Why we need engaging children’s books to help kids navigate the online world – and counter harmful attitudes offline…
The digital revolution/mobile phone has put many perennial problems of growing up on steroids – while creating others which are entirely new. The online world is a poorly regulated space filled with manipulated images and extreme behaviours, designed to catch the attention. It can incite violence and/or be highly sexualised, and often reinforces harmful stereotypes for both genders.
Many of the problems – sexual harassment, sharing nudes, porn – are topics which adults are understandably reluctant to raise with children, but this is leaving our kids unprotected when they most need help. Girls are obviously at risk – but boys need support too. A boy growing-up trying to embody abusive, unattainable ‘alpha/sigma masculinity’ is also a victim, and educating kids to hold their own values – and critically evaluate material online – protects everyone.
Children and young people have told us they need help before being given a mobile phone (or ‘digitally coming of age’) and that we should not ‘let taboos build’, but parents/carers face the dual problems of comprehending the technology and overcoming their own inhibitions – and starting this particular conversation is very hard, especially for those who aren’t natural communicators. Charities and the Children’s Commissioner offer advice, but stories are one of the oldest and best methods we have of starting dialogues and sharing life lessons, and writers (and publishers) also need to grasp the nettle.
https://www.nspcc.org.uk/keeping-children-safe/online-safety/
About me...
A compulsive reader and writer, I work as buyer for a specialist children’s bookseller while writing my own material.
I’m concerned that children’s literature is failing young people (and their parents) by NOT ‘talking early’ – and many of the risks of the digital world are ‘taboo’, particularly at what young people say is the critical time – immediately before kids become mobile phone owners
I want to create books which are not just helpful and age appropriate, but warm, human and even… funny (like a younger, more woke Adrian Mole, navigating life online). I’m not a digital child, but I did experience – and accepted as ‘normal’ – low level sexual harassment (from age 11 up) and I feel this needs to change – that girls should not have to ‘teach boys’ about limits – and boys should be offered different and better role models.
Although, at 15, a teacher described my humanities project as ‘a feminist critique‘, I’d now describe myself as believing in a ‘gender neutral world’, where women can have strengths, and men can have vulnerabilities, and we’re all equally human.
Summary of approach
Series uses a ‘soap-opera’-structure, following a large cast through interlinked stories of 21st Century life (both on and offline)
Woven into the texts are a range of throw-away comments, small insights, and larger incidents, raising awareness of many online safety issues.
Characters include positive role models, and a general push back against harmful, dehumanising stereotypes, particularly around gender, which are promoted online.
Tone is supportive and non-judgemental
Material is consistent with Barnardo’s, the Children’s Commissioner’s and the NSPCC’s advice
Stories are narrated in a ‘modern epistolary format’, keeping the reader’s experience ‘second hand’, avoiding explicit/distressing detail while also creating books with real appeal.
words/concepts like sexual harassment, intimate images and pornography are mentioned, but kept at a level suitable for children who’ve done relationship and sex education in Primary (or slightly younger if parents want to use books as a ‘conversation starter’).
Books/cover can be designed to look like a smartphone for maximum child appeal (curved die cut corners are an option)
A 21st Century Digital Coming of Age Trilogy
Transiting from Primary to Secondary school was always a BIG change, but today, with a smartphone included, it’s the beginning of a new ‘21st Century Digital Coming of Age’… then, a year later, kids are legally able to use ‘Social Media’ – and all our digital world (good and bad) is open to them. Young people are telling us (emphatically) that we need to prepare children for this time in advance…
‘When Your Smartphone Doesn’t Know The Answer’ is the first in a series of three books following a group of kids through this momentous period. Told in ‘modern epistolary form’, as texts, mobile blogs and documents (think a younger, more ‘woke’, 21st century ‘Adrian Mole’) and described by one agent as “addictively readable”, the books take a wry and warm-hearted look at growing up in the 21st Century.
