Storytelling for a connected childhood
About this resource
This article invites parents, carers, and educators to use stories to engage children and build their understanding about online safety.
Age range for this resource
For parents, carers, and educators of children aged 3 to 8 years.
Goal of this resource
To foster children’s sense of wellbeing and online safety.
To provide children with strategies, habits, and behaviours for maintaining their own safety when using online environments.
To support children to identify and respond to potential online safety risks, such as interactions with strangers in online games.
How might educators use this resource?
Use this article to familiarise yourself with how stories, such as Jack Changes the Game, can create opportunities for co-learning between children and their adults. Next, introduce the topic of online safety by inviting children to share what they know about being online and how they use the internet in their daily lives. You could start with the following: Who do you know who uses the internet? What do people use the internet for? How do you use the internet at home? Share Jack Changes the Game with children in your classroom. Use the story to invite children’s experiences of playing online games and highlight the importance of seeking help from a trusted adult if they encounter interactions with strangers in online spaces.
How might families use this resource?
Read this article to learn about how stories help children and their adults learn together. Next follow the links to Jack Changes the Game. Read the story about Jack either to yourself or with your child. Think about how you and your child use the internet at home and what type of agreed upon strategies could help keep your child safe online.
How might organisations use this resource?
During Book Week, provide links to this article in your newsletter or communications with families and educators. Celebrate the importance of shared reading as an opportunity for children to discuss their own experiences with trusted adults.
What learning might we see?
Parents, carers, and educators using stories to engage children and build their understanding about online safety.
Children becoming familiar with online safety behaviours, habits, and strategies through stories.
Practices
Reading
Children and adults engage in shared reading of books and e-books about the internet and online safety.
Area
Citizenship
Citizenship in digital contexts recognises that young children are active participants in their communities now and into the future. As citizens, young children respect their own rights and those of other people, and develop an appreciation for cultural, racial, gender, and religious diversity. Digital rights, digital privacy, online safety, and cyber-safety education provide a foundation for early citizenship in digital contexts.
Connection to relevant standards
Belonging, Being, and Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia V2.0 (Australian Government Department of Education, 2022)
Outcome 1: Children have a strong sense of identity
Children develop their emerging autonomy, inter-dependence, resilience, and agency (e.g., Educators provide children with strategies to make informed choices about their actions, interactions, and behaviours).
Children develop knowledgeable, confident self-identities and a positive sense of self-worth (e.g., Educators support children to identify and assess risks in play and learning and to cope with the unexpected.)
Children learn to interact in relation to others with care, empathy, and respect (e.g., Children recognise safe and unsafe situations; Children identify trusted adults and friends; Educators support children to learn about and recognise safe and unsafe situations).
Outcome 2: Children are connected with and contribute to their world
Children develop a sense of connectedness to groups and communities and an understanding of their reciprocal rights and responsibilities as active and informed citizens (e.g., Educators provide opportunities for children to investigate ideas, complex concepts, and ethical issues that are relevant to their lives and their local communities).
Outcome 3: Children have a strong sense of wellbeing
Children become strong in their social, emotional, and mental wellbeing (e.g., Educators discuss and model appropriate use of digital technologies and discuss how to keep children safe online with children and families; Educators update their own learning of digital and cyber safety for children).
Children are aware of and develop strategies to support their own mental and physical health and personal safety (e.g., Educators learn about e-safety for children and embed and model safe digital practices).
Outcome 4: Children are confident and involved learners
Children develop a growth mindset and learning dispositions such as curiosity, cooperation, confidence, creativity, commitment, enthusiasm, persistence, imagination, and reflexivity (e.g., Educators build on the funds of knowledge, languages, and understandings that children bring to their early childhood setting).
Outcome 5: Children are effective communicators
Children engage with a range of texts and gain meaning from these texts (e.g., Children view and listen to printed, visual, and multimedia texts and respond with relevant gestures, actions, comments, and/or questions).
Children express ideas and make meaning using a range of media (e.g., Children view, listen and respond to simple printed, visual, and multimedia texts or music and express how it makes them feel).
Children use digital technologies and media to access information, investigate ideas, and represent their thinking (e.g., Educators teach children critical reflection skills and encourage them to evaluate the quality and trustworthiness of information sources; Educators have opportunities to develop their own knowledge and understanding of appropriate digital technology use and safety with children and families).
National Quality Standard (Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority, 2019)
Quality Area 1: Educational program and practice (e.g., Each child’s current knowledge, strengths, ideas, culture, abilities, and interests are the foundation of the program; Educators are deliberate, purposeful, and thoughtful in their decisions and actions; Educators respond to children’s ideas and play and extend children’s learning through open-ended questions, interactions, and feedback; Each child’s agency is promoted, enabling them to make choices and decisions that influence events and their world).
Quality Area 2: Children’s health and safety (e.g., Each child’s wellbeing and comfort is provided for, including appropriate opportunities to meet each child’s need for sleep, rest, and relaxation; At all times, reasonable precautions and adequate supervision ensure children are protected from harm and hazard).
Quality Area 3: Physical Environment (e.g., Resources, materials, and equipment allow for multiple uses, are sufficient in number, and enable every child to engage in play-based learning).
Quality Area 5: Relationships with children (e.g., Responsive and meaningful interactions build trusting relationships which engage and support each child to feel secure, confident, and included; The dignity and rights of every child are maintained; Children are supported to collaborate, learn from, and help each other).
National Principles for Child Safe Organisations (Australian Human Rights Commission, 2018)
Principle 1: Child safety and wellbeing is embedded in organisational leadership, governance, and culture.
Principle 2: Children and young people are informed about their rights, participate in decisions affecting them, and are taken seriously.
Principle 5: People working with children and young people are suitable and supported to reflect child safety and wellbeing values in practice.
Principle 7: Staff and volunteers are equipped with the knowledge, skills, and awareness to keep children and young people safe through ongoing education and training.
Principle 8: Physical and online environments promote safety and wellbeing while minimising the opportunity for children and young people to be harmed.
Explore More
If these ideas are new to you, explore these related resources:
Swoosh, Glide, and Rule Number 5
This picture book helps educators, parents, and carers to discuss online safety behaviours with children.
This website helps parents, carers, and educators teach young children how to stay safe online.
For more ideas, explore these related resources:
eSafety Mighty Heroes video series
These animated videos are designed to assist lower primary educators help children learn about online safety and build good habits when using technology.
eSafety Early Years Parent Resources
These articles and videos explore how parents and carers can support young children to have safe and enjoyable experiences online.
If you would like to read some research, explore these related resources:
Edwards, S., Nolan, A., Henderson, M., Mantilla, A., Plowman, L., & Skouteris, H. (2018). Young children’s everyday concepts of the internet: A platform for cyber‐safety education in the early years. British Journal of Educational Technology, 49(1), 45–55. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.12529
Quayyum, F., Cruzes, D. S., & Jaccheri, L. (2021). Cybersecurity awareness for children: A systematic literature review. International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction, 30, Article 100343. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijcci.2021.100343