Clarification: This story has been updated to better describe Katie Davis’ title and perspective.
As the digital media landscape grows and changes—especially with the introduction of generative artificial intelligence—and students gain access to technology at increasingly younger ages, it’s vital to teach them how to use digital tools safely and appropriately, educators and experts say.
“Technology is growing each and every day,” said Nicole Sandrowicz, the school-based technology specialist at Bailey’s Elementary School for the Arts and Sciences in Falls Church, Va. “We are starting with our youngest learners to build these skills so that when they do get to using the technology a little bit more advanced, they already have a basis of how to be a good person using this technology.”
Sandrowicz spends one hour every week for the first month of the school year teaching K-2 students the basics of digital citizenship and then incorporates these skills throughout the academic year. This strategy has allowed students to adopt digital citizenship and literacy skills at an early age, she said.
Experts say elementary students need to be explicitly taught digital citizenship skills, like healthy media time limits, understanding that media can be human-made and generated by AI, and that not everyone or every piece of media online is safe to interact with.
According to a 2025 report by Common Sense Media, 40% of children have a tablet, and about 8% have a personal phone by the age of 2. Additionally, screen time for children ages 2 to 4 is an average of 2 hours and 8 minutes per day, the report showed.
At Bailey’s Elementary, educators make visuals, using material from Common Sense Media, to showcase how students can exhibit healthy screen time habits. For example, one graphic shows a student putting away an electronic device ahead of bedtime. Educators also talk to students about how there are websites and digital tools that show false information, which is why it’s important to pause and think about reliable sources, like a library or a trusted adult, said Jodie Safer, a STEAM teacher at Bailey’s Elementary.
Katie Davis, a professor in the Information School at the University of Washington and the co-director of the Center for Digital Youth, said digital citizenship for students in grades K-5 is more about modeling appropriate boundaries and habits with digital tools than letting them test out these tools on their own.
For example, educators can model “habits like limiting their time [on a digital platform] and recognizing when they’ve had too much or if a particular content is overstimulating,” said Davis.
How to teach students to be kind online
Safer said the school is focused on teaching its youngest learners how to be kind online. For example, if students notice people cyberbullying others, Safer and her team are showing students how they can stand up for that person, or inform a trusted adult to help resolve the situation.
Safer uses Common Sense Media’s digital citizenship curriculum—Arms, Legs, Guts, Feet, Heart, and Head—to create more digestible lessons for students in kindergarten, first, and second grade. According to the Common Sense Media website, each character covers a different lesson:
- Arms ask: “How do we balance our time with technology?”
- Heart asks: “What are ways you can be kind online?”
- Guts ask: “How do you stay safe online?”
- Feet ask: “What footprints are you leaving online?”
- Legs ask: “How do you stand up for people you care about?”
- Head asks: “How do you know something you see or hear is true?”
Bailey’s Elementary holds a Digital Citizenship Week each year using Common Sense Media’s characters. Each student may dress in the color of one of the body parts, which then correlates to a specific practice or habit. For example, on the day of Arms, students can wear green and practice healthy habits around tech. In this instance, ‘Arms’ can put away digital devices when screen time is up. Sandrowicz tells students, “we have to put the device away, just like arms do,” when students need to return computers to their designated location in the classroom.
The role of AI in digital citizenship
Young students should also be learning about AI in age-appropriate ways, said Davis.
“In the early years, it’s more about [how] not everything is generated by a human, and how can we detect that,” she said.
At Henry P. Clough School in Mendon, Mass., K-4 students are also learning digital citizenship skills. Principal Liz Garden brings in a representative from the school’s district attorney’s office every year to talk to students about cyberbullying. In more recent years, these conversations have expanded to cover AI, she said.
For example, students learn about AI-generated images and how to tell them apart from real ones. For kids to realize that not everything they see online is an “actual real thing” is really “eye-opening” for them, said Garden.
Garden said students are coming into preschool and kindergarten already being “online and exposed to different apps,” so schools can’t afford to wait to address these topics with them.
“When I was in the 2nd grade, my world was so small,” said Garden. “Now my own children and my students, their worlds are huge, and it can be a great thing, but it also can be an overwhelming and scary thing as well,” she said.
