Every parent has heard the horror stories. Cyberbullying. Sextortion. Deteriorating youth mental health.
And while the federal government recently tabled a bill to impose new regulations on social media and chatbots, including age restrictions, it’s not known when the changes will take effect, what they will look like, or which apps will be affected.
Until then, parents are on their own in deciding which — if any — platforms to allow, and how to balance digital safety with kids’ needs for connection, something Lindsay Lobb, director of operations and support services at the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, calls “completely unfair.”
There are, however, things parents can do. CBC News asked Lobb and Joanne Ma, a Vancouver-area mother of three who co-invented a video game to teach kids digital safety, to weigh in.
Have an honest conversation about whether your child is ready
For Ma, that conversation has been ongoing for two years. Her oldest child, who is 14, doesn’t have her own phone. Ma said it is less about age and more about readiness.
“She has anxiety already about things in the real world. So it was just going to amplify in the digital world if she didn’t have a good, strong sense of self,” Ma said.
A strong sense of self – the ability to brush off hurtful comments on social media or in a group chat – is one of three criteria Ma uses to gauge whether her kids are ready for devices.
The others are an ability to think critically about whether what’s presented online is real, and self-regulation: can they put the device down when asked and respect screen time limits?
Engage the power of the collective
Being the only parent saying no to devices or social media can be tough, Ma said.
“I would say like 90 per cent of her friends and groups are on some sort of social media,” she said of her daughter. “The question I got a lot was, ‘Why can’t I have a cellphone? All my friends have one.'”
This is a big reason Ma supports the federal government’s proposed social media rules is that they lend more legitimacy to the “no” and take the pressure off parents.
But until those rules kick in, Ma and a group of like-minded parents from her daughter’s soccer team agreed to collectively delay device use.
“So when she goes, you know, ‘Everybody has it,’ I can say, ‘Well, you know, so and so’s kids don’t have it yet because we don’t believe you’re quite ready.'”
Model healthy digital habits
For Ma’s family, this means there are house rules about device use that everyone buys into.
They include not charging or using devices in bedrooms due to documented effects on sleep, and so scrolling for hours in bed at night is not normalized.
They also try to avoid having devices intrude on family dinners or conversations, Ma said.
Get familiar with the apps your kids use
It’s understandable for parents to want a list of which apps are and are not safe to use, said Lobb of the Canadian Centre for Child Protection. But it’s not that simple.
“The reality that we’re up against is that none of them are inherently safe or unsafe,” she said.
Lobb leads a team that supports victims of online sexual exploitation. She said it happens on all the biggest apps used by kids and teens.
“It’s happening on Instagram, it’s happening on TikTok and Snapchat. And I think that’s what’s really critical to remember is this is not happening in sort of the dark corners of the internet. This is happening out in the open,” she said.
“The loophole that allows this to happen primarily is the fact that adults are allowed to engage with children with no guardrails, that they are allowed to private message children online and there is nothing stopping them from doing that currently.”
It’s important to be familiar with parental controls on both the apps and the devices used by kids and adjust settings where possible to prevent strangers from direct messaging, Lobb said.
It’s up to parents to research apps before their kids download them, she added.
“What are the possibilities of what might happen and what safeguards can you put in place prior to actually even creating the profile?”
Equally important is talking to youth about what safe and unsafe communication looks like, Lobb said. Protect Kids Online offers age-appropriate guidance on its website.
Those conversations will be different depending on the child and their interests, Ma said.
The federal government’s proposed Safe Social Media Act could have a major impact on children and their families. CBC’s Trishla Parekh took The National envelope to schools in Toronto to ask kids, parents and teachers what they think about a social media ban.
For her daughter, they focus on chat conversations and eventually, social media, Ma said.
Her 11-year-old son is not asking for a phone, but does want to go on gaming platforms such as Roblox and Fortnite.
“So I have to think about my son [from] that perspective. Not the social media piece, but the online gaming piece.”
Limit the digital footprint
In the early days of social media, everyone shared everything, Ma recalls.
These days, adults are more aware that nothing on the internet is truly private and posts can live forever. Kids need that awareness too, she said.
Lobb also advises sharing as little information as possible. This could mean limiting information in bios, not using real names or faces, disabling location sharing and not posting images or videos that can reveal a location with a simple reverse image search.
Safety trumps privacy
The Protect Kids Online site advises setting the expectation early on that parents will monitor device and social media use.
Lobb said she often tells parents online safety will always trump privacy.
“We encourage them to not let this idea of privacy interfere with the steps that you would take to make sure your child is safe online.”
Keep communication channels open
Lobb advises parents to watch for behaviours that are out of the ordinary for their children.
These could include becoming more secretive with devices, more isolated or having trouble sleeping. They may or may not mean something’s going on online, but they are signs to start asking questions, she said.
Most of all, she said, kids need to know their adults are there for them.
“They do get in over their heads and they’re not sure what to do. And so it’s so important that they know that they’re not going to get in trouble, that the adults around them are there to provide support.”
