When a Safety Rule Becomes a Game

 As a therapist who works closely with children, adolescents, and their families, I understand the motivation behind Western Australia’s new cyber ban for under-16s. On paper, it is a well-intentioned response to very real concerns: online grooming, cyberbullying, exposure to harmful content, screen addictions and the mental health impacts of social media on developing brains.

The theory is sound. Reduce access, reduce harm. Create safer digital environments by limiting exposure during critical developmental years. Many parents and professionals, myself included, can appreciate the desire to protect children from a digital world that often moves faster than their emotional regulation skills can keep up with.

However, what we are seeing in practice tells a very different story.

Rather than functioning as a protective boundary, the ban has quickly

become a challenge; a puzzle for young people to solve. Instead of discouraging harmful online behaviour, it is teaching children how to bypass systems, exploit loopholes, falsify ages, borrow identities, use VPNs, and “beat” the law. Among many under-16s, avoiding the ban has become a badge of honour.

From a therapeutic lens, this shift is deeply concerning.

What Are We Really Teaching Children?

Children and adolescents are wired to test limits, that is not a flaw, it is developmentally normal. The teenage brain is driven by novelty, peer validation, and risk-taking, while the areas responsible for long-term consequence and impulse control are still under construction. When a rule is imposed without sufficient education, collaboration, or explanation, the brain does not interpret it as “safety.” It interprets it as “something to overcome.”

The unintended lesson becomes:

• Rules are obstacles, not values

• Authority is something to outsmart

• Success equals not getting caught

This is not a moral failing of young people; it is a predictable outcome of how the adolescent brain responds to restriction without relational engagement.

When children learn early that laws are flexible if you’re clever enough, we are quietly shaping future adults who may view boundaries, ethics, and accountability as optional. We are rehearsing behaviours that look very similar to dishonesty, manipulation, and avoidance, all under the banner of “just getting around the system.”

Safety Without Skill Is Fragile

Another concern is that bans do not teach internal regulation. They teach external control.

If a child is only “safe” because access is blocked, what happens when that block disappears? What happens at 16? At 18? When they move out of home? When no system is watching?

True digital safety comes from skills, not restrictions alone:

• Emotional literacy

• Critical thinking

• Understanding consent and boundaries

• Knowing how to seek help

• Recognising manipulation and risk

When these skills are not developed, young people are more vulnerable, not less, once access inevitably returns.

The Therapeutic Paradox

In therapy, we know that secrecy thrives where curiosity and conversation are shut down. When children feel they must hide their online lives, they are less likely to disclose when something goes wrong. A ban can unintentionally push risky behaviour underground, away from parents, teachers, and support systems, exactly where harm has more room to grow.

The paradox is this: a policy designed to keep children safe may actually reduce the likelihood that they will ask for help.

So What Does This Mean for the Youth of Today?

It means we need to pause and ask a harder question: Are we trying to control behaviour, or are we trying to raise capable humans?

The youth of today are growing up in a digital world whether we like it or not. They do not need only barriers, they need guidance. They need adults who are willing to sit in discomfort, learn the platforms, have awkward conversations, and model ethical decision-making rather than outsourcing it to legislation alone.

Protection is important. But protection without education, trust, and skill-building risks creating a generation that knows how to hide, not how to choose well.

As a therapist, I don’t believe the cyber ban comes from a bad place. I believe it comes from fear, and fear is understandable. But if we truly want to safeguard young people, we must move beyond bans and toward connection, competence, and collaboration.

Because the real challenge isn’t children figuring out how to beat the system.

It’s whether we can teach them how to navigate the world with integrity when no system is there at all.