Equipping kids to live well with social media

15 June 2026

The announcement from the Prime Minister of a proposed ban on social media for under 16s has been welcomed by some, but others have questions.

Whatever your view on the ban, social media is here to stay, and there’s lots we can do to help kids and teens engage with it positively. There’s a lot of practical advice parents and carers can access to educate themselves about social media in all its forms as well as give great practical advice on how to navigate all this with your children and we’ve put a list of ideas for this at the end of this post. In a recent podcast episode Anna and Jess discussed how to make a decision about what your family should watch, listen to or play, and introduced a four step tool to help you do that well.

But is there anything extra God might bring to this conversation? What about if we started by recognising that our core foundation as Christians is God’s love – his unconditional love for us and his desire that we share his love with others? How might this help us all negotiate the tricky world of social media well?

Here are three things that will help you coach your kids’ views of and use of social media.

God’s love for us

We all, our children and teens included, need to know that God’s love for us is unconditional, never-ending and so so generous.  We are made in his image and have intrinsic value and worth simply because we are his children and he loves us.  So when we engage with social media, he wants us to do it in a way that is good for us.

Some ideas for you to explore:

  • Frame your own use of social media: why you post what you do, how you decide which platforms to interact with and why, what prompted you to take a social media fast, how social media affects you. Discover more about framing in session 2 of the Parenting for Faith Original Course, or session 2 of the Parenting Teens for a Life of Faith course.
  • Ask questions and start conversations – why do you think people follow social media crazes?  Wow, what great fruit came from that social media campaign!  Hmmm, I’m not sure I’d like a picture of me like that to be posted online.  What do you think?   OK, this app has a 13 age restriction on it.  Why do you think that is?
  • Equip your children to think critically about what they see, read or hear.  Is it something God would want me to see / hear / feel / do?  Does this fit with what a loving parent would want for me?  Is this good for me?
  • Philippians 4:8 can be really helpful as a standard to hold things up to as we help work out whether to engage with something or not: Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

God’s love for others

God also wants us to partner with him in sharing his love with others.  Understanding this can help us think well about how we use and interact with social media.  It may also mean that sometimes we choose to stand out from the crowd, which may be difficult or costly.

Some ideas for you to explore:

  • Consider what loving our neighbour as we love ourselves looks like on social media.  Does what we do share God’s love?  If I post a comment, will it build someone up or knock them down?  Am I careful with what I ‘like’ or share?
  • Could you, as individuals or as a family, create ways to deliberately share God’s love via social media? For example, by supporting a campaign, by setting out to encourage others, by raising issues, by sharing posts that build up people or share God’s love and good news.
  • Equip your children and teens to be prepared to stand out in a tricky online world – where we are ‘in the world but not of it’ just as much as in our physical world.  Share stories from the Bible and of Christians who have lived in a ‘strange land’: Joseph in Potiphar’s house, Daniel in a Babylon, Paul and his struggles with the Corinthians, Corrie Ten Boom, Danielle Strickland, Jackie Pullinger, for example.  Wonder together what it was like for them, even though they knew God was with them.  Was it easy standing out from the crowd?  What helped them?

God’s love as a safe refuge

God’s love for us is a safe refuge when the world becomes hard.  For our children and teens, sometimes exposed to cruel comments online or constantly comparing themselves to others, God’s love is the place they can be reminded about who they really are – beloved and valued children of the King – and find the strength to face their bullies or their own fears and insecurities.

Some ideas for you to explore:

  • Help your children know how to find refuge in God when the world seems against them: share stories and passages from the Bible such as Elijah retreating into depression and meeting God in the quietness (1 Kings 19); Psalm 22; the story of Mordecai and the Jewish nation in the book of Esther; Psalm 37:1-7; Psalm 69; Jeremiah’s complaint after being put in the stocks (Jeremiah 20:1-13); Jesus at his trial and crucifixion.
  • Share stories about your own experiences of being embarrassed or humiliated.  How did you feel?  What did you do?  What was God doing?  What helped you get through it?
  • Help your child connect with God if they are struggling to chat to him themselves about what’s upset them – there are ideas about how to do this in the Session 7 of the Original Course.

 

Practical support and advice for parents and carers: 

 

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Acknowledgements

Photo by Luke Porter on Unsplash