Anxiety & Fear / Calming Children, Maggie Moments, Posts for Parents
Helping Your Kids Navigate Australia’s New Social Media Delay
In this month’s Maggie Moment, parenting author, educator and member of the Ctrl+Shft online safety coalition Maggie Dent talks about the upcoming social media age restrictions coming into effect in Australia from 10th December 2025.
A transition like this will inevitably be bumpy for many of our kids who are under 16 and on social media. Maggie reminds us why these restrictions exist and shares some suggestions for helping our tweens/teens to cope with this change more easily.
Maggie also points to some key resources parents can explore to support their kids through this transition, including:
- The Parents’ Guide to the Social Media Minimum Age Restrictions from the Ctrl+Shft coalition Maggie is a part of. Download here.
- The eSafety Commissioner has an excellent social media age restrictions hub that has resources for young people, parents, teachers and much more. Access that here.
- And Reachout has a very useful guide for parents and carers on understanding the restrictions and helping teens cope.
- The Raising Children Network also has some good information including:
- how to have conversations with your child and help them cope with the delay
- how to help them stay connected
- what to do if they’re not coping.
Click here for more.
Maggie has also written several blogs on this issue including:
‘Why we needed to do something about the digital crisis’
And ‘Why the digital tide is finally turning’
And her Ctrl+Shft colleague Kirra Pendergast wrote about ‘Why blaming parents helps no-one’
Watch the video here: