Protecting Kids in a Digital World: What Every Parent and Educator Needs to Know

Kikori Intern
Jun 28
6 min read

In this episode of the Getting Real with Hilary Show , host Hillary Burns sits down with Margot Denomme — retired Crown Attorney (the Canadian equivalent of a District Attorney), author, and digital safety advocate. Having spent years in criminal court witnessing firsthand how social media and low self-esteem harm children, Margot retired from the Ministry of the Attorney General to dedicate herself full-time to raising awareness about digital dangers. She shares why the smartphone crisis is bigger than most parents realize, what tools families can use right now, and how social-emotional learning is one of the most powerful lines of defense we have.

"Predators will go where children are. We have to raise awareness that these things are happening — because our poor children are vulnerable, and the only way we can protect them is through education." — Margot Denomme, Retired Crown Attorney & Digital Safety Advocate

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uu9N3vksewU

Margot's Story: From the Courtroom to the Classroom 👩‍⚖️➡️🏫

Margot Denomme didn't set out to become a children's advocate. She set out to uphold the law. As a Crown Attorney — the Canadian equivalent of a District Attorney — she spent years in criminal court watching cases unfold that left her shaken in ways she couldn't ignore. Cyberbullying. Online death threats. Children exploited by predators who never had to leave their homes. Cases that started with a smartphone and ended in a courtroom. 😞

But it was what happened after her talks — when parents would quietly approach her, voices low — that changed everything. "My daughter's self-harming." "My son was targeted online." "We gave our nine-year-old a phone and we haven't seen her come out of her bedroom." Those whispered words became the turning point. Within a month of hearing them, Margot retired from the Ministry of the Attorney General. Not to rest — but to fight. 💪

On Internet Safety and protecting children:

"We are overprotective in the physical world and underprotecting our children online." —Margot Denomme

"We don't give our children a smartphone with social media access thinking that one day they might be arrested because of cyberbullying and online death threats. But that's the reality." —Margot Denomme

"It's like a concrete pour — you have to lay the right foundation. That's our child's self-esteem. We are laying the foundation from the time they're born." —Margot Denomme

The Hidden Crisis No One Is Talking About 📱⚠️

Margot is the first to say this didn't happen overnight. The harm that social media and smartphones are causing children is insidious — it crept in gradually, engineered by some of the most sophisticated technology companies in the world. Meta. Snapchat. TikTok. Their platforms were deliberately designed to be addictive, and because the damage built slowly over years, most families never saw it coming.

What does the crisis actually look like? Margot describes it as a perfect storm. A child is handed a phone with social media access. Nine times out of ten, they retreat to their bedroom. They become isolated from friends and real-world play. The algorithm — designed to keep them scrolling — starts feeding them content based on their searches. A child googling "healthy eating" can end up buried in disordered eating videos within days. Their self-worth takes a hit. Their confidence erodes. And into that vulnerability steps the predator. 😔

The statistics are staggering. Anxiety and depression among youth are at all-time highs. Sextortion — where predators pose as romantic interests to extract photos and then extort money — is now the fastest-growing crime globally. When police arrest online predators, they are finding Excel spreadsheets. Of children. Being actively groomed. This is not a scary story. This is a court case Margot has seen with her own eyes. 📊

The Four Norms That Can Change Everything 🔄✨

The good news? There is a roadmap. Margot points to researcher Jonathan Haidt's book The Anxious Generation and the four norms he says — if implemented together within communities — can reverse the youth mental health crisis within just two years. 🌱

Here's what those four norms look like in practice:

No smartphones until age 14. Not a flip phone with calling and texting — a smartphone with full internet access. The brain is still developing in profound ways during these years, and unlimited access to the world's content during this window causes measurable harm.
No social media until age 16. A smartphone alone is manageable. Social media is what opens the door to comparison culture, predatory algorithms, and contact with strangers. Delay here is one of the most protective decisions a family can make.
Phone-free schools. The movement is growing across Canada and the United States, and the results are already showing up in schools that have made the shift — more connection, less anxiety, better focus, and kids who actually talk to each other at lunch again. 🏫
A return to play-based childhood. We have become overprotective in the physical world — we won't let children walk to school alone — while being dangerously underprotective online. Real play, with real children, in real spaces, builds the confidence, resilience, and critical thinking that no algorithm ever could. 🌳

Self-Esteem Is Not a Soft Skill — It's a Safety Skill 🧱💛

What makes Margot's work so powerful is that she doesn't just talk about danger — she talks about protection. And the most powerful protection a child has isn't a parental control app. It's their own sense of self-worth.

