The essence of online gaming is being able to experience something with people you may or may not know.
Recently, I’ve been playing Battlefield 6 with a bunch of people each night. We play as a squad to kill all the other players without being killed, while the playing field constantly collapses in on you. Very mature game. Do not recommend for your young kids lol
In it is something called proximity chat. If you have the feature turned on, when you’re within a certain proximity of other players you can literally hear what they’re saying. And you’d be horrified at the typical banter! Funny enough, this is quite possibly the lightest version of player-to-player voice comms you’ll find in a game.
Should my kid talk to strangers online?
It’s the question every parent asks when they learn their kid might be playing a game online with people they (the parents and/or kids) do not know. Let me start by saying, the friendships made in online games are very real.
I started playing online when I was 13 years old. I started conversing with other players during matches. Eventually, I was recruited into a community because of my skills in Battlefield. I’ve since become a council member for that community and still help run it 25 years later. We’re over 100 members strong, ranging in ages from 16 to 60 years old. I would come to know these people very well. I’d fly to visit them. I’d take vacations with them. We’ve been there for each other in the good times and the bad. These are people I talk to nearly as much as my own family.
Online gaming can very much lead to strong, positive relationships.
However, the question, “Should my kid talk to strangers online?” sounds like a yes or no question. The truth is, it isn’t. Online play isn’t one room. It isn’t one player. It’s a bunch of rooms with a bunch of players. Your job as a parent isn’t to lock the door to all these rooms. It’s to decide which rooms your kid is ready to enter and participate in.
Online play can be great
Like I said, online gaming can lead to real positive relationships. No one seems to ever want to talk about that.
In 2015, Pew Research surveyed American teens about friendship. (Yes, it’s over a decade ago, but it’s still worth considering). 57% had made at least one new friend online. Among those teens, gaming was the second most common way they’d met, after social media. I’d go as far as to guess that gaming would absolutely be the number one way teens might be meeting online today. For boys it was most common: 57% of boys who’d made a friend online met through a game.
It isn’t just new friends. 78% of teens who play online said it made them feel more connected to friends they already had. For boys especially, the game is the hangout. It’s the 2026 version of riding bikes to the same corner. This is part of the reason we’ve seen the meteoric rise of the likes of Discord.
And I can vouch for all this. I still stay connected to grade school and high school friends today because we routinely hangout in Discord while playing games online.
It can also be ugly
Now…the other side of it.
The Anti-Defamation League surveys online gamers every year about harassment. In its 2023 report, three out of four kids ages 10 to 17 said they’d been harassed in an online multiplayer game. That was up from 67% the year before. The ADL also found that voice chat is still the main place it happens. And I’d absolutely concur.
Whenever your kid is playing with ‘voice chat on’ with anyone other than known friends, there’s nearly a 100% chance there’s some type of trash talking, name calling, and/or profanity being slung. It can get ugly. But it’s the kind of ugly you can talk through. In my opinion? Today? The much rarer, but scarier thing is an adult in voice chat who’s nice to your kid.
Too nice…
And that is the single most important thing worth teaching your kid to spot. I’ll talk more about this, but first, let’s get you familiar with how your kid will typically “graduate” from safety to danger through online multiplayer conventions in games.
The typical stages of online gaming
Instead of a single “yes” or “no” to online gaming, picture their experience as a set of levels that increase in complexity and danger.
The couch. Local co-op gaming. Everyone is in the room playing, in real life.
The friends list. Most online games, or game stores, launchers and platforms allow for friends lists where the player can send and accept invites to connect. Typically kids will start off “friending” people they actually know in real life. It’s a list you’d probably have approved. But they primarily use the list to join games the friend player is also playing in.
The party. When your kid “joins a party,” they’re typically hopping on a microphone and entering a voice chat. Often only with their friends list, but not all the time.
The lobby. This is when your kid’s party is placed in a lobby with other parties – people they will not know. Chat might be limited. It might be open. It might be filtered. It might be turned off. You just don’t know. Some games let kids talk to other players with quick-chat buttons and pings to do the communicating for them.
Open voice. Then there’s full on voice channels. Discord and similar platforms. These are spaces that might be in game but often are also found outside the game to utilize during gameplay.
So it goes like this: You start talking in a living room with friends → Connecting online with friends to simply join the same game remotely → Joining a party in a game where voice chat might be introduced → Joining a lobby in a game where voice chat is available to your kid’s party and all other player parties → Joining open voice where all voice communication goes.
If you don’t game online, this might all be confusing. TLDR: there’s levels to how much chat and stranger engagement your kid will be subjected to when playing games online.
One thing you should look at is your kids’ gaming console settings. (Xbox Family Settings, PlayStation Family Management, Nintendo Switch Parental Controls, etc.). Games themselves will often have their own settings too. Roblox, for example, has required an age check before anyone can chat, using a face scan or an ID, and it sorts players into age groups that can only chat with nearby groups. Chat is off by default for kids under 9. And this is all new for Roblox, because…well…they’re one of the biggest predator playgrounds in gaming today.
What “too nice” looks like
I mentioned earlier the scary circumstance when an adult is chatting with your kid in the game and they’re acting “too nice.” Look…trash talk is loud. Kids will talk shit to each other all day in games. It’s just going to happen. There’s a lot of bad, cruel, disrespectful commentary that goes on.
But grooming is quiet. Predators groom and manipulate players when they’re targeting them. Here are some moves worth naming out loud with your kid, roughly in the order I’ve seen and read them as showing up:
Gifts. A player gives your kid free skins, free in game money, or other in game rewards that make your kid as for more and often help your kid progress in the game.
Moving the conversation. “Add me on Discord.” “What’s your TikTok?” “Whats App me, it’s easier!” Getting your kid off the game’s moderated chat and into a private one is the biggest red flag of all.
Personal questions. Age, school, town, physical description, parent relationships…when they start conversing about non-game, real life shit, especially after only a brief time of playing the game together…that’s a massive flag.
Secrets. When a player threatens a kid with a consequence in game. “If you tell your parents, I won’t send you free skins anymore.” “If you tell anyone else, I’ll hack your game.” “If your mom knows, she’ll take X away.” Etc. Biggest red flag of them all.
🤔 What should you do then?
Limit to friends lists. And ask who’s on the list. Have that conversation with them.
Turn off voice, but allow text chat. Voice chat is where most harassment happens, and there’s no record of it for you to unearth later.
Keep your kids game consoles in a shared room. Somewhere like a living room or family room. Have them take their headsets off every so often so you can hear the game too. Not to spy. Just to be a part of witnessing the gameplay.
Rehearse an exit with your kid. “If someone makes you feel uncomfortable, what do you do?” Mute, block, report, tell me. Have them show you where the block button is. Have them exercise the process to naturalize it.
Promise no punishment for telling you. Out loud, before anything happens. If telling you costs them the game, they’ll stop talking. We don’t want that.
Know the game’s community. A cozy building game and a competitive shooter can have the same ESRB rating yet very, very different lobbies of players. Watch a match or two before you say yes to allowing any and every game online.
The point of gaming is not to be isolated. It’s to experience something fun, memorable, even valuable with others. So I’m not saying you must keep your kid away from any and all online gaming. I’m simply saying, be aware. Lean in and listen. Watch what they’re playing and with whom. And ensure they’re comfortable communicating with you about what they’re playing with others.
Hit reply and ask me anything you want to know about playing with others online. I have decades of experience both as a player and as a community creator. I’ve moderated situations. I’ve seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. I can’t promise an answer, but I can certainly promise perspective to guide you to a more positive online gaming experience for your kid.
Thanks for pressing pause with me.
– Patrick