A while ago, I came across a video from Barnardos Ireland, hosted at Google’s Dublin offices. It wasn’t breaking news, but it stayed with me. The session was about online safety – in particular, the world of gaming and how children experience it. The title was “Plugged In and Switched Off,” which, if I’m honest, felt a little too clever at first. But the conversations it held were anything but glib.
What unfolded over the 90 minutes was a slow, layered picture of digital life for kids today. It made me stop and think – not just about children, but about us adults, and what we model.
We’ve come so far, yet I’m not sure we’ve grown with the tech around us.
Watching and Listening
Barnardos has been running online safety workshops in schools across Ireland, with support from Google. The format is simple – go into schools, talk with kids (mainly aged 8 to 12), run workshops for parents in the evenings. In the past year alone, they’ve reached nearly 40,000 children. That’s no small thing.
But what struck me wasn’t the scale. It was how grounded the facilitators were. They listened to the children. They asked open-ended questions, and then stood back. And when the kids spoke, they paid attention – not just to what was said, but to what lay underneath.
What came up again and again was gaming. Not just as a pastime, but as a space – a world where friendship, competition, identity, frustration, and learning all blur together.
Games weren’t the problem. It was how unprepared we – the adults – often are for the world our children are already living in.
When the Game Doesn’t End
Cleaner Purdue, who helps design Barnardos’ training, shared how kids often speak about feeling stuck in games – unable to log off, trapped in endless loops of rewards and tension. Many know the games too well. Some are tired, even after playing for hours. Others feel quietly hurt by in-game bullying. Not just from strangers, but from friends who lash out or gloat.
A phrase came up that I hadn’t heard before: “rage quitting.” It's when a child gets so frustrated – maybe after losing, maybe after being taunted – that they just abandon the game in anger. Sometimes it’s visible: slamming doors, silence, tears. Sometimes it’s subtle – a child who once loved a game now avoids it altogether.
There was something deeply human about that. Haven’t we all, in some way, rage quit? A job, a conversation, a hope?
Building Something Together
I appreciated how the kids who spoke in the video – Beatrice and John – weren’t used as token voices. They were funny, smart, and honest. Beatrice spoke about building worlds in Minecraft, about the pain of “griefing” (when someone destroys your creation for fun). John talked about strategy, about winning and losing, and the tension of live games that you can’t just pause.
What I heard wasn’t just a description of games. It was a longing for fairness, recognition, belonging. They weren’t asking us to stop them gaming. They were asking us to notice what the games were giving them – and taking from them.
They want games with good rules. They want blocking features that work. They want moderators who care. And more than anything, they want us – parents, educators, adults – to understand the world they’re in.
Not to judge it from the outside.
What Are We Modelling?
Richard Hogan, a psychotherapist and father, spoke quietly but firmly. He talked about boundaries. About the danger of permissive parenting, where the child becomes the one in charge – and also about the danger of being too strict, too punishing. He called for balance. Not control for its own sake, but clear, consistent expectations.
One simple piece of advice stood out: no devices in the bedroom. It’s not about punishment, he said. It’s about rest. About safety. About drawing a line between public and private space.
As someone who’s worked in tech for years, I felt a jolt of recognition. How many of us – myself included – fall asleep with a screen nearby? How many of us model calm, intentional use of technology? Or even understand our own habits?
Maybe before we try to ‘fix’ our children, we need to look at ourselves.
Industry and Tools
The video didn’t stop at family life. There were voices from Google, from Roblox, from PEGI (the European game rating body), and from schools.
I appreciated that no one was pretending there’s a magic solution. Google shared their Be Internet Legends program, and a free game called Interland that teaches kids about online safety in playful ways. Roblox talked about filters, parental controls, and how they’re trying to give young users more tools to mute or block unwanted content.
PEGI, meanwhile, made a quiet point: most parents don’t use the age ratings. Not because they’re bad parents – but because they’re overwhelmed, unsure, or unaware.
A teacher from Ringsend Boys’ School described how gaming language is now everywhere – kids talk about “levels” in books, or act out scenes from Fortnite in the yard. He wasn’t panicking. He just wanted us to notice. To see how the culture of gaming shapes how kids think and play – even in spaces we once thought of as offline.
Starting the Conversation
At one point, a parent asked: “What if my child is tech-savvy? What if they know how to bypass every control I set?”
The answer wasn’t technical. It was relational. Controls can be bypassed. But trust, communication, and modelling – those are harder to fake.
And that’s where I think the heart of the message lies.
We don’t need to be experts in every app or game. But we do need to show up. We need to ask questions – not just about what kids are doing online, but how they feel while doing it. What they gain, what they fear, what they wish were different.
We need to play a game with them, even if badly. We need to admit when we don’t understand – and be willing to learn. Slowly. Together.
A Quiet Invitation
Watching this talk didn’t give me all the answers. But it reminded me why I care.
I’m a dad. I work in tech. I’ve made mistakes. I’ve given my kids too much freedom at times, and not enough at others. I’ve relied on controls when I should have built connection. I’ve worried, sometimes too late.
But I also believe it’s never too late to start again.
Not from panic. Not from guilt. But from love, and curiosity, and a shared desire to grow.
Technology is here to stay. But how we use it – and how we help our children use it – is still up to us.
That begins not with the right tools, but the right questions.
So here’s one:
When was the last time you asked a child what they enjoy about their game?
Not to control it. Just to understand.
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