Recent (2023) highlighted that children are accessing devices and going online for more time, and from a younger age. They found that 87% of 3–4-year-olds go online (an increase from previous years’ data), with 92% of children in this cohort watching videos on streaming sites such as YouTube. When children go online, they are most likely to be using a tablet (75%), but in this report, parents suggest that 25% of 3–4-year-olds own a mobile phone.
With children accessing online devices earlier, it should be unsurprising that children are now also being exposed to risks from a younger age. Risks such as struggles with emotional regulation, overstimulation, being overweight due to increases in sedentary activity, experiencing bullying, accessing inappropriate content and taking sexual images. With regards to the latter risk, a 2023 , found that the biggest increase in concern of children being coerced into taking sexual imagery of themselves, is within the 7–10-year-old group, where there had been a 360% increase of such concerns compared to the previous year’s data.
But children in the early years cannot go online without adults facilitating this. Therefore, it is imperative that if we allow children to access devices in our settings, and therefore potentially exposing them to such risks, we take responsibility for understanding this, and putting in place measures that protect children, and promote safe, healthy and fun online activity.
We want early years professionals to be informed and proactive about managing and curating children’s first experiences online, rather than leaving this up to others to do so, or even worse, to chance. But we recognise that navigating and understanding the various apps, games, sites and devices children use, can feel quite overwhelming and intimidating. So, LGfL are offering a workshop for professionals to discuss and learn about the basic principles that will help you to keep children safe when they are using devices in your setting, and also beyond.
- The National Grid for Learning is a charitable trust that is passionate about saving schools money, keeping children safe, tackling inequality, energising teaching and learning and promoting wellbeing. Its mission is the advancement of education. It does not profit from schools and reinvests any profits it makes into education.
This article was written by Alex Dave, safeguarding education officer at the London Grid for Learning Trust’s (LGfL) DigiSafe team.
We hosted a free webinar with LGfL on Screens in the Early Years on Wednesday 28 June 2023.
In the session, Alex Dave and Mark Bentley from LGfL charitable trust explore the steps early years professionals can take to protect children from potential risks and promote safe, healthy and fun online activity.
The full webinar is available to watch below.