Welsh Chartered psychologist shares top tips for discussing toxic online views with children

A Chartered psychologist from Wales who works with young people, as well as children in schools, has stressed the potentially damaging effects on children and young people of viewing 'toxic' or harmful information 'pushed' their way. She also highlights what adults, and society can do to support young people from a psychological perspective. 

The warning follows the popularity of the Netflix show Adolescence, where teenager Jamie is accused of murder after being negatively influenced by harmful content on social media. In addition, this week, former England manager Gareth Southgate has described of the risk of "callous toxic influencers" towards young men. 

Educational psychologist and Chartered member of the British Psychological Society Dr Abigail Wright said: 

"We all have a role in creating a society and conditions that are optimal for healthy child and brain development. Individually, we need to prioritise support that focuses on safe and trusting early child interactions, so that children can be guided by adults and environments around them to make sense of what's 'safe' or 'comfortable' and then be coached in individual ways to make sense of and support tricky 'unsafe' or 'uncomfortable' experiences. 

"A priority for adult supporters should be to understand behaviour from a regulatory and relational point of view to support the above. From infancy, we should be ensuring curiosity about where a 'behaviour' may be coming from; this usually gives us important insight into how a child is experiencing something and we need to problem solve through it. Children's 'behaviour' can often be traced back to a 'protective' response in some kind e.g. it's helping protect them from an unsafe/uncomfortable emotion/feeling."

How can teachers and parents support children who view this content online? The British Psychological Society recommends: 

• Parents and carers and teachers need to be aware of the emotional impact on young people of comments addressing group culture that might see perpetrators of these as 'funny' or 'strong.'
• Foster a blame free culture – explore and debate a child's curiosity and compassion with safe boundaries. This helps to see and understand different perspectives and provides the space to learn. Without this, children and young people can be at risk of feeling shamed with negative psychological aspects often stemming from this.
• Encourage debate about the impact of belittling, degrading or sexualising others and about vulnerability as a strength.
• Creating and focusing on places where children can get their needs met in a positive way and helps improve their problem-solving skills. Rather than focusing on things about what could go wrong, what can we do that is positive instead?
• Helping young people from an early age to confidently engage in debates, discussing comfortable issues in first instance, rather than be silent. Once established, you can then discuss how peer pressure works and what fears people have about opposing a group view as well as how they can stand up for themselves.
• Encouraging schools to provide welcoming environments to all children, as well as targeted support for those most at risk of being drawn to influencers.

How can young people keep themselves safe from this content online? The British Psychological Society recommends:

• Notice how information that's pushed at you affects you. Make a note of it and acknowledge the negative impact it might be having.
• Increase your awareness of how to be more careful online. Check what you click on, positive over negative, non-sensational over sensational, for example.
• Share information about things that impact on how we view and social media content. This could involve sharing how algorithms function, using security settings to limit the type of things we see and be mindful of time spent on certain apps.  
• Have some self-care strategies. For example, click on some positive content to encourage algorithms to push more positive information your way, have a break, speak to someone who can support you.

Dr Wright added: 

"There are huge complexities related to why children young people may be influenced. It's not simply just about influencers themselves, but a complicated context of different layers that can impact on their experiences – for instance, our culture/context hugely impacts on our perception and expectations of how we should communicate and what we feel are appropriate relationships.

"The ideas that are accumulated and created through society around children, impact on how they view and perceive interactions and relationships. What they are watching and observing can form an 'internal map' in the way they view the world and what to expect from it. In turn, our responses further shape our future behaviour e.g. through modelling what may be helpful in certain situations. This starts as infants for individuals but is influenced by the environment which they are in and generations before."