A while ago, I was working with a 13-year-old who came to me and cried endlessly because of the toxic experience she had in her group chat. With deep anger and confusion, she explained that her sentiment in the group chat was taken out of context by her peers. Unfortunately, their response prompted her to also respond poorly. As you can imagine, this situation didn't end well for her. A small group chat with 5 people turned into those kids sharing those messages with others, and people talking about it behind her back. She went from feeling safe enough with her friends, to feeling anxious because all communication with her friends ended after those several threads of messages.
As adults, I'm sure all of us can relate to having good friendships turn sour when we were her age. Whether those experiences happened for you thirty years ago or ten years ago, there is no hurt like an adolescent friendship breakup. But in the last couple decades, there has been a significant shift in how society communicates. Twenty years ago, it was more common for people to communicate their feelings in person or at least over the phone. But with the rise of Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, and more recently TikTok, people are more comfortable communicating through social media platforms and message apps. Unfortunately, as someone who spent years working in elementary and middle schools as a wellness worker, children are being exposed to those platforms at drastically younger ages than one might think.
The world is changing, and it's changing quickly, so how do teachers, counsellors, and parents support children as they develop in an entirely new world that seems to be changing the rules every time we advance? In this blog, I'll be exploring this question with psychological insights from researched data, personal experiences working in schools, and practical tools you can apply with your children.
The development of children
Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget had an interesting theory that has revolutionized child development research. In his theory, he proposed that children have four distinct stages of learning and growing in the world, however, the most relevant ones for this blog are (Piaget & Inhelder, 1969):
- Concrete Operational Stage (7–11 years): Children start to think logically, but mostly about real, concrete situations in front of them.
- Formal Operational Stage (11+ years): This is the emergence of logical thinking and reasoning. They're starting to think more critically by deductive reasoning and think about hypothetical possibilities (Pakpahan & Saragih, 2022).
The formal operational stage is exactly what a group chat is demanding. Before sending a message, a child is imagining how it will be read by someone who can't see their face, or their tone, or what they meant. For a young child growing into adolescence, that ability is only starting to develop. The student I described earlier wasn't being careless. She was depending on a skill that is still under construction.
Many researchers have debated whether Piaget's theory might be lacking environmental and educational contexts. Pakpahan & Saragih (2022) stated, "Piaget's theory has shortcomings, including overestimating the ability of adolescence and underestimating infants' capacity." They suggest that children go through the same order of development, however, they explain that the development of children is subject to change based on cultural, social, and individual factors. As mentioned previously, I've spent many years working in schools with different ages, and I have seen how children do go through these stages, but the pace at which they reach those stages seems to be based on different circumstances.
Psychologist David Elkind built on Piaget's work and described something known as adolescent egocentrism (Elkind, 1967). One part of this is the imaginary audience: the belief that everyone is staring and critiquing you. He named it this, not because these feelings aren't real (they absolutely are), but the people that teens think are paying close attention to them usually aren't. However, in 2026, messages can be screenshotted, forwarded, and discussed by people who were never part of the discussion. It's devastating that a teen who already feels watched can suddenly be right about it. The other is known as the personal fable: the feeling that no one else understands what you're going through. Both of these are incredibly overwhelming feelings that can disrupt someone's self-esteem and their perception of others around them. Together, they help explain why that student went from feeling safe with her friends to feeling ridiculed.
Nonetheless, I'd argue that the digital world isn't all bad, and it can have real benefits for kids. A 2024 review that combined over 100 research reviews, covering more than 2,400 studies of nearly two million children and teens, found that social media use was linked to higher rates of depression, and that screen time was linked to lower literacy (Sanders et al., 2024). These effects were small, but the same review found something encouraging; when parents watched alongside their kids, the effects on literacy turned positive. In other words, how kids use technology, and how much parents stay involved, matters just as much as how much they use it. I've seen this several times working in schools. The student I spoke about is an example of many who have learned to express their feelings through a screen first, and it creates a whirlwind of negative feelings.
What's different about friendship online
This poses the question, why do kids feel so gravitated to expressing their feelings through message apps and social media before speaking to the person first? Well, confrontation in general can be challenging for many people. When I consider a young kid who is learning how to navigate the world with a fresh emergence of hormones and developmental changes taking charge in their life, I can see how it would be daunting to have face-to-face conversations. People start to find comfort in doing what seems easier, which is communicating online — it creates an invisibility cloak.
John Suler described this as an online disinhibition effect. There are two main forms of this: benign disinhibition, which explains how people share personal emotions, fears, and unusual acts of kindness to help them build closeness with others. There's also toxic disinhibition, which is when people use harsh language, criticism, cyberbullying; things people typically wouldn't do in the real world but feel an emergence of confidence because they feel protected by the invisibility cloak (Suler, 2004).
