As calls grow to ban under-16s from accessing social media, the debate is increasingly shaped by a sense of moral panic, one that risks obscuring the deeper pressures facing children, young people, and the families supporting them. While concerns about online harm are real, the way they are being framed often disconnects parents’ anxieties about social media from their wider worries about their children’s wellbeing, safety, and futures.
This narrowing of focus matters because it diverts attention from what has been steadily dismantled over the past two decades: the systems that once helped parents navigate exactly these kinds of challenges. Since the mid-2000s, successive governments have weakened or abandoned policies that treated parenting support as a universal, normalised part of social infrastructure. The erosion of Sure Start, the failure to sustain the CANparent universal parenting offer, and the stigmatising turn of programmes such as Troubled Families have left many parents with fewer places to turn, just as the pressures on family life have intensified.
Those pressures are now well documented. In-work poverty has risen sharply, disproportionately affecting Black, Asian and minoritised ethnic families. Secure employment no longer guarantees stability, housing costs continue to climb, and the legacy of austerity and the COVID-19 pandemic has further strained family relationships and support networks. It is within this context that children and young people’s online lives must be understood.
Crucially, this period also coincided with a growing evidence base on what does work. From the early 2000’s onwards, British research consistently showed that well-designed, inclusive parenting programmes can support more confident, responsive parenting and lead to better outcomes for children and young people. Programmes such as Strengthening Families, Strengthening Communities were developed precisely to meet this need — engaging parents as partners, not problems, and strengthening family relationships in the face of structural disadvantage.
A ban on social media may appear to offer reassurance, but it risks substituting visible restriction for meaningful support. If we fail to recognise how much has been lost from parenting infrastructure – and how much families are now carrying alone – we will continue to reach for blunt solutions that address symptoms rather than causes. Supporting parents is not a soft alternative to action: it is one of the most evidence-led, preventative interventions we have.
Jabeer Butt OBE
Chief Executive
Race Equality Foundation
For media requests, please contact Lauren Golding at comms@racefound.org.uk
