A first phone or console is exciting, and it also opens three doors at once. Knowing what they are makes every setup step that follows make sense.
Door one: contact with strangers
Chat, voice, and messaging mean your child can now reach the world, and the world can reach them. Most apps and games allow contact from people your child has never met unless you change that. This is why friends-only chat and private accounts come up again and again: they close the easiest way for a stranger to start talking.
Door two: spending
Modern apps and games are built to sell. In-app purchases, extra lives, and loot boxes (paid bundles where you do not know what is inside until you buy) are designed to be tempting and easy. Without a password or approval step, a saved card can be spent in seconds.
Door three: content
A connected device can reach almost anything: videos, images, and messages that are fine for adults but not for a child. Content filters help, but no filter catches everything.
Settings buy time, the conversation keeps them safe
Controls on the device and in each app slow things down and give your child room to grow into the device. But settings can be worked around, and no setting can be there in the moment your child sees something upsetting or gets a message that worries them. What helps most is that they know they can come to you without getting in trouble.