From protection to empowerment: A rights-based approach to promoting children’s resilience in the digital environment

This study explores children’s experiences and rights in the digital environment through an interdisciplinary Participatory Action Research (PAR) design involving a Child Advisory Board of 14 teenagers and interviews with five members, analysed using narrative inquiry. While children’s digital rights have been extensively examined and digital resilience has received growing scholarly attention, important gaps remain in understanding how young people themselves experience and conceptualize resilience in relation to their rights in digital environments. This study contributes by offering an interdisciplinary PAR approach with young people in an understudied regional context, and by integrating narrative inquiry to foreground children’s experiences. Key risk and protective factors emerged as themes in the study and findings suggest that children demonstrate resilience in digital environments when positive adaptation occurs despite exposure to online risks and challenges. Participants described developing resilience through moderate exposure to online challenges, opportunities for learning, and interpersonal and critical digital skills. The findings reflect that promoting digital resilience is closely connected to meaningful youth participation and to the supportive roles of family, peers, community, educational systems, and government. Resilience and the promotion of child rights in the digital world are mutually reinforcing: fostering resilience enables youth to handle online challenges effectively, contributing to safer and more empowering digital environments that uphold children’s rights.