Beginning with one child, acquiring her first mobile (now almost a rite of passage) the books use a ‘soap-opera’-structure, expanding to follow a large cast through interlinked stories of contemporary life… frenemies and football, vegetarians and vintage clothes, nose-studs and the Climate Crisis… but woven into the stories are a range of comments, small insights, and bigger incidents, raising awareness of online safety, including subjects such as sexual harassment, the risks of sharing intimate images, and the allure of inappropriate content. These issues are treated in an age-appropriate way, suitable for kids who’ve done RSE in Primary School, and could potentially also be read by slightly younger children if parents want to use them as a ‘conversation starter’. The books focus on the characters’ reactions with no explicit detail – while actively creating that all important, non-judgmental space for discussion – empowering kids to talk – and get help – when things go wrong, and even your smartphone doesn’t know the answer.
Quick Overview Synopses
Shows how characters mature/grow, and relationships develop through books, allowing more difficult or complex topics to be raised later in series
Book 1: When Your Smartphone Doesn’t Know The Answer
Introduces all the characters but principally focuses on one child, Siobhan, and her loving-if-split family – including her strong, positive relationship with her Mum, (who talks to her ‘properly’ and ‘like an adult’) and her Mum’s new partner, Joss, an actor who (unlike Siobhan’s Dad) can talk about feelings (and even sing!) without being a bit drunk. Siobhan is starting Secondary school, a transition which often exposes dubious ‘friendships’ and when Siobhan’s relationship with Darcie, her best-frenemy, breaks down, the resulting bullying/social isolation, in the much more adult world of Secondary, exposes Siobhan to mild sexual harassment (the detail of this is accurate, and drawn from lived experience). Fortunately Joss, who is on tour, and has been keeping in electronic touch with Siobhan, persuades her to confide in him – sharing in return his own experiences as a mixed-race child, and strengthening their relationship. Action is taken, and from this point Siobhan’s life improves greatly, as she forms a new friendship with Yasmin, a Muslim refugee girl, and gains an understanding of her own worth. The book illustrates sexual-harassment, and emphasises that ’No means No’, but on a child-sized, none-frightening scale, and Joss provides a male role model who is both strong and sensitive, actively countering the extreme misogynistic attitudes online.
Book 2: Do Yetis Have A Digital Footprint?
Now in Year 8, Siobhan is nearly (but not quite) old enough to use social media – and her family are preparing for an (unplanned) baby – so she has plenty to think about without finding herself made into a courier for her classmate, Zachary Hughes, who is confined to his home following an accident! But, while delivering schoolwork, Siobhan is surprised to discover Zachary’s highly competitive, outwardly abrasive, exterior is a result of various pressures, including the idea that boys should ‘suck up’ bad feelings. As an unexpected friendship develops, the pair chat about various topics, including Zachary’s first encounters with social media, and Siobhan’s anxieties about the coming baby – and a classmate who might be putting herself at risk by sharing intimate images. The book contrasts positive uses of social media (such as the campaign to free the journalist father of Siobhan’s new best-friend, Yasmin al Farsi) with negative effects referenced elsewhere, and also makes kids aware of the pressures, motivations and dangers associated with sharing intimate images. The book ends with the birth of Siobhan’s new baby sister, Molly, and the release of Yasmin’s father.
Book 3: Black Holes In Cyberspace
Siobhan is in Year 9, her baby sister Molly is nearly a year old, and together with Zachary Hughes, she’s just been elected to the School Council. When Zachary has an unpleasant encounter with internet porn, he is able to confide in Siobhan, and this results in a School Council campaign against online nasties – causing trouble both with disapproving parents and misogynistic trolls! As their shared difficulties draw Siobhan and Zachary closer together, his feelings begin to change and deepen, gently illustrating the concept of a ‘real’ (warm/affectionate) relationship, versus the hardcore material online. The book uses the word porn, but focuses on Zachary’s reaction, giving no explicit detail. It actively discourages kids from accessing inappropriate content, while providing a judgement free space for those who may already have done so to talk about their experiences. Light relief is provided by Meg (Siobhan’s close younger friend). Meg has just moved away – and initially lonely, fills her time with football practice – eventually improving her skills sufficiently to lead to suggestions of football as a career – giving Meg an entirely new value for herself.