Start from how it feels, not who they are
Young kids picture a stranger as a scary adult. Online, the person reaching out is usually warm and friendly — that's the point. So skip 'stranger danger' and talk about what people do.
A simple line that travels well: people you've never met in real life are people we don't know yet, even if they're nice. Nice and safe aren't the same thing.
Teach a few bright lines
Kids do better with clear, repeatable rules than with judgement calls. Keep the list short enough to remember.
- We don't share where we are, where we go to school, or photos with people we only know online.
- If someone wants to move the chat to a private app, that's a reason to stop, not to keep going.
- Anyone who says 'don't tell your parents' is telling you to tell your parents.
Protect the door home
The single most useful thing you can do is make sure your child will come to you when something feels off — even if they broke a rule to get there.
Say it out loud, more than once: you will never be in trouble for telling me. Then live up to it. A calm reaction the first time buys you every conversation after.
How Murphee backs this up
In Pebbles, friends are real and parent-approved by code — there's no open inbox for a stranger to slide into. Murphee looks out for the shape of someone testing a child's trust and gives you a heads-up, so the conversation can happen early rather than late. You choose the contacts; Murphee keeps the space to them.