Children are growing up in an increasingly digitalized world and concerns for their online safety picture in research and in public debate. We contribute to the discussion about children's online safety through a discourses survey on public discussions carried out in Finland 2014-2015. We reveal that discourses on control, trust and involvement permeate debates on children's online safety, and we argue that this has important implications on the means that we develop for ensuring children's online safety. While some control is needed, instead of risking to lose their children's trust through restricting or monitoring, parents may want to build a trusting relationship with their children so that they can trust children to make good decisions and that the children trust them. There is a need to build technical mediation that is transparent and facilitates building of trust.

Purpose: – Children have been recognized as an important user group for information and communication technology (ICT) and methods for involving them in ICT design have already been devised. However, there is a lack of research on children’s genuine or authentic participation in ICT design as well as a lack of critical research scrutinizing how “children” and “their participation” actually end up constructed in ICT design. The paper aims to discuss these issues.Design/methodology/approach: – An intervention involving children in ICT design following the research strategy of nexus analysis was implemented. A qualitative data archive of this intervention is examined through a Foucauldian lens.Findings: – The study reveals that numerous discourses were relied on when talking about “children” and “their participation” in the case project: the discourses of participation, equality, domination, segregation, rebellion, and patronization were identified. Moreover, “children” were constructed as equal partners and influential, but also as ignorant, ignored, silent, and silencing each other. Some of the findings are in line with the existing ICT literature on the matter, others even with the literature on genuine participation of children. However, children and their participation were also constructed as “problematic” in many senses.Research limitations/implications: – The study contributes to and opens up avenues for critical research on genuine participation of users, especially children.Practical implications: – Practical suggestions for researchers interested in participation of children in ICT design are provided.Originality/value: – While research literature offers an abundance of best practices and an idealized view on children and their participation, this study shows the multitude of challenges involved and discourses circulating around.