What is it about?
Youth online safety is a growing concern for parents, teachers, and policymakers. Many current approaches rely on punishment and don’t give young people space to learn from mistakes in a safe way. This paper introduces a new approach called Pause, Reflect, and Redirect (PRR). It’s grounded in what we know from child psychology, computer science, and human-centered design. PRR gives kids gentle guidance at three levels—from light reminders, to more structured support, to coaching during more serious moments. To test the idea, we evaluated a web-filtering tool with PRR built in and used it in a public middle school serving 6th-8th graders in an urban charter district. Early results suggest that PRR may help students make safer, more thoughtful choices about what they do online.
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Why is it important?
This paper matters because it offers a new, more supportive way to help young people stay safe online. Instead of relying on punishment or strict blocking—which often doesn’t teach kids anything—it shows how we can guide them to make better choices on their own. By focusing on learning rather than fear, the Pause, Reflect, and Redirect (PRR) approach gives kids room to grow, practice good judgment, and recover from mistakes in a safe environment. It also brings together ideas from psychology, technology, and design—fields that rarely work together on youth safety—and it provides early real-world evidence from a middle school that this approach can actually work. In short, the paper is important because it offers a practical, humane, and research-based alternative to keeping kids safe online—one that supports their development instead of limiting it.
Perspectives
This paper was important to us because we wanted to change the way the world thinks about youth online safety. Too often, young people are punished for normal mistakes instead of being taught how to navigate the digital world with confidence and care. As researchers, practitioners, and adults who work closely with youth, we saw a gap between what kids actually need and the tools adults give them. Developing the Pause, Reflect, and Redirect (PRR) framework allowed us to bring together insights from psychology, technology, and design to create something that respects young people’s growth, agency, and lived experiences. It also gave us the chance to test our ideas in a real school environment—not just in theory—to see whether a more compassionate and educational approach could make a difference. Ultimately, this work mattered to us because we believe that helping youth thrive online requires trust, guidance, and opportunities to learn—not fear or punishment. This paper represents our effort to build a safer, more supportive digital world for them.
Liz Sweigart
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Pause, Reflect, and Redirect: An Approach to Empowering Youth to Be Safer Online by Helping Them Make Better Decisions, Social Sciences, May 2025, MDPI AG,
DOI: 10.3390/socsci14050302.
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