Digital Childhood Script Series
"I saw something online I can't stop thinking about."
What to say
Start here
"I'm really glad you told me. You're not in trouble, and you didn't do anything wrong by seeing it, because that's not how it works on there."
Take the weight off them
"You don't have to describe it to me if you don't want to. That app puts things in front of people who never asked for them, so it turning up in your feed says nothing about you, and it stuck with you because you're a person who feels things."
Give it somewhere to go
"Things like that fade faster when they're not sitting in your head alone. So tonight we're going to do something else with our hands, and if it comes back tomorrow you come and find me again."
What not to say
"What did you search for?" Even asked gently it sounds like an investigation, and most of the time nothing was searched for at all, because it arrived in a feed nobody asked.
Why this matters
What a kid needs first here is to not be in trouble, and second to not be alone with the picture. A feed hands out things nobody searched for, so a kid who assumes they caused it will hide the next one from you. If what they describe suggests real harm, or it will not shift after a few days, that is a conversation for your pediatrician or a therapist rather than a script.
Follow-up questions
- "Do you want to tell me any of it, or would you rather not?"
- "Was it in a feed, or did somebody send it to you?"
- "What would help right now, being busy or being quiet?"