Safe AI for Kids: A Child-Centered Framework for AI Literacy, Digital Safety, and Responsible Participation in the Age of Generative AI

Safe AI for Kids presents a child-centered framework for artificial intelligence literacy, digital safety, and responsible participation in the age of generative AI. The paper examines how children's digital environments are being transformed by generative AI, conversational agents, synthetic media, recommendation systems, and social platforms, alongside growing international efforts to strengthen age-appropriate online protections. Building on Eugene Ezenwa Ebem's earlier book, USAKA - The Child of Internet Age: Balancing Career and Parenting Cybersmart Kids, the paper extends digital-parenting principles into the AI era and connects them to the SafeAIForKids initiative and its NovaVerse Adventures educational universe. It proposes the Safe AI for Kids Framework (SAFK), organized around five layers: age-appropriate access, AI literacy, privacy and identity protection, healthy digital design, and trusted human support. The paper also examines international approaches to youth social-media restrictions and age assurance, distinguishing enacted measures from proposed and evolving regulatory models. Practical recommendations are provided for parents, schools, technology developers, and policymakers. This is a conceptual policy and design framework and does not claim clinical outcomes or experimentally validated effects.