Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #123 What Your Teen Is Up To Online (Featuring Dr Justin Patchin)

Transcript

#123 What Your Teen Is Up To Online (Featuring Dr Justin Patchin) · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:03
Speaker 1: We're not encouraging kids to engage in this behavior. We
0:07
Speaker 1: much prefer that they don't. The kind of arguments I've
0:09
Speaker 1: had with people, they say, well, how would you feel
0:11
Speaker 1: if you're a child sextyt and it'd s ed. I'd
0:13
Speaker 1: be mortified, I'd be disappointed. But if they did, and
0:16
Speaker 1: they followed each of the strategies I offer in this article,
0:20
Speaker 1: it would minimize my concern because it's less likely that
0:24
Speaker 1: the really worst of the bad implications will happen.
0:27
Speaker 2: This is the Parenting in Perspective podcast.
0:30
Speaker 3: It's a Happy Families podcast, and my name is doctor
0:32
Speaker 3: Justin Coulson.
0:33
Speaker 2: Thank you so very much for being a part of
0:36
Speaker 2: these in depth discussions.
0:38
Speaker 3: Today, we're putting the subject of adolescent online behavior under
0:43
Speaker 3: the microscope with doctor Justin Patchen. Justin is a professor
0:47
Speaker 3: of Criminal Justice at the University of Wisconsin and in
0:51
Speaker 3: the Worlds of Teens and Technology, he is a bona
0:54
Speaker 3: fide global expert. Justin's been researching and studying how teens
0:58
Speaker 3: interact online and with devices for almost twenty years, with
1:03
Speaker 3: a focus on cyber bullying, social networking, and sexty. Justin
1:07
Speaker 3: co founded the Cyber Bullying Research Center and has written
1:10
Speaker 3: a number of books about the online world and adolescent behavior,
1:13
Speaker 3: and his work has sent him all the way to
1:15
Speaker 3: the White House and the FBI Academy to discuss the
1:18
Speaker 3: fallout of teams and the misuse of technology. So Justin
1:22
Speaker 3: and I met at a conference, the National Center Against
1:24
Speaker 3: Bullying Conference in Melbourne a few years ago, and we
1:27
Speaker 3: got to know one another. And he just knows his stuff.
1:29
Speaker 3: I'm so excited to talk to him. I began, as
1:32
Speaker 3: always by asking doctor Justin Patchen about his neck of
1:35
Speaker 3: the woods and of course his family.
1:38
Speaker 1: Well, I appreciate being on the podcast. And I'm in Wisconsin.
1:41
Speaker 1: I'm in Altoona, Wisconsin, which is on the western side
1:46
Speaker 1: of the state. And if you're not familiar with Wisconsin,
1:49
Speaker 1: it's kind of in the middle of the northern US,
1:53
Speaker 1: about halfway between Chicago and Minneapolis, if you know those
1:56
Speaker 1: bigger cities. I actually grew up in far northern Minnesota,
2:00
Speaker 1: which is closer to the Canadian border than I am now.
2:05
Speaker 2: The way you are, it's cold, right like it snows.
2:08
Speaker 1: It does snow, although today it was about eighty degrees fahrenheit,
2:11
Speaker 1: so it's pretty warm. I mean, obviously it's our summertime
2:14
Speaker 1: now so, but we get lots of snow in the winter.
2:20
Speaker 1: But I love it here and I've been in Wisconsin
2:23
Speaker 1: for sixteen years. I did my graduate school work in Michigan,
2:29
Speaker 1: and like I said, I grew up in Minnesota. So
2:34
Speaker 1: I have a wife and a little less than two
2:37
Speaker 1: weeks ago, we celebrated our twentieth anniversary.
2:39
Speaker 4: So we've been married for twenty.
2:41
Speaker 1: Years and have a son who is ten years old,
2:44
Speaker 1: and it's a great, great time, great age to be
2:48
Speaker 1: a parent.
2:48
Speaker 3: Well, I'm excited to learn more about your family and
2:51
Speaker 3: especially what you do with your work and have that
2:54
Speaker 3: intersex with what you talk to your children, your son about.
