Grandparents, screens, and safety

When children spend time with their grandparents, 49% of that time is spent looking at a screen, according to a study published in April 2025 by researchers Cecilia Sada Garibay and Matthew A. Lapierre from the University of Arizona. Traditional TV is the main culprit, but watching videos on phones or tablets, playing video games, and browsing the internet fill up the rest of the time.
It is no secret that the online world is fraught with real danger, specifically targeting children. According to a 2022 survey conducted by Common Sense Media, 15% of the respondents (U.S. teens ages 13-17) said “they first saw online pornography at age 10 or younger. The average age reported is 12.” A 2026 Worldmetrics report titled Online Predator Statistics revealed that online chatrooms and certain video games have become hunting grounds for predators looking to groom and exploit young targets.

Be proactive
In such a rapidly changing, dark environment, how can grandparents effectively protect their grandchildren’s eyes, minds, and hearts?
“Any effort that you put in is honoring to the Lord,” said Jacob Valk. The co-executive director and co-founder of Into the Light Ministries (intothelightministries.ca) told The Stand, “Just the choice to care, the choice to do whatever you’re able with technology is a step in the right direction, and God honors that faithfulness.”
Valk offered encouragement to grandparents who lack confidence in their ability to navigate the world of technology.
“Some years ago, technology was a bit more like the Wild West,” he recalled. “But recently, technology manufacturers have made the process of setting guidelines and controls easier. They’ve made them more user-friendly than ever before, which should be encouraging to grandparents. You might be surprised that you can figure out some aspects of tech safety easier than you would expect.”

Start at the source
Valk offered a personal example: He controls the Wi-Fi in his own house through an app made available by his internet provider. Within about two minutes of installing the Wi-Fi, he set up basic protections and even a timer that would shut off the Wi-Fi late at night for the entire house.
“It was as difficult as setting a timer on your oven,” he went on. “It’s that easy. When we think of home internet security, we often think of devices first.
How do I make my phone or my TV safe? And that’s very important, but we can go one step backward. Making your Wi-Fi safe makes all the devices in your home safe. Making your Wi-Fi safe means that if a young child brings a tablet to your home and connects to the Wi-Fi, you can monitor, filter, and block explicit content before it ever reaches [the] device.”

Cultivate trust
A grandparent can block pornography and other harmful media at the router level with Wi-Fi protection. But these filters don’t always catch everything. Some online platforms, such as YouTube, offer a mix of good and harmful content, requiring more intentionality. A trusting relationship, said Valk, is vital for this layer of protection.
“It is important to be curious about what your grandchildren are interested in playing and watching,” he explained. “Ask to be invited in. Because then if they cheerfully and excitedly turn their screen toward you and invite you into the game or invite you into what they’re watching, you’ll have a really good idea of what they’re viewing. … You’re building a relationship with them, which allows you to encourage them to pursue better content or play more healthy games.”
Valk stated that this kind of interaction [of] genuine curiosity and interest signals to grandchildren that their grandparents are not interested in interrogating them or trying to catch them. Instead, approaching grandchildren with the intention of building trust and safety demonstrates that the grandparent is on the child’s side.

Set clear boundaries
Often, parents have one set of expectations for screen use in their households, while grandparents may never have felt the need for them. In situations where grandparents feel unsure of how to adopt or adapt screen-time rules set by the grandchild’s parents, Valk encourages confidence.
He says that grandparents should be bold enough to set strict rules regarding technology in their own homes.
“If you want to have a basket where devices go … and focus your time with your grandchildren without tech or screens, you have all the authority in the world to make that choice,” Valk explained, “even if your grandchild’s parents’ rules are
more lenient.”
Valk acknowledged that this dynamic can be quite complex, as it deals with intra-family expectations and relationships. But at the end of the day, a grandparent’s time with a grandchild is more limited than the parent’s time, so stricter rules that enable quality time without distractions are perfectly reasonable.

Watch for warning signs
When a visiting grandchild is consuming harmful media, said Valk, there are usually signs or patterns of behavior that a grandparent can notice.
“If you’re walking behind the couch,” explained Valk, “and the children are tilting their screens away or seem to be switching between programs or apps very quickly when you come in, there’s guilt there. There’s an attempt to hide their screens. That’s a good thing to pay attention to.”
Supervising screen time might be easy when it happens in the grandparents’ own home, but another sign could be just as important and provide insight into what happens outside of their supervision.
“If it feels like your grandkids are making jokes or bringing up topics that seem just a little too edgy or mature for their age,” said Valk, “it’s likely they’re getting them somewhere online. … If it strikes you as something that a child shouldn’t be laughing or talking about, I would ask questions. Do so in a spirit of curiosity. That can be a way to start asking where those ideas came from, and they might be from unhelpful places online.”

Be empowered
Grandparents do not need to feel helpless in the face of technology or screen-time safety, stressed Valk. He recommends an instructional video series titled TechSafe from Into the Light Ministries. It is designed to help parents and grandparents alike understand how to make their homes safe places for their children and grandchildren.
“If grandparents have a tablet, TV, or computer that their grandkids use, the TechSafe series will not only show them how to block explicit content but also filter and monitor everything on it. And that gives grandparents eyes and ears where they want them,” Valk explained.
Beyond the technical controls, Valk concluded, nothing is as impactful as a loving and trusting relationship. Secrets can be kept, protections can be navigated, and controls can be bypassed, but the love and care of a God-honoring grandparent can have an eternal impact.