Who knows? Who helps?

• Most children aged 10 to 17 (67% to 89%) take action after experiencing targeted online harm. Children typically respond by taking self-protective actions, such as asking the person responsible to stop, or blocking, unfriending or muting them.
• While most children take steps to protect themselves after a negative online experience, many don’t speak to someone about what happened. Among children who had experienced various online harms, under half said they spoke with someone, such as a parent, sibling, friend, peer or teacher, following their most recent or impactful experience.
• When parents encourage children to discuss unsafe or uncomfortable online situations, children are more likely to disclose harmful experiences.  
• Few children formally report experiences of online harm to the platform where it occurred, or to the police or eSafety.
• Children face a range of barriers to disclosing and reporting negative online experiences. Many say they don’t feel ‘bothered or upset enough’ to tell someone about or report these experiences. Some children lack confidence in formal reporting outcomes, don’t know how or where to report, or feel they should ignore the situation or manage it themselves.  
• Fear-, shame- and blame-based barriers to help seeking are more prominent for more serious and stigmatised harms, including image-based abuse and grooming-type behaviours.  
• Many parents aren’t aware of their children’s negative online experiences.
• When parents are aware, most act in response to their children’s negative online experiences, typically by providing emotional support as well as practical guidance.  
• Help-seeking strategies, barriers to action, and parental responses to online harms differ, in some respects, by child age as well as child and parent gender.

The report concludes with a discussion of how these findings can inform efforts to strengthen children’s online safety, promote help seeking, and support families to respond confidently and effectively to online harms when they arise.  

This research draws on data from eSafety’s ‘Keeping Kids Safe Online’ survey.

The survey was conducted with a nationally representative sample of children aged 10 to 17 years living in Australia and their parent or caregiver. A total of 3,454 children and their parent or caregiver participated in the survey. Two weeks after completion of the core survey, children were recontacted and asked additional questions, with 2,302 children included in the recontact survey.

eSafety’s Parents has information for parents and carers, including information and advice about helping children stay safe online.

eSafety’s Kids and Young People provide useful information to help children and teens stay safe online.

eSafety's Social media age restrictions hub provides information for children and families to help them understand and adapt to the changes following the implementation of the age restrictions.