one message I want every child to hear:

You can always tell me.

Sent a nude?

Tell me.

Saw pornography?

Tell me.

Someone asked you for sexual pictures?

Tell me.

Someone threatened you?

Tell me.

Someone you met gaming wants your Snapchat?

Tell me.

Someone online wants to meet you?

Tell me.

Your classmates created a group chat about you?

Tell me.

An AI conversation scared you?

Tell me.

You searched something you knew you weren't supposed to?

Tell me.

Even if you broke the rule first, tell me.

We do not want children facing adult-sized problems alone because they are more frightened of their parents' reaction than they are of the predator threatening them.

Parental monitoring works best alongside a relationship in which disclosure feels safe.

This Is What I Mean by Healthy Fear

The U.S. Surgeon General has stated that the available evidence does not allow us to conclude that social media is sufficiently safe for children and adolescents.

The American Psychological Association recommends developmentally appropriate limits, adult monitoring and coaching, and increasing autonomy as adolescents demonstrate readiness and digital literacy.

My personal and professional recommendation is more conservative:

I do not recommend completely private, unrestricted internet access for minors.

Not because every teenager on Instagram will develop depression.

Not because every person on Roblox is dangerous.

Not because every teenager will send sexual images.

Not because every child who encounters pornography will be traumatized.

Not because social media or AI inevitably causes suicide.

And certainly not because children should grow up terrified of the world.

I recommend it because children are worth protecting from risks they do not yet have the experience or developmental capacity to consistently evaluate.

We cannot eliminate every danger.

That isn't the goal of parenting.

But we can recognize predictable risks and reduce them.

Twenty years ago, if an adult stranger asked for permission to communicate privately with your 12-year-old in her bedroom every night, most parents would have immediately said no.

Technology has made essentially that scenario possible without anyone knocking on the front door.

We should not become so accustomed to the technology that we stop recognizing what it permits.

Give your children technology.

Teach them to use it.

Talk openly about sex.

Talk about pornography.

Talk about sextortion.

Talk about grooming.

Talk about scams.

Talk about cyberbullying.

Talk about AI.

Allow independence to grow.

But stay involved.

Know what platforms they use.

Know where the doors are.

Know who can reach your child through them.

And don't be afraid to keep some of those doors closed until your child is developmentally ready to manage what may be waiting on the other side.

-Rashawna Schumacher, LMFT