How does young children’s digital resilience operate within and across homes and communities? A thematic analysis of parents and early years educators’ experiences

This paper examines how young children aged 0–5 years build digital resilience within interconnected home and community contexts. While playing, exploring, and socialising are central to early experiential learning, little is known about how parents/carers and educators support children to recognise, manage, and recover from mistakes in connected environments. Conceptualising digital resilience as a socio-ecological construct, the paper draws on findings from the TYKES project to address this gap. Using a multi-method qualitative design, the study thematically analyses semi-structured interviews with parents/carers (n = 17) and early years educators (n = 5), alongside focus groups with educators across two settings (n = 8), conducted using purposive sampling over a ten-month period (May 2024–February 2025). The paper argues that digital resilience is a relational and context-dependent process that unfolds across nested home and community environments, rather than solely within individual children or discrete settings. It highlights the importance of social capital and everyday interactions in shaping children’s emerging capacities to navigate online challenges. The paper contributes to the literature by demonstrating how parents/carers and educators actively cultivate digital resilience as an emergent capability, embedded in socio-ecological relations. The findings point to the need for more holistic and coordinated support across education systems, policymakers, industry, and governments to enable young children to thrive on the Internet.