Best questions for parent survey about digital safety

Here are some of the best questions for a parent survey about digital safety, plus tips on crafting thoughtful questions that get honest answers. If you want to build such a parent survey in seconds, you can generate it with Specific—your AI-powered survey expert.

Best open-ended questions for parent surveys about digital safety

Open-ended questions help parents explain their experiences, concerns, and needs in their own words. We use these to uncover deeper insights, spot patterns that structured questions miss, and set the stage for conversation. They're essential when context and personal stories matter most—as they do in digital safety, where every family's reality looks different.

The latest research shows we’re asking the right questions at the right time: 55% of parents in a 2024 ECPAT survey said online safety now tops their concerns—higher than physical or mental health [1]. Tackling these topics head-on drives honest dialogue and empathy.

1. What are your biggest concerns about your child’s online activities?

2. Can you describe a recent experience where your child faced a digital safety issue?

3. How do you talk to your child about staying safe online?

4. What resources, if any, have helped you learn about digital safety for your family?

5. Are there online platforms or apps you feel are particularly unsafe for children? Why?

6. What rules or boundaries do you set at home for your child’s internet use?

7. How confident do you feel in helping your child handle digital risks (like cyberbullying or exposure to strangers)?

8. Have you ever needed support or advice regarding your child’s digital life? What happened?

9. What changes would help you feel more secure about your child’s time online?

10. Is there anything you wish schools or communities did differently to support digital safety?

Best single-select multiple-choice questions for parent surveys about digital safety

Single-select multiple-choice questions are ideal when you need to quickly quantify opinions or behaviors. They’re less intimidating for parents unsure where to start, offering clear choices they recognize. They’re also great to break the ice or collect baseline data—before using followups to dive deeper.

Here are three effective examples, each with clear choices:

Question: Which digital safety issue concerns you the most for your child?

• Exposure to inappropriate content

• Contact with strangers online

• Cyberbullying

• Privacy/data sharing

• Social media addiction

• Other

Question: How confident do you feel in monitoring your child’s internet use?

• Very confident

• Somewhat confident

• Not confident

Question: What device does your child use most frequently to access the internet?

• Tablet

• Smartphone

• Laptop/desktop computer

• Gaming console

• Other

When to followup with "why?" After any multiple-choice question, following up with “Can you tell us why you feel this way?” helps us get beyond the tick-box. For instance, if a parent is “Not confident” about monitoring, asking why and what would help can guide better resources, training, or support.

When and why to add the "Other" choice? If survey options might not cover every situation (or may miss niche tech), “Other” plus a followup lets parents describe unique challenges. Followup questions here routinely unlock insights we’d otherwise miss, like new apps or devices parents worry about.

This is supported by a 2023 study: 82% of parents cite concern about children talking to strangers online, and having room to explain context clarifies priorities for schools and policy makers [3].

NPS makes sense for digital safety surveys, too

Net Promoter Score (NPS) is widely used in product and experience research, and it’s just as valuable in family digital safety. You can ask: “On a scale of 0–10, how likely are you to recommend your child’s current online safety experience to another parent?” NPS not only benchmarks general sentiment—it signals urgency and unmet needs where scores trend low. Try exploring a digital safety NPS example to see how simple it is to implement for parent feedback.

The power of follow-up questions

The next step? Automated follow-ups. Our open-ended, conversational surveys shine here—because parents don’t always volunteer full context in their first answer. Automated AI followup questions help us probe for examples, clarify fuzzy responses, and create a survey that feels more like a natural chat than a test.

Specific’s AI engine asks smart, contextual follow-up questions in real time—often like an expert digital safety researcher would. This gives us fuller context and richer insights, fast. Manual follow-up (via email or calls) is tedious and usually gets lower-quality feedback, since the moment has passed.

• Parent: “I worry about apps they use for school.”

• AI follow-up: “Can you give an example of an app that concerns you? What makes it worrying?”

How many followups to ask? The sweet spot is two or three—enough to get depth, not so many that it feels like an interrogation. Our AI platform lets you set limits so we don’t overwhelm respondents, and to skip ahead when we’ve collected what we need.

This makes it a conversational survey: The followup flow transforms a bland Q&A into a real conversation, where parents feel heard rather than surveyed.

AI analysis, even for open-ended feedback: After your survey is done, AI makes it easy to analyze survey responses—summarizing themes across all of that rich, unstructured feedback. It’s lightning fast, far cleaner than manual analysis, and lets us categorize or deep-dive as needed.

These AI-powered follow-up questions are a new concept in digital safety feedback. Try generating a real survey and see the difference in parent response quality and depth.

Crafting effective AI prompts for digital safety surveys

If you want to brainstorm the best survey questions, prompts matter. Here’s a simple starting prompt:

Suggest 10 open-ended questions for parent survey about digital safety.

But for best results, always give the AI more context: Who are you? What’s the goal? What do you need to learn?

We are a small school running a digital safety education week for students aged 8-12. Suggest 10 open-ended questions for a parent survey to learn about digital safety concerns, wishes, and barriers in this age group.

Once you have a list of questions, analyze them with:

Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.

After identifying your top categories, drill down further:

Generate 10 questions for categories “Monitoring tools”, “Social media exposure”, and “Family rules”.

This iterative approach delivers surveys that feel tailored (and more likely to get responses). You can always use the AI survey generator to do this work conversationally, with minimal friction.

What is a conversational survey?

Conversational surveys work via dynamic, AI-driven chat—unlike traditional “fill-in-and-forget” forms. A conversational survey feels like texting with a smart, friendly expert who adapts based on what you say. Specific’s platform is built for this: open-ended, real-time probing is our specialty, and every reply shapes the next question.

Why use AI for parent surveys? The stakes are high—parents are deeply concerned (over 80% cite worries about online strangers, inappropriate content, and social media’s impact [2][3]). The best feedback comes when surveys are easy, conversational, adaptive, and analyzed instantly—without mountains of manual work. AI survey examples help focus your outreach, personalize the interaction, and capture nuanced answers at scale.

Plus, with Specific’s best-in-class conversational surveys, both survey creators and parents enjoy a seamless, mobile-friendly experience. Every step—from question building to feedback analysis—is designed to be as smooth and insightful as possible. If you want more hands-on tips, check out our full guide on creating parent surveys about digital safety.

See this digital safety survey example now

Start your digital safety parent survey and see how easy it is to create, follow up, and interpret feedback deeper than ever—unlocking insights that make everyone safer. Conversation-first surveys reveal what standard forms simply can’t.