SAFE BY DESIGN · EPISODE 26

Listen Before You Fix It

Children often test us with half the story first. What we say in the next ten seconds decides whether they tell us the rest.

It was a quarter to nine on Sunday, one lamp on in Arjun's room. Bedtime was still when his big questions came out, and tonight he sat up with the family tablet held against his chest.

“Mumma, if I show you something, am I in trouble?”

He turned the screen round. It was a game chat. A player had been saying unkind things about how he played, and when Arjun typed stop, the player carried on.

Riya read it, and then she read the times. Nearly ten o'clock last night, an hour after the tablet should have been charging in the kitchen.

“Why were you on this at ten o'clock?”

The tablet went straight back against Arjun's chest. “Never mind,” he said, and turned to face the wall.