Conversations & Content

Here at CYP First we always remind ourselves and our delegates to keep one foot in reality. Yes, it is fare to say that there has been a lot in the media recently about the use of emojis and their hidden meaning, and we have been educating about the emoji codes for some time now, but please remember that seeing one “red pill” may not necessarily mean that your child is part of the manosphere or classed as an incel.

It is of huge importance though as professionals that we equip ourselves with the ever changing landscape of internet life due to the fact our digital communication is constantly evolving. Social media platforms have different rules for some words, so to navigate that, emojis our now used instead of words.

Electronic communication is constantly changing and it can be difficult for parents and carers to keep up, but we would suggest educating about Critical Thinking and question what they see online. Talk about trust, fake news, scams and how what children will be seeing on their feed, will be vastly different to ours.

A healthy dialogue is the best Safeguarding defense you can have with your children. Open conversations, facilitated discussions, and a healthy interchange between online life and real world.

How is the person known to them? Why is this person messaging? Is there any pressure in the message? Talk about grooming and how people manage to gain their trust utilising their personal information.

It is important also to educate children in how we expect them to behave online. It is no different to educating them in how we expect them to behave if we went for a meal or to the shops etc. The biggest lesson as adults is if we don’t educate our children, then someone else will, and that will be the internet.