Growing Up Online: Children, Screens and Safety
Children are growing up in a world in which friendships, play, learning, identity and belonging have a large online dimension.
For the adults around them, this creates a new task. We need to understand the worlds children inhabit online, recognise the risks that matter, and think carefully about how we accompany them through those worlds.
Growing Up Online is a 3-hour programme for parents, teachers and counsellors that approaches digital safety through both prevention and relationship.
We will look at the psychological and relational world around screens — identity, belonging, comparison, gaming, social media and friendships — as well as risks such as cyberbullying, grooming, sextortion, harmful content and AI-generated images.
But knowing the risks is only one part of keeping children safe. The programme will also explore what adults can do before anything goes wrong: how we model our own relationship with technology, create thoughtful boundaries and agreements, talk with children about their online lives, and build the kind of relationship in which difficult things can be brought to us.
The programme will help you:
Understand children’s online worlds and the risks within them.
Take practical preventive measures without relying only on monitoring and control.
Respond calmly and supportively when a child is in trouble.
Build dialogue, trust and workable boundaries with children.
Model healthier ways of relating to technology.
Through discussions and practical exercises, participants will think about these ideas in relation to the children they parent, teach or work with.
There are no simple rules that will work for every child, family or school. The aim is to help adults think more clearly about their own context and make considered choices about safety, privacy, boundaries and independence.
At the heart of the programme is a simple idea: digital safety is relational. Children need adults who can set limits and take preventive action, but also adults who remain curious, available and steady enough to be turned to when something goes wrong.