That moment when you realise your child’s “just photos with friends” app also contains strangers, DMs, suggested accounts, and an algorithm that never sleeps – it can land with a thud in your stomach.
The aim with Instagram isn’t to ban your way to safety. It’s to set it up so your child has breathing room to be social, while you reduce the odds of the classic problems: unwanted messages, adult content slipping through, dogpiling in comments, and the slow creep of comparison that can wreck mood and sleep.
Below is a parent-ready walkthrough of Instagram safety settings for parents, with the trade-offs spelled out and a few conversation scripts that actually work with tweens and teens.
Start with the “who can reach me?” settings
Most Instagram drama starts with access. If you tighten who can find, follow, tag and message your child, you prevent a lot of mess before it arrives.
Set the account to Private (and keep it there)
A private account means new followers must be approved. That one toggle is often the difference between “mates from school” and “random adults with a football badge and no posts”.
If your teen argues that being private is “cringe” or limits their reach, you can validate that and still hold the boundary: public accounts are for people building a public brand. Most children aren’t.
What to say: “I’m not trying to control who you are. I’m controlling who can access you. Private is the baseline in our house.”
Lock down messages and group chats
Direct messages are where grooming, pressure, and sextortion often begin because it feels personal and private. Go into the messaging settings and make sure your child isn’t getting message requests from people they don’t follow. Also look for settings that control who can add them to group chats.
Trade-off: if you set this too tight, they can miss genuine connections, like a sports team group started by a new parent. A practical compromise is: friends and followers can message, strangers cannot – and they can come to you if there’s a legitimate reason to open it temporarily.
What to say: “If someone needs you, they can follow you first. If they can’t even do that, they don’t need to be in your DMs.”
Limit mentions, tags and comments
Tags and mentions are how embarrassing posts spread. Comments are where pile-ons start.
Set tagging and mentioning to “people you follow” or “followers” rather than “everyone”. For comments, use Instagram’s built-in filtering for offensive words and consider manually adding common slurs or the child’s name plus insults. This is not overprotective. It’s basic digital hygiene.
Trade-off: comment filters can be blunt. They sometimes catch innocent phrases. If your teen creates content, agree on a weekly check-in where you adjust filters together so it feels collaborative, not surveilled.
Use Instagram’s teen protections properly (and don’t skip the boring bits)
Instagram has built more teen-focused features over the last few years, but they only help if they’re switched on and aligned with your child’s actual age.
Check the date of birth and account type
It sounds obvious, but plenty of kids enter an older age to access features. The risk is that age-based protections may not apply.
If your child’s age is wrong, you may need to correct it and accept that some features change. Frame it as a safety upgrade, not a punishment.
What to say: “I’m not trying to catch you out. I’m trying to make sure the app treats you like your real age.”
Consider supervision tools (if your relationship can handle it)
Instagram offers parent supervision options that can show time spent and some safety-related signals. For some families, this reduces anxiety and stops arguments about screen time. For others, it becomes a trust grenade.
It depends on your child’s temperament and your history. If you already have lots of conflict around phones, jumping straight to supervision can turn into a cat-and-mouse game. If your teen is generally sensible and you’re using it as a temporary scaffold, it can work well.
A middle path is to agree on “supervision for three months” while they’re new to the platform, then revisit.
What to say: “This is training wheels, not handcuffs. We’ll review it together on a date we agree now.”
Reduce unwanted content without pretending you can block everything
Instagram’s algorithm is powerful. Even with the best settings, your child can still stumble across sexual content, diet culture, violence, or accounts that glamorise risky behaviour.
Set Sensitive Content to the most restrictive option
In content preferences, choose the most restrictive level for sensitive content. It won’t create a bubble, but it can reduce the volume of borderline posts and “thirst trap” recommendations.
The key nuance: this setting helps most with Explore and suggested posts. It doesn’t fully control what a child chooses to search for or what friends share.
