The Digital Parenting Journey

Organised by local parents, with Rory Birkbeck, Safe Surfer NZ

One of the most challenging aspects of modern parenting is navigating our children’s use of technology and social media, especially as they begin to need devices for safety and educational purposes.

This event is designed to help parents understand online threats and risks, and consider our options with devices, technology and social media. The evening will cover digital safety with devices and how to put the right protections in place, and we’ll also explore the option of delaying children’s access to social media.

This event is targeted at parents with children who have recently started intermediate school—or will start in the next couple of years.

The evening will cover:
- Understanding online risks and the dangers of social media
- Planning for children getting devices and online access
- Establishing ownership, boundaries and expectations
- Safe Surfer—an easy way to provide the first safety barrier
- Building a community of like-minded parents who want to tackle this together
- Questions and discussion.

The idea behind this event
This idea started with a few Year Six parents talking about the challenges of phones and social media when our children graduate from primary school and head to secondary school at the end of this year. We found the recent Jonathan Haidt research into social media really resonated with us, and we wanted to explore helping our kids prepare against the potentially harmful impacts of phones and social media at a young age. We also want to make sure we understand the tech and the risks really well ourselves, so we can help protect our children.

As we continued this discussion, it’s been really heartening to realise that many parents want to talk about our options and discuss what we can collectively do to help our children. So, we decided to host an event for parents in the local area to hear and talk about social media, and more generally about tech safety as kids start to use devices more.

About Rory Birkbeck
Rory from Safe Surfer is a tech specialist who has been tackling these issues for years and has recently worked with Samsung to release the first “kid safe” phone. We reached out to Rory, and he is happy to visit and run us through the basics of social media and online tech safety, and then stay for some Q&A.

Who should come?
Anyone is welcome to attend, but the event is targeting at parents of children heading to intermediate or already in year 7 and tackling these issues. If you’re comfortable with your children using social media at a young age, this probably won’t be the event for you!

How much does it cost?
It’s a free event, with the option of a gold coin donation at the door to help cover Rory’s travel costs. Anything extra will go to the Matakana Primary PTA. Please register your attendance below.

And if you haven’t come across the Jonathan Haidt research yet, we strongly encourage you to check out one of the links below:

An introduction 30min interview: Search For: “ABC More addictive than heroin: Jonathan Haidt”

Or visit Jonathan Haidt website: anxiousgeneration.com

Want to know more and have time: 2hr podcast: Search for: “The TRUTH About Social Media & Your Children | Jonathan Haidt X Rich Roll Podcast”