2:57
Speaker 3: But let's talk about the work that you do. You
3:02
Speaker 3: run an international website about cyberbullying. I'd love for you
3:06
Speaker 3: to talk a little bit about that website. But I'm
3:09
Speaker 3: also really curious. So most of the people that I
3:11
Speaker 3: talked to on this podcast have a psychology background. I mean,
3:14
Speaker 3: that's my real area of interest, my passion. It's my background.
3:18
Speaker 3: You've got this criminal justice background, but here you are
3:21
Speaker 3: talking about children and what's going on online. So tell
3:25
Speaker 3: us about the cyberbuiling website. And I love this resource
3:30
Speaker 3: I've relied on it many times and shared it often
3:32
Speaker 3: on my Facebook page, But I'd love to know more
3:35
Speaker 3: about the website and also why you decided to make
3:38
Speaker 3: this your life's work.
3:40
Speaker 1: I've always been interested in working with youth, so even
3:44
Speaker 1: when I was in high school, I coached like t ball,
3:49
Speaker 1: and I coached younger kids activities.
3:52
Speaker 4: And I actually worked in the juvenile.
3:54
Speaker 1: Justice system with youth when I was in college, and
3:59
Speaker 1: I really loved it. I enjoyed it a lot, and
4:02
Speaker 1: I was intersecting with other kind of professionals in that space,
4:06
Speaker 1: probation officers, social workers, psychologists, and they said, you know,
4:10
Speaker 1: if you really want to make a difference in this field,
4:14
Speaker 1: you should go to graduate school and then you can
4:16
Speaker 1: get these other jobs. And so I intended to get
4:18
Speaker 1: a master's degree and then become like a juvenile probation
4:21
Speaker 1: officer or caseworker or something like that. But I went
4:25
Speaker 1: to graduate school at Michigan State University, and I loved
4:29
Speaker 1: it so much that I hung around until they gave
4:31
Speaker 1: me a PhD. But even my doctorate in criminal justice
4:35
Speaker 1: was a very interdisciplinary degree. So I took a lot
4:38
Speaker 1: of psychology classes, a lot of family and child ecology classes.
4:43
Speaker 1: For my program, you have to set up kind of
4:45
Speaker 1: a cognate an area, and mine was kind of juvenile
4:48
Speaker 1: delinquency prevention or youth violence prevention. But the story of
4:52
Speaker 1: the website cyberbullying dot org starts at Michigan State University
4:58
Speaker 1: because my very first in graduate school on campus, I
5:03
Speaker 1: met a guy named Samir Hinduja and he, you know,
5:08
Speaker 1: I went to Michigan State to study, you know, youth
5:10
Speaker 1: violence and school violence, bullying, those kinds of things. Samir
5:15
Speaker 1: Kate went from Florida to Michigan to study computer crime
5:20
Speaker 1: and high tech crime and identity theft. And he grew
5:23
Speaker 1: up building computers and taking him apart and his dat
5:26
Speaker 1: at a computer business. And so we shared an office,
5:30
Speaker 1: a very tiny office on campus at Michigan State, and
5:34
Speaker 1: we were doing the work of our professors, right, That's
5:36
Speaker 1: what you do in graduate school, you know that. And
5:38
Speaker 1: so we were doing the work of professors, but talking
5:41
Speaker 1: about our own interests, mine in kids and his in
5:45
Speaker 1: kind of technology. And round about maybe two thousand maybe
5:49
Speaker 1: two thousand and one, we started thinking about the ways
5:52
Speaker 1: that kids were using technology or misusing technology, and this
5:56
Speaker 1: term cyber bullying that we had heard came up and
5:59
Speaker 1: we didn't know much about it.
6:00
Speaker 3: And so this is like, this is the early two thousands.
6:03
Speaker 3: There is no Facebook, there is no three G, there's
6:06
Speaker 3: no smartphones. I'm just trying to get a recalibration of
6:10
Speaker 3: what the digital environment was in two thousand and one.
6:13
Speaker 3: I mean, people were accessing the internet. Googled was just
6:16
Speaker 3: becoming a thing. But what was actually happening on the
6:20
Speaker 3: internet then? And obviously, how did this conversation and this
6:24
Speaker 3: relationship evolve into cyber bawling dot org and your ongoing partnership.
