Discord

The main thing to understand is who your child can talk to. Discord is built around friends and communities, so contact is not limited to people they know from school or home. Servers can include strangers, and messages, images and links can move quickly. Money can be spent on Nitro and other purchases, and children can share more about themselves than they realise.

Start by asking who they talk to and which servers they use. Then look at Discord’s Family Center and message settings together. Agree what to do if someone they do not know tries to move the conversation elsewhere.

Parent controls

Settings the child controls

Direct messages, server messages, friend requests and voice or video calls are available. Teen settings and Family Center can limit who can send messages, but contact from people outside a child's real-world circle is still possible in shared servers.

Discord sells Nitro subscriptions and other purchases. Family Center can show recent purchase totals and let a guardian set a monthly spending cap. Discord says that cap does not include subscriptions such as Nitro, server boosts or similar recurring charges.

Profiles, messages, server activity and shared media can reveal personal information. Discord does not provide a general live-location feature, but a child can still type or upload identifying details and follow external links.

Ask which servers feel welcoming, who can message them, and what they would do if a conversation became uncomfortable. Review the settings together and make it clear they can come to you without losing access automatically.

• “Who do you normally talk to on Discord?”
• “Are all of the servers you're in with people you know?”
• “What would you do if someone you don't know asked to talk privately?”
• “Have you ever bought Nitro or anything else in Discord?”

• Privacy Exposure Checker

  Review what personal information may be visible or easy to piece together online.

• Gaming Risk Checker

  Understand a game’s chat, spending, sharing, and user-created content features.

• Online Scam Checker

  Make sense of a suspicious message, offer, link, or request.

Discord is a communication service where people talk in private messages, group chats and community spaces called servers. It is especially common around gaming, hobbies and friendship groups.

Children and teenagers use Discord to stay in touch while gaming, join communities around shared interests, share media and spend time with friends by voice, video or text.