Lakshmi

  • Online Grooming & Platform Accountability: What Needs to Change

    Online grooming—where predators manipulate children through digital platforms—has become a growing threat, raising urgent questions about the accountability of the very platforms that enable this abuse. This conversation is both timely and critical, especially in light of the following alarming statistics.  Raising public awareness about online grooming and platform responsibility empowers parents, educators, and children…

  • AI Beauty Filters: Helping Kids See Through Digital Illusions

    “No one ever told me I was pretty when I was a little girl,” Marilyn Monroe once said. Those words, haunting in their simplicity, reflect a time when beauty was observed, not edited. Today, a child doesn’t have to wait for others to notice their looks—they can apply a filter, smooth their skin, change their…

  • Digital Drama at School: When Should Parents Step In?

    School drama is nothing new. Written as early as the 1850s, Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield described the social conflicts, bullying, and peer pressure that children faced in school settings. These timeless stories demonstrate that teenage drama has always existed, albeit in different forms. Digital devices have complicated this even further, and Digital Drama is far…

  • Group Chat Gossip: Monitoring Private Messaging Without Invading Privacy

    Group chat gossip is not a new concept. According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the noun “chat” emerged around 1520, initially referring to ‘“’chatter, frivolous talk.’ By the 1570s, it meant ‘familiar conversation,’ and later, in the 1960s, it referred to talk shows. The term ‘chat room,’ referring to online instant communication, appeared in the…

  • Digital Footprints Don’t Fade: What Your Child Is Leaving Behind 

    Longfellow probably didn’t have TikTok, Snapchat, or Roblox in mind when he wrote that. Today, those “footprints on the sands of time” might just be your kid’s latest meme, comment, or selfie, floating somewhere in the digital universe. Funnily enough, both sand and computer chips are made of silicon. So those digital footprints? They’re permanently…

  • How to Teach Kids to Recognize Red Flag Messages

    In potboilers or blockbusters, the villain is often easy to spot. They speak in a sinister tone, wear dark clothes, or have a menacing look that makes us immediately think, “That’s trouble.” Whether it’s Voldemort’s sly whispers or President Snow’s icy glare, the bad guy’s characteristics are usually exaggerated, giving us a clear visual or…

  • What Is a Family Technology Contract and How to Create One

    If the popular sitcom The Big Bang Theory taught us anything (besides physics metaphors like Schrödinger’s cat), it’s that putting things in writing can prevent a lot of arguments later… or occasionally become the cause of new ones, but we’ll gloss over that. Just like Sheldon Cooper had a contract for everything from roommate rules…

  • Online Grooming: A Must Read for Parents

    Learn about Online Grooming and how you can protect your family against it.

  • EdTech: How to Prioritize Responsible Tech Use in Education

    Investopedia defines EdTech as “Hardware and software designed to enhance teacher-led learning in classrooms and improve students’ education outcomes. Define EdTech and its growing influence in education.” Today, smart devices and IoT tools extend the classroom beyond four walls, allowing students to engage with lessons from anywhere. Behind the scenes, machine learning helps automate grading, while blockchain…