When we talk about keeping children safe online, we often talk as if the responsibility sits mainly with them. They should log off. They should show restraint. They should manage what some of the most sophisticated behavioural technology ever created is designed to do: keep them scrolling.

That’s a lot to ask of a developing brain.

And what do they see us doing, as our children are watching us. I once asked a group of teenagers what they thought adults struggled with online. One girl said instantly, “You can’t stop checking your phones either.” She wasn’t being rude - she was just being honest.

So part of creating a safer digital world starts with us. Not perfectly, not performatively, but visibly. Letting our children see us put our phones down at mealtimes. Letting them hear us say, “I think I’ve had enough online for today.” Letting them see that managing technology is something we are learning too, not something we expect them to magically master on their own.

But this is important - safer internet use is not just a parenting issue. It’s a design issue. Platforms are built to capture attention, not protect wellbeing, and meaningful safety will only come when governments, regulators and tech companies are required to design differently. Real change happens when there is accountability, not just advice.

In the meantime, we do what humans have always done in uncertain environments - we stay close to each other. Parents talk to parents. Schools talk to families. Communities agree shared approaches. Conversations stay open. Because a safer internet isn’t created by a single rule or a single app setting. It’s created through thousands of small, everyday interactions where adults and young people learn, together, how to live well in a digital world.

And if we want our children to build healthier digital instincts, the most powerful place to begin is not with them - it’s with us.

Thank you for pausing with me. Take care.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kimmccabe.substack.com/subscribe

Screen time isn’t the real question - and it never has been.

A few years ago I was watching a group of girls at break time. Not running. Not laughing. Not inventing games the way we used to. They were standing in little clusters, heads down, each in a world of their own, scrolling.

Later I asked some girls in one of my groups if that was familiar. They said yes - and one of them shrugged and said, “Well, it’s just what we do. If everyone else is on their phones, you kind of have to be too.”

The issue isn’t simply how many minutes our children spend online. It’s what happens to them while they’re there - and how they feel when they come out again.

Digital spaces can be like bright, noisy shopping centres where everything is shouting for your attention: look at me, compare yourself to me, react to me. Spend long enough there and your nervous system starts to feel wired or unsettled, even if nothing obviously bad has happened. And many young people don’t yet realise that the shift they feel in their body is connected to what they’ve just been watching.

That’s why I think the conversation needs to move beyond “How long have you been on your phone?” and towards something much more powerful: helping our children notice how different online spaces make them feel. Calm or wired? Connected or lonely? Curious or anxious? When they learn to pay attention to that, something changes. They begin to make different choices, not because we’ve policed them, but because they understand themselves better.

In our Girls Journeying Together groups, we leave phones at the door so girls can practise being fully present with each other. And what’s beautiful is witnessing their lively conversation, laughter, eye contact, real connection. They experience something that technology can’t give them.

We can’t monitor everything our children do online. None of us can. But we can help them grow the inner awareness that allows them to navigate digital spaces with their eyes open. Not just rule-followers - but young people who understand their own minds and nervous systems well enough to choose what truly supports them.

That’s the digital resilience that we all need.

Thank you for pausing with me. Take care.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kimmccabe.substack.com/subscribe

We spend years teaching our children how to cross the road safely. Hold my hand. Look both ways. Stay alert. Don’t assume the traffic will behave.

But when it comes to the internet - a place far more persuasive, complex and psychologically powerful than any road - we often hand them a phone and simply hope for the best.

A parent once told me, “I trust my daughter online.” And I understood what she meant. She trusted her daughter’s intentions, her kindness, her judgement. But the real problem isn’t our children. The problem is the environment they are entering. Digital spaces have been designed by some of the smartest behavioural scientists in the world to keep us scrolling, clicking, reacting and staying - not resting, not thinking, not stepping away.

One girl in my group told me she stayed up all night watching short videos. Not because she wanted to, but because she “couldn’t find the end.” That has stayed with me: she couldn’t find the end. And honestly, many of us adults know that feeling too.

So yes, we need conversations about helping children use technology wisely. But we also need to be honest that safety cannot rest only on children learning better habits or parents setting tighter rules. Just as roads are made safer through laws, design and accountability, our digital spaces also need regulation, responsibility and financial incentives for companies to design for wellbeing, not just engagement.

In the meantime, our role as adults is not to become tech police. It is to walk alongside our children as they learn to develop what I call digital instincts - the ability to notice when something online is pulling on their attention, when comparison begins to hurt, or when they stop feeling like themselves. Those instincts grow through open, curious conversations, not lectures.

When children know they can talk to us about what they are seeing - even the things they wish they hadn’t seen - they don’t have to navigate the digital world alone. And that might be one of the most protective things we can offer.

If this is a conversation you want to think about more deeply, I’ve written an article on the Rites for Girls blog exploring it further.

Thank you for pausing with me. Take care.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kimmccabe.substack.com/subscribe

Your child is so often anxious, and you’ve tried so many different ways to help, but they’re still so anxious so much of the time and you’re wondering if any of this is actually working.

That moment when you think, honestly, is anything changing at all? Because from the outside it can look like we’re stuck. Still anxious. Still avoiding. Still frozen.

In this Parent Pause I talk about how progress for anxious children doesn’t look like confidence. It looks like tiny, almost invisible steps. Standing a bit closer. Thinking about the scary thing without spiralling. Lasting 30 seconds longer than last time.

Anxiety tells children that everything is dangerous. So every small moment where they feel scared and still survive quietly rewires something inside them. That’s how resilience grows - not through being forced to be brave, but through letting fear be there and still choosing something small.