Margot describes building a child's self-esteem like a concrete pour. Her daughter is a civil engineer, and the analogy came directly from watching her work. A concrete pour requires the right conditions, the right timing, the right foundation — before any weight can be placed on top. That's what we're doing from the time a child is born until the moment they enter the digital world. Every conversation, every experience of failure and recovery, every moment of genuine play and connection — that's the foundation being laid. 🏗️

A child with a strong foundation receives a message from a stranger saying "you're gorgeous" and has enough grounding to pause, question, and step back. A child who is isolated, algorithmically fed content that says they're not enough, who has spent the last year in their bedroom instead of playing with friends — that child is far more vulnerable to manipulation. Predators know this. They go where children are most open to being told they matter.

This is exactly why social-emotional learning and digital safety belong together. They are not separate conversations. 💞

The Family Smartphone Guide: A Driver's Handbook for the Digital Age 📘🚗

Margot co-authored the Family Smartphone Guide with Dr. Michelle Ponty, Chair of the Canadian Digital Task Force, and it's one of the most practical resources available for families navigating this moment. The design is intentional — it looks and reads like a driver's handbook, because the analogy is perfect. We don't hand a child the keys to a car at age eight. We teach them the rules of the road first. We build up to it. We do it together. 🔑

The guide walks parents and children through everything — cyberbullying, online predators, sextortion, TikTok challenges, fentanyl being sold on social media, AI scams, digital footprints, and more. It's not meant to create fear. It's meant to create knowledge. Because as Margot says, and has believed her entire career: when we know better, we do better. 📖

The MADD Moment for Our Generation 🚗🛑➡️📱🛑

Margot closes the conversation with a comparison that puts everything into perspective. Drinking and driving has been illegal for decades. But the culture around it didn't actually shift until Mothers Against Drunk Driving started showing up in schools — telling real stories, educating teenagers, making the consequences human and real. Today, a teenager would be genuinely embarrassed to get behind a wheel drunk. Not because of the law. Because of sustained, community-based education. 💪

That is the moment we are at right now with smartphones and social media. The harms are documented. The research is clear. And the opportunity — for schools, parents, educators, and organizations like Kikori — is to build the movement that changes the culture. Not through fear. Through knowledge. Through play. Through connection. Through showing up, as Margot has, one school at a time. 🌟

Why This Matters 💡

We are not talking about a future problem — we are talking about what is happening in children's bedrooms tonight. The youth mental health crisis is not a mystery. It tracks directly to the moment smartphones arrived in the hands of children under 14, and the consequences go far beyond screen time. Self-harm. Sextortion. Online predators operating at industrial scale. Families walking into criminal courtrooms completely blindsided. Margot has seen all of it firsthand — and she wants every parent and educator to know that none of it is inevitable. When children are given a strong foundation of self-worth, real-world connection, and the knowledge to recognize danger online, they are not powerless. They are equipped. That is the whole point. 💪

The conversation around digital safety can't wait. Whether you're a parent, teacher, or school administrator — you have a role to play.

🧠 Related Activities & Resources

✅ Explore Try Kikori's Digital Citizenship, Saftey and Wellness Curiculum — Kikori is partnering with Margot to develop digital literacy curriculum tied directly to the Family Smartphone Guide. Watch this space!

✅ Read The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt — a powerful, research-backed look at how we got here and what four concrete norms can change the trajectory within two years.

✅ Get The Family Smartphone Guide — available on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca in digital and hardcover. Visit www.radd.ca for updates and webinars.