Every day, our children are growing up in a world that is moving too fast, a world shaped by screens, algorithms, and artificial intelligence. While adults struggle to keep up, children are being pulled into digital deep waters without a map.

We must meet them where they are-in their digital world-and guide them with insight, compassion, and empathy.

While the digital space offers opportunity, it also carries real and growing risks that most children are simply not prepared to face.

They are exposed to harmful content online.
They are bullied behind closed screens.
They are overwhelmed, misunderstood and some are falling into despair.
We are losing them.

In the UK, 1 in 4 children struggles with their mental health.
Suicide is now one of the leading causes of death among teenagers.
And yet, we continue to send them online with no guidance, no emotional education, no tools to understand or protect themselves.

We would never send a child through a busy city alone. But we give them smartphones, social platforms, and AI tools with no roadmap for how to navigate them and no safety net when they falter.

As a mother of three girls, a psychotherapist working in UK schools, and a survivor of childhood institutional trauma, I’ve seen how quickly children spiral when trauma, grief, anxiety, rejection or digital harm arrive without the skills to cope. I’ve sat with children who believe their brains are broken. I’ve listened to parents feeling helpless, teachers stretched to breaking point, and young people labelled as ‘difficult’ when they are simply hurting.

We must do better not just with crisis intervention but with early, preventative, age-appropriate emotional education. Education that helps every child understand their feelings, build resilience, form healthy relationships, and stay safe in an increasingly digital world.

Across the ocean, the U.S. has already passed legislation to protect children from deepfakes, AI exploitation, and online harm. We must not wait for tragedy to act here in the UK.

That’s why I’m calling on the Department for Education and the Government to make emotional literacy, digital safety, and AI education part of the PSHE curriculum for all pupils aged 5 to 21 and to fund a national solution that gives every child, regardless of postcode, access to these essential life tools. Because; Not all boroughs can afford the current postcode lottery solutions. Not all parents can access private therapy.
And too many children fall through the cracks because they don’t meet NHS thresholds.

This campaign is about giving every child emotional life skills to manouvere  the digital age, skills that should be as fundamental as reading or maths.

Please sign this petition if you believe our children deserve to feel safe, understood, and empowered both online and offline no matter their background or postcode.

With your support we can raise a generation that doesn’t just survive the digital age but thrives with empathy, insight, and belonging.

Because, if we don’t teach our children to understand their emotions early, those emotions will find other ways to manage them through anxiety, digital addiction, self-harm, eating disorders or despair.

I believe that every child deserves a bright future, every parent or carer deserves to be empowered and every teacher supported. Not Someday but Today. 

With hope,
Rukhiya Budden
Psychotherapist (MBACP)
Volunteer Counsellor, Place2Be
Global Ambassador, Hope and Homes for Children
Mother of three girls
Author: Jannah and Pepo Heart Series Global Adventures.