What healthy online friendships, crushes, and romantic relationships look like for young people — consent, mutuality, boundaries, and how to recognise coercive patterns early.
Healthy Relationships is the qualities of respect, trust, consent, and safety that make a young person's online friendships and romantic relationships positive rather than controlling or harmful.
Most of children's relationships now have an online layer, whether that is a group chat for a school friendship, a DM thread with a crush, or a long-distance friendship built in a game. Framing online relationships only as a risk misses half the picture: young people learn enormous amounts about consent, communication, repair after conflict, and how to be a good friend through these channels. This guide focuses on what healthy looks like — mutuality, consent, room to say no, the freedom to log off — so children have a positive template to compare against, not only a list of warnings.
A healthy digital relationship shares the same building blocks as a healthy offline one: each person can speak honestly, disagree without punishment, and step away without being pursued. Online, those building blocks show up as specific behaviours — replies are not constantly demanded, photos are asked for not pressured, location is shared by choice not as proof of love, and a 'no' to a video call is accepted. Coercive patterns are the mirror image: love-bombing followed by silent treatment, jealousy framed as care, pressure for intimate images, monitoring through Find My or Snap Maps, and isolation from other friends.
In your child's behaviour
On their device
Name what healthy looks like, not only what unhealthy looks like
Talk about specifics: a good friend is happy when you spend time with other people; a good partner accepts a no to a video call; a good group chat lets people leave without drama. Children who have a positive template spot a coercive one earlier.
Make 'logging off' a normal, neutral thing
Agree that not replying immediately is a feature of a healthy relationship, not a betrayal. Snap streaks, BeReal pressure, and 'last seen' anxiety all push the opposite — counter them at home.
Talk about consent for images, location, and account access
Sharing a password, location, or intimate image is a choice that can be withdrawn at any time. Cyberflashing — sending unsolicited sexual images — is a criminal offence under section 66A of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (inserted by the Online Safety Act 2023).
Keep one always-available adult
Agree that they can come to a named adult — you, another parent, a teacher, an aunt — about any relationship without being told 'I knew this would happen'. The adult's first job is to listen.
In immediate danger: call 999. For non-emergency police matters, call 101.
Concerned about a child but it's not an emergency? NSPCC helpline 0808 800 5000. Childline for young people 0800 1111.
This is practical educational content to support families. For case-specific concerns about a child's safety, contact the NSPCC helpline on 0808 800 5000 or your local safeguarding team.
Myth: Coercive control and relationship abuse are things that happen between adults, or when an adult grooms a child — not between two young people who are dating each other.
Fact: NSPCC's own research and casework show that coercive control and relationship abuse also occur in peer relationships between young people of a similar age. It can look like being told who to spend time with, being isolated from friends, or being made to feel responsible for a partner's moods — this needs recognising and responding to just as seriously as abuse in an adult relationship.
Myth: Once a relationship or online friendship has ended, any controlling or coercive behaviour from it is over too.
Fact: Controlling behaviour can continue, or even increase, after a relationship ends — through repeated contact attempts, checking a former partner's accounts, or pressure to get back together. It is worth checking in with your child in the weeks after a breakup, not only while the relationship is ongoing.
Myth: Unless a partner is pressuring for intimate photos or money, controlling behaviour in a young relationship is not serious enough to need addressing yet.
Fact: Coercive control — dictating a partner's choices, monitoring their movements, or cutting them off from friends — is a recognised form of relationship abuse in its own right, regardless of whether it involves anything sexual or financial. It is worth naming and talking about as soon as you notice a pattern, rather than waiting for it to escalate.
At this age most 'relationships' are online-flavoured friendships, group chats, and early crushes rather than formal dating, so focus on what a good friend does online — including other people, accepting a 'no', and not demanding instant replies — and make clear they can tell you about any online friendship without getting into trouble.
Dating relationships with an online component become more common, so talk directly about consent for photos, location sharing, and account passwords, and name coercive patterns like jealousy, isolation from friends, or being told what to wear as things worth flagging to you, not just 'how relationships are'.
Relationships are increasingly independent of parental oversight, so shift towards making sure they know where to get outside support — such as Galop for LGBT+ young people or Refuge for wider domestic-abuse concerns — and that changing passwords, revoking location sharing, and blocking are normal steps to take after any relationship ends, not just after a bad one.
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