If you’re feeling worn down, doubting yourself, or wondering whether your child is ever going to be okay, I hope this one eases things for you.

Thank you for pausing with me. Take care.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kimmccabe.substack.com/subscribe

Your child is anxious… and suddenly you are too.

When we love an anxious child, their worry doesn’t stay neatly in their body - it moves straight into ours. We start scanning, planning, catastrophising, lying awake at night listening to their breathing and imagining everything that might go wrong. And before we know it, their anxiety is running our nervous system too.

In this Parent Pause I talk about the night I realised I’d caught my child’s anxiety. How quietly terrifying that felt. And also how important it was. Because if we don’t notice that what we’re feeling is ours, we start trying to fix our children so that we can feel better. And that’s a heavy, unfair burden for them to carry.

This audio is about learning to gently separate what belongs to us from what belongs to them. About finding our own feet again so we can offer something steadier to lean on. Not perfect calm. Just a grounded, human parent who keeps coming back to themselves.

Because when we look after our own nervous system, our children get to borrow it. And that changes everything.

Thank you for pausing with me. Take care.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kimmccabe.substack.com/subscribe

Your child walks into the room and the anxiety gets there first.

You know that moment when nothing has been said, but your shoulders tense and the air changes. Anxiety lives in bodies. In theirs, and then suddenly in ours too.

This pause is about remembering that when a child is anxious, our job isn’t to make the fear disappear. It’s to offer our steady nervous system alongside their unsteady one. To be the calm place their body can lean into, even when there are no words.

Sometimes that quiet company is exactly what anxiety never expects - and exactly what helps it to ease.

Thank you for pausing with me. Take care.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kimmccabe.substack.com/subscribe

What if you don’t bounce back from a wobble - but instead you wobble back?

That’s what I’m thinking about in this Parent Pause. The idea that resilience isn’t about snapping back to who you were before as quickly and invisibly as possible. It’s about becoming someone slightly different because of what you’ve been through. Softer, braver, more honest about your limits.

In this audio I talk about not having any great plan to fix ourselves. No analysing, no trying to get better. Just putting one foot in front of the other. And somewhere along the way my shoulders dropped, my breath slowed, and something inside me quietly shifted. That’s how it often works. Not through effort, but through tiny acts of care, through being in our bodies, through letting time and space do their work.

I also reflect on how important it is that our children see this. That when we wobble, we don’t disappear or fall apart in ways that scare them. We show them that it’s possible to take responsibility for finding our way back - with a walk, a cup of tea, a cry, a friend, a moment of rest.

This isn’t about rushing yourself into being fine. It’s about listening for what helps you feel a little more like you again. Because real resilience is not loud or impressive. It’s gentle. It’s you slowly coming home to yourself.

Thank you for pausing with me. Take care.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kimmccabe.substack.com/subscribe

Have you ever had a day that looks absolutely fine on the outside - emails answered, kids delivered, washing on - and then one tiny thing tips you over and you’re suddenly on the floor wondering how you got there?

That’s what this Parent Pause is about. Those quiet wobbles that stack up without us noticing, until something small makes us collapse in a way that feels totally out of proportion. Not because we’re weak - but because we’ve been carrying too much for too long.

I talk about what happens when our children see us wobble - not in a scary way, not with oversharing - but in a human way. How naming that we’re overwhelmed, and reassuring them it’s not their fault, teaches them that feelings are survivable and that asking for a pause is allowed.

This isn’t about fixing yourself or pushing through. Resilience isn’t about holding it all together at any cost, but about letting ourselves soften and stop before we explode. It’s about getting curious instead of judgemental. Asking, what’s too heavy right now? What might help lighten the load? Because wobbles aren’t a failure. They’re your nervous system asking for care.

If you’ve been feeling a bit unsteady lately, this one might land.

Thank you for pausing with me. Take care.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kimmccabe.substack.com/subscribe

This week’s Parent Pause is about those quiet, easily missed moments when something inside us slips a few inches sideways and we’re suddenly a bit off-centre. Not falling apart. Not in crisis. Just not quite ourselves. And because life with children is so full, so noisy, so demanding, we can walk around like that for days without really noticing.

In this audio I talk about how we spot those wobbles in ourselves before they turn into something louder. How our bodies often know long before our heads catch up. And how, when we’re parenting, it’s so easy to keep pushing on - making lunches, answering emails, being competent - while something inside us is quietly asking for a pause.

And then what helps us find our way back. Not with a big fix or a shiny solution, but with something much smaller and more human.

This isn’t about trying to be endlessly resilient or getting yourself back on track as fast as possible. It’s about learning to notice when you’re wobbling, and treating that wobble as information rather than failure.

If you’re feeling a bit not-quite-right, but can’t really explain why, this one’s for you.

Thank you for pausing with me. Take care.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kimmccabe.substack.com/subscribe

Can I say something slightly heretical? Less stuff isn’t always the answer. If you’re living in a house that feels full to bursting with children’s things, your partner’s things and your own, this Parent Pause is an invitation to question the pressure to declutter our way to calm. I talk about how parenting isn’t a lifestyle aesthetic, and how the images we’re sold of serene, neutral family homes can quietly make us feel like we’re failing. I share a moment when I cleared out something that looked like rubbish to me but was precious to my child, and how that was devastating for my child. This is a reflection on agency, respect and being consulted, and on why what often matters more than having less stuff is helping our children build a conscious relationship with their things. If your house feels overfull right now, this pause is about asking a different question, not how to get rid of more, but how to live together with what’s already here.

Thank you for pausing with me. Take care.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kimmccabe.substack.com/subscribe