6:28
Speaker 2: I mean, you guys still work together every day exactly.
6:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, when we had first heard the term cyberbulling, what
6:35
Speaker 1: we were hearing of examples of kids sending me emails
6:40
Speaker 1: or more often it was in chat rooms. So back
6:42
Speaker 1: in the late nineties, really two thousands. Chatrooms are a
6:45
Speaker 1: big deal, and most people are familiar with chatrooms because
6:48
Speaker 1: of kind of the concerns about predators and grooming and
6:51
Speaker 1: those kinds of things, and so chatrooms specifically have kind
6:54
Speaker 1: of gone out of fever probably since two thousand and
6:57
Speaker 1: two or two thousand and three. We just started by
7:00
Speaker 1: having chats with kids and some students that some youth
7:05
Speaker 1: that we knew and asked them if they were running
7:07
Speaker 1: into problems online. Then we talked to some teachers and
7:10
Speaker 1: asked them if they were seeing problems in their schools
7:12
Speaker 1: and ask them parents, what are you seeing? And they
7:14
Speaker 1: would mention this stuff, and so we were starting to
7:17
Speaker 1: see that there was an issue. So we did our
7:19
Speaker 1: first kind of pilot survey of students and I think
7:22
Speaker 1: it was in two thousand and two, might have been
7:25
Speaker 1: in late two thousand and one, but it took us
7:26
Speaker 1: like a year and a half just to do the
7:28
Speaker 1: research because Michigan State University didn't want to approve us
7:31
Speaker 1: to do the research because we were probably one of
7:33
Speaker 1: the first on campus to do online research and so
7:36
Speaker 1: they didn't have protocols through our institutional review board for
7:40
Speaker 1: consent and all those things. So it took over a
7:43
Speaker 1: year to get the permission to do this, and so
7:47
Speaker 1: it was a very simple study.
7:48
Speaker 4: It was a convenience sample.
7:50
Speaker 1: I think we linked a survey to a couple of
7:53
Speaker 1: websites that were popular among kids at the time, and
7:58
Speaker 1: we just wanted to see what was going on there,
8:00
Speaker 1: and one question in that survey really caught our attention.
8:03
Speaker 1: So since we didn't know much about cyberbullying. We had
8:06
Speaker 1: one open ended question in the survey, tell us, in
8:08
Speaker 1: as much detail as you feel comfortable about your most
8:12
Speaker 1: recent experience with cyber bullying. And we figured, because we're
8:16
Speaker 1: dealing with adolescens, they would give us like a one
8:19
Speaker 1: sentence response, you know, it sucked or it was terrible
8:21
Speaker 1: or they were mean. But they told us they gave
8:26
Speaker 1: us like paragraphs. I mean, they wrote so much in
8:29
Speaker 1: this survey, many of them, that it messed up our survey,
8:32
Speaker 1: Like we had to establish certain boundaries for how many
8:35
Speaker 1: characters to allow on a survey, and we didn't allow enough.
8:38
Speaker 1: And so when we got the data dump, everything was
8:40
Speaker 1: messed up and it took us like three four months
8:42
Speaker 1: just to.
8:43
Speaker 4: Fix the data.
8:44
Speaker 1: But we learned right then and there that there was
8:46
Speaker 1: a story that these kids wanted to tell. They didn't
8:49
Speaker 1: feel comfortable telling their parents about it because they didn't
8:51
Speaker 1: know anything, especially back then about technology, so they were
8:54
Speaker 1: just kind of holding onto this. And so we've been
8:56
Speaker 1: studying ever since, and we've done you know, probably fifteen
9:00
Speaker 1: informal surveys of adolescence. We've surveyed parents, we've surveyed police, officers,
9:05
Speaker 1: and we've been going from there.
9:06
Speaker 3: How does this happen? You meet some random person and
9:09
Speaker 3: end up sharing an office. The next thing you know,
9:11
Speaker 3: you've created your life's work together. It's interesting as we
9:15
Speaker 3: consider what life used to be like. When you started
9:17
Speaker 3: to describe it, I was like, Oh, it almost sounds
9:19
Speaker 3: so it almost sounds so nice. We were dealing with
9:22
Speaker 3: the you know, some chat room issues compared to the
9:25
Speaker 3: stuff now. I don't want to downplay it because it
9:28
Speaker 3: was serious, and obviously the messages that you were getting
9:30
Speaker 3: from people through your data highlighted the seriousness of it.
