How to teach your kids to communicate well in messages and social media
Nobody teaches kids the written conversation. They just get thrown into it. Here's where I've put in the most work with my daughter: which messages deserve a voice instead of text, the two questions to ask before anything is sent, and the deal that brings her to me when something feels off.
Conversations over text are hard. Tone of voice, eye contact and body language are gone. Silence can stretch out and breed an uncertainty it never does in person. The receiver reads with their own tone. Trends. Slang. Emojis. It's a lot, and at times genuinely hard to interpret what's coming in. I have two pieces of advice I've repeated to my kids more times than I can count:
- Hard things are handled in person, meaning no arguing or negative messages.
- Nothing gets sent without a yes to two questions: “Could you have said it face to face?” and “Could anyone have seen it?”
Hard things get said out loud
I've spent a lot of time teaching my daughter one thing about messages: if something is difficult, painful or important, it gets a conversation. Out loud, and preferably in the same room. Text is for the neutral and the nice: plans, jokes, hearts, “there in ten minutes”.
A message has no voice, no pauses, no face to show that something landed wrong. Everything that tells you “that was a joke” or “that hurt” in a conversation is stripped out, and the receiver fills the gaps with a tone of their own. A neutral message is rarely read neutrally. It's read with whatever feeling the receiver brought to it. Conflict, criticism and big feelings land far more safely when you can sit together and adjust as you go, guided by the other person's signals.
When the topic is truly difficult or raw, I've often role-played the conversation with my child first. It's a good way to walk in a little better prepared.
Psychology has a name for the opposite problem too. In 2004 the psychologist John Suler described how a screen lets us write things we'd never say with eye contact: we don't see the face of the person we're hurting, the reply doesn't come straight away, and it feels more like typing at a screen than talking to a human. He called it “online disinhibition”. So kids are writing in a channel where it's easier to wound and easier to be wounded, both at once. That's a channel you train for.
Which is why good digital communication starts with choosing the channel. Next time you move a difficult message of your own from the keyboard to a phone call, say so where your child can hear it: “This is too important for text, I'm calling instead.” With any luck, that's the lesson that surfaces the day they're sitting with an angry message under their thumb.
You're also guaranteed to spot bad tone and brewing conflict in the messages on your child's phone, from one side or the other. Deliver the same ground rule every time, in whatever wrapping fits the day: “If what you have to say isn't kind, talk to me first and we'll plan how to raise it in a proper conversation.”
Don't write anything you couldn't say face to face. Don't send anything you couldn't show to anyone.
The two questions before anything is sent
At our house, nothing gets sent without a yes to two questions.
- Could you have said it face to face, with the receiver right in front of you?
- Are you fine with anyone seeing it? Not just the person you're sending it to, but the teacher, grandma, the whole class group?
The second question needs unpacking, because most kids believe they're sending to one person. The truth is that anything sent can be passed on by the receiver, and that it happens where you least expect it. A confidential message stays confidential exactly as long as the friendship does. And screenshots exist in every app, including the ones where messages “disappear”. A message deleting itself in the app stops nobody from taking a screenshot first.
The point isn't to make kids afraid of writing. It's to make them sure of what can stand being written. The test takes two seconds once it's second nature, and it doesn't become second nature after one conversation. It has to be repeated, calmly and over time, until the questions ask themselves in the half-second before the thumb hits send.
Two questions before anything is sent: could you have said it face to face? Could anyone have seen it? If the answer is no to either, it isn't sent.
Open door, open mind and open arms
The third thing I repeat most often is a deal: if you're unsure about something you want to send, or something you've received feels bad, come to me and I promise to do nothing but my best to help. Two heads beat one when things go sideways.
Said plainly, with no lecture attached, the deal can be as simple as: “If you ever get a message that feels bad, or you're not sure how to write something to someone, you can always show me. Whatever it is, I promise to just help. Even if it's something you're embarrassed about, even if you or someone else wrote something properly awful, you'll never get told off or lose your phone for being open and honest with me.”
That deal is easy to say and, for the adult, sometimes hard to keep. If your child brings you a nasty message and your first move is telling them off, ringing another parent or confiscating the phone, the lesson they take away is that speaking up was a mistake. For the deal to work, the threshold for coming to you has to be zero: breathe, thank them for trusting you and look at it together.
When adults and the school should be brought in
Most of it your child can handle themselves, with you backing them up. But some things a child should never have to weigh alone, and they should know that before it happens:
- Someone making threats, or writing that they want to hurt themselves or others? Get an adult straight away. That's never a call for a child to make alone.
- Someone being systematically frozen out or harassed in class groups? Then the school is involved too. Schools have a legal duty to act when a pupil isn't safe, and bullying that happens digitally counts.
- Pictures spreading of someone who never wanted them shared? Speak up at home, and often to the police. The service Slettmeg.no helps get content taken down, free of charge.
- A stranger or an adult asking for pictures, for secrets, or to move the chat to another app? End the conversation and tell someone at home. Judging that is the police's job, never a child's.
And reassure your child that telling an adult isn't tattling, it's helping, and that together you'll find a smart way to handle it that doesn't leave them branded a “snitch” (or “telltale”, as we called it back in the day).
The pictures that never get sent
This is the rule with no grey areas, and like every rule it needs a proper explanation for the kids: pictures in underwear or without clothes are never sent. Not to a boyfriend or girlfriend, not to a best friend, not to anyone who promises to delete.
The reason comes in two parts. The first you'll recognise from the sending test. The moment a picture is sent, control over it is gone, and no promise, no “gone in ten seconds”, no crush changes that. The second is the law: pictures that sexualise anyone under 18 are, as a rule, illegal to take, keep and share, even between teenagers. And sharing pictures that violate someone's privacy is an offence in its own right. The Norwegian police run a whole campaign on this, «Delbart?» (roughly “Shareable?”), precisely because it goes wrong often enough to warrant one.
Just as important to say out loud to the kids: it happens anyway, and then the important thing is telling someone. Pressure and trickery are common, the shame runs deep, and that's exactly why the door at home has to stand wide open here of all places. A child pressured into sending pictures has had something done to them. They're not guilty of anything. And help exists: parents first, Slettmeg.no to get pictures removed, the police when someone has broken the law.
The dialogue with the kids
Below is the essence of what needs saying, which you can flesh out with detail to suit the age.
“Messages and pictures can be copied and spread onwards, including the ones that disappear on their own. That's why we have two questions before we send anything:
- Could you have said the same thing in person?
- Could anyone have seen it?
Hard things we say out loud, because in text they're easily misunderstood.
Pictures in underwear or without clothes we never send, no matter who asks, because nobody can control where a picture ends up.
And if you're unsure about something, or something you receive feels bad, you can always get my help, and you'll never get told off for being honest.”
My experience, and some advice
Teaming up with the kids has served me well. Teach them early that you're stronger together when a difficult exchange needs working through.
I'd also make a habit, from early on, of sitting down together to look through apps and conversations on their screens. Kids need to learn that the goal was never control or punishment. The goal is that they learn, and handle more and more on their own. Your job is to be a good guide. A teacher. A coach.
Try “Write a draft yourself first, then we'll look at it together” before you suggest anything. And if your child is in the grip of big feelings, my advice is always to wait until they've fully calmed down, maybe even slept on it, before anything gets sent.
Writing all your feelings out to yourself in the heat of the moment can still be useful. It's good therapy, and a good lesson in how over the top the first draft looks once you've collected yourself.
Help your child handle one nasty message themselves, and they stand stronger for the next one, when you might not be there to help.
The toolbox
Four tools to take home
Know a parent whose child has just got their first phone or first class group? Send them this.
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