Before the Next Crisis: What Every Parent Must Ask About School Safety, SEL, and Their Child’s Online World

I have the (dubious) privilege of being hosted by House of Wisdom (HOW) Club this week to talk about the triangle that many of us forget exists for our AI-native children: how social-emotional development, by default, intersects with online experiences and offline safety.

I say “dubious” because none of us should have to discuss how to avoid school shootings, like the one that happened a few weeks ago in Thailand. Having grown up on the south side of Chicago, I certainly did not expect my first talk related to this topic to be in, of all places, Bangkok.

But times evolve, and so do parenting and child development.

While there is no single, guaranteed silver bullet for avoiding tragedies like school shootings, there are certainly a definable constellation of conditions - digital, social, curricular, physical, cultural - that parents and schools must acknowledge and proactively address in order to minimise risk of harm to children growing up with access to powerful, influential tech devices and platforms.

The important thing here is that we all still have the chance to get digital wellbeing and safeguarding right for our kids. It just takes a proactive attitude and not waiting until it’s too late.

We mapped out this proactive digital wellbeing road in our Spotlight Report last November, “The Business Case for Digital Wellbeing”.

Download it for free and use it as a discussion starter (it includes worksheets) with your school board, trustees, or leadership team: because we don’t have wait for another digital-related tragedy - a deepfake scandal, a student suicide, a shooting - to have a reason to act.