But what kids and some adults don't realize, is screens don't capture the emotional nuances that would be typically noticed in an in-person conversation — without that conversation, kids are expressing themselves online and on chats which can be dangerous territory.
How the six themes carry over
So now to the part where you're trying to figure out how you're supposed to support your child through it all. The good news is your child more often than not doesn't need a whole set of new rules for the online/group chat world. They need to remember and be supported through the tools that they've been learning from starting friendships. The six friendship skills that are discussed in my book, Side by Side: The Fruits of Friendship, are catered to elementary students, but the lessons behind the skills hold true even as they grow into teenagers and adults.
Boundaries: When we teach boundaries, we're often thinking of the context being in the real world. A child learns to walk away and advocate for themselves when another kid keeps pushing them on the playground. But in group chats and online, walking away looks like muting the chat, leaving the group, or not answering. Many kids don't realize they can do that, and that they have more power than they think. They feel like it's behind the screen, they have more power to say everything that's on their mind, and they often feel a need to keep up or they'll experience FOMO. Let your child know that stepping away is okay, and that a real friend will still be there tomorrow.
Respect: Kids know what it feels like to do something that is mean in front of someone's face. However, behind the screen, it's easier to forget there's a real person on the other end. With group chats taking precedence in a lot of friend groups, kids are gaining more comfortability speaking about other kids in separate group chats, often forgetting that this act is also mean behaviour. A simple rule helps: if you wouldn't say it to their face, don't type it. The same goes for sharing someone's photo or message without asking.
Patience: Have you ever watched your child stare at a screen, waiting for a reply? In this world, with the speed of how we ingest information, humans are becoming less able to wait for things. When it comes to group chats, when a message has been read and no answer comes, kids are assuming the worst. Patience online looks like giving kids time to respond and taking a breath before replying too quickly. Most problems could have been avoided if the message wasn't sent in the first place, and they waited to talk in person the next day.
Empathy: In person, kids can see the body language of others and change their tone or conversation based on that. In chats, the rules are different, and all those clues are gone. Empathy means stopping to imagine how the person reading the message will feel. To do this it requires patience. Patience to pay attention to who's left out, and noticing if the conversation could potentially be hurtful to someone else.
Communication: One word replies like "ok" can feel cold, when the friend meant nothing by it. I'm evidence of sometimes feeling worried that I did something wrong when people respond that way because I can't see the emotion behind their "ok." Text strips away tone, which makes misunderstandings easy. To help mitigate this, have open conversation with your child about finding clarifications to misunderstandings through calls or in person, instead of trying to sort things out in messages.
Forgiveness: Kids will say things online they regret. When a friend apologizes, explaining to your child that forgiveness means letting it go, and not saving a screenshot to bring it up later or gossip about it with others. It's easier said than done but reminding them of this skill will set them up for better friendships in their future.
Same skills, new room
Your child doesn’t need a new rulebook. They need help using the ones they already have.
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Boundaries
Why it’s harder onlineThey don’t realise they’re allowed to leave — and the fear of missing out keeps them in.
What you can say“Stepping away is okay. A real friend will still be there tomorrow.”
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Respect
Why it’s harder onlineBehind a screen it’s easy to forget there’s a real person reading.
What you can say“If you wouldn’t say it to their face, don’t type it.”
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Patience
Why it’s harder onlineA message gets read, no reply comes, and they assume the worst.
What you can say“Give it a day. Some things are better said in person.”
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Empathy
Why it’s harder onlineEvery clue they’d normally read — face, tone, timing — is gone.
What you can say“Before you send it, picture their face reading it.”
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Communication
Why it’s harder onlineText strips out tone, so “ok” can land as anger.
What you can say“If it felt off, call them. Don’t sort it out by text.”
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Forgiveness
Why it’s harder onlineNothing disappears. A saved screenshot keeps it alive.
What you can say“Letting it go means deleting it, not keeping it.”
Practical tips for parents
Using all these practical tools and helping your child apply them to group chats and online activity is easier said than done. Especially as kids get older and seek out more independence and freedom, it becomes harder to manage their phone usage. One of the ways to support them is to do daily reminders of the expectations of their phones. Don't assume that they know or remember the expectations but instead include it in daily conversation so that it's not shocking when things come up in those group chats. Also encourage them to come to you if they feel something is off, keeping open dialogue will be your greatest superpower. If they feel they can trust you, then they'll be more willing to share information about what they might be coming across.
Conclusion
I encourage you at any stage your child is in, to not beat yourself up for how you're choosing to support your child. Children make mistakes, and they might stumble, or they might be the ones on the receiving end struggling from the problems of group chats, know that if you're even here reading this blog, that's proof enough that you're doing a great thing. If you're noticing that your child could use additional coaching around phone use and/or are struggling with online bullying, please reach out to community supports for assistance. You don't have to do this alone.