Use Hidden Words and custom filters
Hidden Words can filter comments and message requests that contain offensive terms. Add your own custom words and phrases relevant to your child’s world: common insults at school, slurs, even the names of local gossip pages if they’re an issue.
This is one of those unglamorous settings that pays off when a nasty comment never lands.
Teach the algorithm using “Not interested”
This is a parenting move, not a technical one. Show your child how to actively train the feed: tap on posts and select “Not interested”, mute accounts that make them feel rubbish, and unfollow without guilt.
What to say: “Your feed isn’t ‘what the world thinks’. It’s what the app thinks will keep you scrolling. You get a vote.”
Quiet the account: stop late-night spirals and screenshot stress
A lot of harm is less about predators and more about pressure: staying up to reply, obsessing over likes, panic when someone views a story, or anxiety when a message sits on “seen”.
Turn off notifications at night
Use Instagram’s notification settings and your phone’s Focus/Do Not Disturb to create a protected sleep window. If your child says they need it “in case something happens”, that’s a sign the boundary is needed.
Try: phones charge outside bedrooms, or at least on the other side of the room. If that feels impossible, start with a weekday-only rule.
Hide like counts (yes, it still helps)
Instagram allows users to hide like counts. It won’t cure insecurity, but it reduces the scoreboard feeling – especially for younger teens.
Trade-off: if your child is deeply invested in online status, hiding likes can feel like you’re embarrassing them. Offer it as an experiment: “Let’s try for two weeks and see if it changes anything.”
Use Close Friends for stories
Encourage stories to be shared to Close Friends rather than all followers. This limits screenshot drama and reduces the audience for impulsive posts.
What to say: “Not everything needs an audience. Close Friends is like a group chat, not a stage.”
The settings parents miss: location, contacts, and “discoverability”
Some of the biggest privacy leaks aren’t obvious.
Check location sharing and photo permissions
On the phone itself, ensure Instagram doesn’t have unnecessary location permissions. Also talk to your teen about geotags in posts and stories. Posting the name of the park you’re currently in is basically a live tracker.
What to say: “Post where you were, not where you are. Time delay is a safety tool.”
Turn off syncing contacts (if you don’t want your phone book involved)
Instagram can suggest accounts based on contacts. That can be useful, but it can also create awkwardness, especially in blended families or where your child has adults’ numbers saved.
If privacy is the priority, keep contacts syncing off and let them find friends intentionally.
Review story replies and resharing
Stories feel temporary, but they travel. Check who can reply to stories and whether others can reshare. Limiting replies to followers (or close friends) can cut down on weird interactions.
A quick “what to do when” plan (so you’re not improvising at 11 pm)
If your child gets a creepy message, a nude request, or threats, you want a calm routine.
Agree now: don’t delete evidence, don’t reply, screenshot, block, and tell a trusted adult. If money is demanded or threats are made, treat it as urgent and get support quickly.
What to say: “You won’t be in trouble for telling me. My job is to help you, not take your phone and panic.”
If you want more scripts like this, Kiwi Families has a wider library of practical tech-safety guidance you can dip into when you need the words fast: https://www.kiwifamilies.co.nz
How to set boundaries without turning Instagram into the third parent
Settings are only half the job. The other half is family norms that reduce secrecy.
Start with a simple agreement: private account, no strangers in DMs, no sending nudes, and a “come to me” rule if anything feels off. Then add a small, non-negotiable routine like a weekly five-minute check-in where they show you their privacy settings page, not their messages. That keeps you in the loop without reading their social life.
If your child has already been secretive or exposed to harmful content, you may need tighter limits for a season. Say that plainly. Kids cope better with “for now” rules tied to specific safety concerns than vague, permanent control.
The closing thought to keep in your pocket: you’re not trying to raise a child who never sees risk online. You’re trying to raise a child who recognises risk early, knows what to do next, and trusts you enough to bring it into the light.
