About 10 school children have been stopped from going through with plans to travel to the Middle East to join extremist groups.
Australian Federal Police commissioner Andrew Colvin says the youngsters have been stopped before getting to the point of trying to leave Australia and referred to community programs.
"What worries me as a parent but also as a police commissioner is children who are school-aged making decisions that they're just ill-equipped to make," he told ABC radio on Monday, saying young people seemed particularly vulnerable to online recruitment campaigns.
"They don't have the experience, they don't have the wherewithal, and they don't have the right information."
Commissioner Colvin said the issue of radicalisation was difficult to "get on top of", but community awareness was increasing.
"We are seeing better awareness about radicalisation, but we are also seeing the threat of radicalisation morphing — social media, online media — it is very difficult for law enforcement to get ahead of that and try and stop the impact and the reach, particularly to those vulnerable in the community," he said.
"We are very concerned about the youth in our community who seem to be particularly vulnerable to these messages coming out of [Islamic State] and the Middle East."
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