10 Ways to Build a Digitally Resilient Kid

• Digital resilience combines resilience with media literacy
• Cognitive and emotional skills create assets that build resilience on and offline
• Every opportunity to learn and practice adds to a child’s resiliency “toolbox”
• Parents can play a big role in helping children build digital resilience

What is Digital Resilience?

Digital resilience is the ability to bounce back from challenges in an online world. Like resilience, digital resilience is a skill that builds each time you learn how to deal with, adapt to, and overcome challenges. Like learning to ride a bike, every event that lets you overcome an obstacle and maybe get a few skinned knees but still be OK is evidence of your strengths and skills and builds the self-confidence that fuels resilience.

Digital resilience is the confidence that you can cope with things that may go wrong online. It has three parts: 1) the knowledge about how to judge events and recognize risks online, 2), the self-confidence gained from experience and observing others, and 3) the practical and emotional skills that enable coping and self-regulation. Every opportunity to practice skills and learn strategies adds to a child’s resiliency “toolbox,” making them more confident and more capable of…