He made it to the carpet.A character built for the developmental moment
Digital Citizen Dilon is a cartoon dalmatian I created to carry digital citizenship and safety for the youngest children at Dulwich College Beijing. He joined a family of values friends, and three years on he has lessons from Nest to Year 2 and a plush who watches over the classroom technology.
In DUCKS, each of the college’s values is a friend that teachers hold up in the room, so a value becomes someone children know and want to be like. Every friend has its own card for teachers. Dilon joined them as the eighth friend, for digital life.
Digital Citizen DilonDigital citizenship
I can use two gentle hands, put technology back in its home, and find a grown-up when I’m not sure.
Responsible RyanResponsibility
I can look after my classroom and my friends, and I know who to go to for help.
Kind KateKindness
I can help others, use kind words, and know what to do when someone is upset.
Resilient RenResilience
I can keep on trying when something is challenging, and try a different way.
Open-minded OliOpen-mindedness
I can be curious about objects, events and people, and use my senses to explore.
Integrity IsabelleIntegrity
I can tell the truth when I have made a mistake, and try to do the right thing.
Respectful RuiRespect
I can listen to others and be careful with other people’s things and feelings.
Confident CongConfidence
I can feel proud of how I do things, not just the end result.
What’s on every friend’s card
The valueKindness, respect, resilience… and for Dilon, digital citizenship.
“I can” statementsWhat children can say and do, in their words.
Questions to askWhat adults look and listen for in play.
Books, videos, songsStories in English and Chinese that carry the value.
Words that mean the sameSynonyms that widen children’s vocabulary.
Several friends also link to the Early Years Characteristics of Effective Learning: Open-minded Oli to finding out and exploring, Resilient Ren to having a go, Confident Cong to enjoying achieving. Use the same card to make your own character →
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Why Dilon
Reaching children as they are
One of the biggest shifts in early childhood is moving from a world centred on family into one shared with teachers and peers. A three-year-old who leans on imaginative, narrative bonds at home suddenly has to grow alongside others, and imagined companions matter more.
We already meet children there with values characters, songs and imaginative play. Yet with digital citizenship and AI we tend to switch to what children need to learn instead of how we could reach them as they are. Most AI education research has focused on secondary and university students, and early childhood work is only beginning (Su & Zhong, 2022; Su, Ng & Chu, 2023). The children forming first relationships with voice assistants are years younger (Hoffman et al., 2021).
A three-year build
From a poster to a plush
012023The pitchDilon joins the values friends.
022023He moves and speaksAnimated for Digital Citizenship Week.
032023 onA curriculumSix scaffolded lessons per age group.
042026AI literacyAnimated lessons by year group.
05Oct 2026A plushSomething to hold in both hands.
06NextDeeper cultureMore meaning, not more lessons.
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Stop 5 · The latest episode · 11–15 min
Lesson 1 in Nest and Reception
An interactive adventure played together on the class screen, with a teacher guide for each class. Nest children find the MAXHUB and the iPad and model, then copy. Reception children find three pieces of technology and explain each answer. The lesson has eight steps along the six stops of its adventure map.
Say helloChildren wave, then tap each friend.
Technology huntFind the technology in the room, then point to the real MAXHUB and iPads.
Watch togetherA short video about caring for our iPads, with sound.
Where does it go?Children guess, then flip each card: technology has a home, never the floor.
Ryan’s choiceTalk about both pictures before a child taps.
Gentle handsA child drags the iPad to the right picture, then everyone practises with a pretend tablet.
GoodbyeWave goodbye to Dilon and Ryan.
Teachers note that Dilon and the value friends don’t exist like we do, which is why we say bye.
Our promiseSay each line together, tick it off, and become a Responsible Helper.
Read the lesson idea instead of watching
This is a text alternative to the activity, not a word-for-word transcript of the video. Dilon and Responsible Ryan introduce caring for classroom iPads. Adults explain that shared technology has a home, model a safe way to carry it, and help children return it so everyone can find it. Children can point, use an adapted grip, or ask an adult to carry it.
Try it without sound or a screen: show a cardboard tablet, model returning it to its labelled place, and invite children to choose how to join in.
Watch together: iPad care, with Dilon and Responsible Ryan0:58
Heard on the carpet
“I remember Dilon from last year!”
A Reception child, launching Digital Citizenship Week. Last year, they were in Nursery.
“We don’t want to lose Dilon’s technology. Let’s put it back in its home so everyone can find it.”
Revised classroom wording for adults to model.
Back to Dilon.
A child carried a Beebot from the carpet to the tech station to return it to Dilon.
