How should I respond when an online gaming friend offers my child a gift that needs our address?
Parenting"He helped me build the whole station. He's not a stranger to me." My twelve-year-old was showing me a message from someone in his game group who offered to mail him a spare controller.
The sender says he is fourteen. They have played together for several months, but we don't know his identity outside the game. The message asks for my son's name and our home address. My son brought it to me before replying, which I want to keep happening.
I said no to sharing the address. Then I said he shouldn't trust anyone online, and he stopped showing me the conversation. He has two school friends in the same group and thinks I'm dismissing all of those friendships together.
[eSafety recommends keeping identifying details such as addresses and school names out of children's gaming profiles](https://www.esafety.gov.au/parents/issues-and-advice/gaming/how-to-set-up-and-choose-games-safely). We also need a clear approach to requests in messages. How would you hold the no-address line without making asking me first feel like the mistake that cost him his whole group?