LLMs and Childhood Safety: Identifying Risks and Proposing a Protection Framework for Safe Child-LLM Interaction

Abstract: This study examines the growing use of LLMs in child-centered applications, highlighting safety and ethical concerns such as bias, harmful content, and cultural insensitivity. Despite their potential to enhance learning, there is a lack of standardized frameworks to mitigate these risks. Through a systematic literature review, we identify key parental and empirical concerns, including toxicity and ethical breaches in AI outputs. Moreover, to address these issues, this paper proposes a protection framework for safe Child-LLM interaction, incorporating metrics for content safety, behavioral ethics, and cultural sensitivity. The framework provides practical tools for evaluating LLM safety, offering guidance for developers, policymakers, and educators to ensure responsible AI deployment for children.