The real reason: we care for shared equipment so everyone can find and use it. “Dilon’s technology” means the classroom technology at his station; Dilon is pretend and does not own it or feel sad. This is revised teaching wording, not a verbatim observation.
Dilon’s Station
“The most analog object in the room becomes their way into the most abstract ideas they will ever have to navigate.”
The plush gives teachers a tangible way to bridge the digital and the physical. The character who lives on a screen during a lesson is also something a three-year-old can hold afterwards, and he has his own place in class where children return technology. Unsure? Grab a grown-up.
There is evidence behind the plush: toddlers who cared for a plush version of a character during play later learned more from that character on screen (Gola et al., 2013), and puppets are a well-established way to open classroom conversation (Kröger & Nupponen, 2019).
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Stop 6 · Nest to Year 2 · 15–18 min
One message, rebuilt for each age
What Nursery needs to hear about technology and AI is not what Year 2 needs to hear. Six scaffolded lessons per age group carry the same values; the AI thread grows with the children, and no child uses generative AI.
Nest & NurseryAges 2–3What is technology, and how do we use it safely with our bodies?Finding technology in the room, two gentle hands, and giving every device a home.The AI threadMachines are made by people. Dilon is pretend, so we wave goodbye when he goes.
ReceptionAges 4–5Technology is anywhere. How do we notice it?Tech hunts in class, at home and outdoors; caring for shared devices; asking a grown-up when unsure.The AI threadSome technology listens or watches. What can it hear and see, and who made it?
Year 1Ages 5–6Apps are part of technology and a digital world.What an app is for, using apps with an adult, and noticing the choices an app offers.The AI threadApps can suggest and guess. Who made the choice: me, a grown-up or the app?
Year 2Ages 6–7How do we use technology to be respectful and kind, including with ideas?Kind words online, asking before sharing, and saying whose idea it was.The AI threadWhen a machine helps make a picture or an idea, we still say who made what, and we check it.
The progression sits inside a wider Nursery-to-Year-13 AI literacy framework; these early years form its “early foundations”. Children never operate AI here. The thread is about noticing, questioning and choosing, beside a trusted adult, so that when they do meet responsive systems they already have the habits.
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The honest part
Using attachment to teach discernment
The thing that makes Dilon work is also what makes him a risk, and I would rather be honest than tidy.
A character teaches at this age because children bond with them; the relationship is the mechanism. These one-directional bonds with media characters are called parasocial relationships, and a great deal of early learning travels through them: children who feel closer to a character learn more from it (Calvert et al., 2020).
What reassures me
Pretend friends are ordinary at this age. By seven, about two-thirds of children have had an imaginary companion, often a stuffed animal with a personality (Taylor et al., 2004), and children tell pretend from real more often than adults assume (Woolley & Ghossainy, 2013). In one survey of 138 parents, about half reported that their child had moved on from a favourite media character; those relationships had lasted around two years (Aguiar et al., 2019). This is not a timetable for every child or evidence of safety.
What keeps me cautious
Much of what we know comes from parents, not children. The more real a character seems, the stronger the bond (Rosaen & Dibble, 2008). Children already form ties with voice assistants and credit Alexa with thoughts and feelings (Hoffman et al., 2021; Flanagan et al., 2023), and a voice with no body is where they most easily over-read a mind (Xu et al., 2025).
So “I haven’t seen it go wrong” isn’t evidence of safety. I watch for over-attachment on purpose, through teacher check-ins, observations and walk-bys, and that is also why Dilon always says goodbye.
The guardrail
Dilon
A responsive AI companion
Adults frame it as pretend
Every adult, every time
Often no adult in the room
Can it answer back?
No independent replies. Adults voice the character or play a recording
Can generate replies
Can it remember you?
No
Often
Does it follow you home?
Only as a story and a plush
Some products are available across devices
Does it say goodbye?
Always, because he’s pretend
Check how each product handles ending a conversation
That right-hand column is not hypothetical. Social AI companions are built to keep users attached and are rated unsafe for anyone under 18 (Common Sense Media, 2025), and chatbots can sound caring with no understanding behind it, an “empathy gap” children are likely to miss (Kurian, 2024).
In my research this is a narrative anchor: a shared, teacher-voiced, non-interactive character that scaffolds children’s first mental models of AI. When a pop-up says “this is not a real person”, I want children to have already played through what that means.
Calvert et al. (2020) · Taylor et al. (2004) · Woolley & Ghossainy (2013) · Aguiar et al. (2019) · Rosaen & Dibble (2008) · Hoffman, Owen & Calvert (2021) · Flanagan, Wong & Kushnir (2023) · Xu et al. (2025) · Common Sense Media (2025) · Kurian (2024) · all sources
