Ask Better Questions, Click With Care
Raising Digitally Fluent Kids: Ages 7–9
At this stage, your child is no longer just absorbing content—they’re choosing it.
They can navigate menus. They ask for specific YouTubers, games, or apps. They’re learning to Google things. And they’re seeing, consciously or not, how other kids use tech.
This is your window to shift them from tech user to tech questioner.
You don’t need to lock everything down (though smart boundaries help). You need to give them the tools to recognize what’s trying to influence them, and the confidence to ask better questions when it does.
What to Teach (Ages 7–9)
1. Not everything online is true or meant for you.
At this age, your child is trusting. That’s not a flaw, it’s a feature of brain development. But it makes them easy to influence. Ads, algorithms, and user-generated content are designed to exploit that.
Teach them to pause and ask:
Who made this?
What do they want from me?
Does this feel right to me—or just popular?
2. Early privacy is emotional, not just technical.
Kids this age don’t always understand what “personal information” is. Help them recognize that names, locations, schools, family routines, and faces are all things to protect, not post freely or hand over.
3. “Likes” are not value.
This is when peer comparison kicks in who has what device, who follows who, who’s “famous” on Roblox or YouTube. Anchor your child’s self-worth offline. Reinforce: being watched is not the same as being valued.
Action Steps You Can Take
1. Audit their apps and games together.
Sit down with your child and go through what they’re using. Ask:
What do you like about this?
What are the rules in this game?
Do you ever see ads or chat features?
You’ll learn a lot just by asking, and they’ll learn to think more critically about their own habits.
2. Practice “source-checking” out loud.
If they Google something (or you do), model the process:
“Let’s look at where this came from.”
“Is this trying to sell us something?”
“Who do you think made this video?”
3. Create a family “click filter.”
Make a shared list of questions to ask before clicking or downloading anything. (Write it. Post it. Use it.) Example:
Is this made for kids my age?
Do I know what it’s going to do?
Is this asking for my info or my money?
4. Praise curiosity, not clicks.
When they stop and ask you about something sketchy or confusing online, celebrate it. “Great catch. That’s exactly the kind of question I want you asking.”
Tools & Resources That Help
Cyber Civics (Home Edition): Structured lessons for digital citizenship at home or in classrooms.
Commonsense.org’s “Digital Citizenship” lessons: Excellent, age-specific breakdowns on media, privacy, and empathy.
Google’s Be Internet Awesome (with caveats): Great starting point for interactive digital literacy lessons.
CyberSafe: Online Safety and Security, Ages 8-12: Free Online course teaching digital safety
What You’re Really Teaching
In this phase, you’re teaching your child:
To look beneath the surface of what they see
To protect their attention as much as their information
That their click is powerful and so is their pause
You're also signaling that they can come to you with questions not just after something goes wrong, but before they decide what to do.
That trust is what makes the next stage (tweens and early teens) manageable instead of reactive.
Next week we’ll get into ages 10–12: the first usernames, social handles, online identities, and digital “performances.” We’ll talk about what’s real, what’s curated, and how to build emotional intelligence online.
Until then, ask better questions. Narrate your clicks. And remind your child that curiosity is a superpower.
⚠️ A Note on Google’s Be Internet Awesome
You’ll notice I included Be Internet Awesome as a resource in this week’s post. And it is, especially for parents or educators just starting to introduce digital citizenship to kids. The curriculum is accessible, interactive, and backed by research-informed principles.
That said, I want to offer a clear-eyed caveat.
I used to work at Google. I know firsthand that many of the people behind these tools are thoughtful, well-intentioned, and deeply committed to building products that serve the public good. Google has traditionally been one of the more responsible actors in the tech space, and Be Internet Awesome reflects that care.
But Google is also a company with a financial interest in capturing attention, including from your children.
Its moral interest in raising responsible digital citizens exists alongside, not above, its business interest in creating loyal, high-engagement users.
So while the content is helpful, it also reinforces Google as a trusted authority without critically examining:
how Google itself collects and monetizes data,
what it teaches kids about privacy (and what it omits), and
the systems-level dynamics that shape their digital environment.
Use it but don’t stop there.
Pair it with open conversations about who made a tool, what they gain from your attention, and why your child’s curiosity should always be a step ahead of any interface.
If we’re going to raise kids who can think critically online, that means even (especially) about the platforms providing the tools.