This conversation applies to all levels and, absolutely, it's always age-appropriate, but you have to start now.
They say that one of the first places where children are exposed to pornography is on the school bus. That means you have to be having conversations with children about what to do when they see a naked body. You don't have to tell them about pornography, and you don't have to tell them the stats, but do it before they get on the school bus, which is at five years old. Absolutely, you can have age-appropriate conversations at all ages, including with five- and six-year-olds. My emphasis would be spending as little time on screens as possible, playing outside and just getting together with friends.
We have to change the culture. We can't just accept that kids are going to have screens so therefore let's make sure we can limit and stuff. We absolutely have to change this culture. I think someday we're going to see giving a child a tablet as a form of child abuse, because you are already allowing technology to rewire their brain. At a young age, try to get them off the screen as much as possible, but also ask questions about what they're on, to get a sense of where they're at, and teach them red flags. Red flags are people who are too friendly, people you don't know who all of a sudden think you're amazing and want to know about what you like to do and what your favourite food is, and they want to know everything about you. Those are red flags. When they ask to move the conversation somewhere else, it's a red flag.
Kids are fantastic. They're not scared of all the things that we're scared about. They're hungry for knowledge. They're not getting the knowledge at home. They're not getting it at school. You do need advocates like us who can give them age-appropriate information in a way that doesn't make them fearful of the Internet but does make them rethink how much time they're spending on it. You can talk to them about dopamine as well. They need to know these things. They're already feeling it. They just don't have words for it. We need to help them understand what it is. The eyes cannot see what the brain does not know. We need to talk to them about their brain so that they can identify harmful behaviour when they're feeling it.