My 9-year-old has a rich creative life. She is a self-proclaimed artist who dabbles in painting, sculpture, and embroidery, but who enjoys drawing most of all. She writes and illustrates her own comic series and chapter books. When she gets into a new show, she cosplays the hell out of her favorite characters. She’s also a big reader, like her mom, and especially loves series like Warrior Cats, Wings of Fire, Cardboard Kingdom, and Cat Kid Comic Club. I am constantly in awe of her imagination, and the fact that she is always creating new things. And I love that she is still such a kid.
She has limited screen time, too. She enjoys playing Minecraft and Roblox, for which her friends have a private server. She uses YouTube Kids to watch other young gamers. On the weekends, we watch movies together (she recently declared The Wizard of Oz “weird”). And though she doesn’t have a phone, we sometimes watch baking reels together in my Instagram feed.
Some of the other moms say that when the kids go to middle school in fifth grade, they all get cell phones.
Some of the kids in fourth grade have them already.
When Em mentions this to me, I tell her to forget it. She’s not seeing her first phone until she’s 13.
Even so, I’m scared about next year. As someone who writes about sexuality for a living, I know more than I’d like to about online predators. And those big bads aside, I also know that even without her own phone and social media accounts, she may still not be immune to online messaging about things like culturally-imposed beauty standards and gender roles, and she could still be susceptible to social media- or text-based bullying.
Luckily, there are tons of resources out there to help teach kids online safety. Melissa Pintor Carnagey recently shared a bunch in their Sex Positive Families newsletter (have you subscribed yet?), such as this AMAZE video, this free tool for setting digital safety ground rules as a fam, and this game that teaches kids internet safety in the most fun way possible.
Being a book nerd, I also have to mention On the Internet by Dr. Jillian Roberts and Jane Heinrichs, First Phone by Catherine Pearlman, Ph.D. LCSW and, for parents, Julianna Miner’s Raising a Screen Smart Kid.
How are other folks with young kids handling issues of online safety?
Full Disclosure: Sex Ed in the News
Children’s author and educator Robie Harris recently passed away. I legit gasped out loud when I saw her obituary pop up in my feed. We own so many of her sex ed titles and I continue to recommend them to parents all the time. That woman is a national treasure.
In happier news (and I’m sharing it because it’s local), students in Newark, NJ, will now be able to vote in school board elections once they turn 16! Now this is a trend I’d like to see catch on.
My Favorite New Sex Ed Resource
This is actually nothing new. I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned Red Wine and Blue in the past. But I recently attended one of their Troublemaker Training sessions, on handling tough topics like a pro, which led me down a YouTube rabbit hole, which then led me to this video of theirs on how to speak at a school board (like a pro). It’s definitely worth watching.