9:33
Speaker 3: But as you said, the technology shift in the last
9:37
Speaker 3: twenty years has been extraordinary. When you look at what
9:42
Speaker 3: the data is telling us today, what's your sense of
9:45
Speaker 3: what's going on online?
9:46
Speaker 2: What do parents need to know now?
9:49
Speaker 1: They need to know a lot about a lot of
9:50
Speaker 1: different things. But I think sometimes parents worry too much
9:56
Speaker 1: about things that aren't as big of a so, particularly
10:01
Speaker 1: in the early days of our work two thousand to
10:03
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven or eight, will say, parents were
10:06
Speaker 1: primarily concerned with kind of the grooming and the stranger
10:10
Speaker 1: danger and my kid's going to meet some predator in
10:14
Speaker 1: a chat room. And they're going to get kidnapped. And
10:18
Speaker 1: while that does happen, it's extremely rare. We obviously need
10:22
Speaker 1: to be aware of it. We need to have conversations
10:25
Speaker 1: with our kids about who they're interacting with online.
10:28
Speaker 4: But if we're focusing so.
10:30
Speaker 1: Much on this one problem, we'll forget that it's much
10:35
Speaker 1: more likely that our child is going to be victimized
10:38
Speaker 1: by somebody they know. Right, So if you're preaching to
10:40
Speaker 1: them don't talk to strangers online, well, then they might
10:44
Speaker 1: be talking with somebody that they have a relationship with,
10:46
Speaker 1: a family member, some other person, and then let their
10:50
Speaker 1: guard down. They need to have general skills about keeping
10:53
Speaker 1: themselves safe online, no matter who they're communicating with.
10:55
Speaker 3: And this kind of gets to what I guess would
10:57
Speaker 3: call it the psychological heuristics, like the availability heuristic.
11:01
Speaker 2: Okay, so there are so.
11:02
Speaker 3: Many clicks when there's one of those awful stories, and
11:05
Speaker 3: they do exist. I mean, we need to acknowledge that
11:07
Speaker 3: this is an extraordinarily serious crime and it does happen,
11:10
Speaker 3: and some people are their lives have changed forever because
11:13
Speaker 3: of these kinds of experiences. But the media will obviously
11:16
Speaker 3: make a big deal about it, and therefore there's a
11:18
Speaker 3: sense in the minds of parents that this kind of
11:21
Speaker 3: thing is happening all the time. And what I'm hearing
11:23
Speaker 3: you say is yet happens yet serious, And yes, we
11:27
Speaker 3: need to talk to about children about it. It's important
11:29
Speaker 3: that we are across it. But this is unlikely to
11:33
Speaker 3: be the reality for most of our children. They're going
11:35
Speaker 3: to be dealing with other kinds of things other than
11:37
Speaker 3: potentially being groomed.
11:39
Speaker 2: They might be, and we need to protect.
11:41
Speaker 3: But once we've had one or two conversations, we're probably
11:43
Speaker 3: okay to focus on other things.
11:46
Speaker 4: That's right.
11:47
Speaker 1: And so the analogy I sometimes use is talking to
11:50
Speaker 1: your children about going outside in a thunderstorm. Right, they
11:54
Speaker 1: could get struck by lighting. That's a really bad thing
11:57
Speaker 1: that could happen. It does happen, but more like they're
12:00
Speaker 1: even get soaking wet, they might get sick. They might
12:02
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a lot of other potentially bad things
12:04
Speaker 1: that could happen as well, and we need to have
12:06
Speaker 1: conversations with them about all of those things. But you
12:08
Speaker 1: don't necessarily have to dwell on the lightning because once
12:11
Speaker 1: you say, look, if it's lightning outside, you probably want
12:13
Speaker 1: to get inside.
12:13
Speaker 4: You probably want to stay away from that tree.
12:15
Speaker 1: Uh, Lightning, Yeah, don't swim in the pool, right and so,
12:20
Speaker 1: and it's it's a it's a serious enough issue lightning
12:23
Speaker 1: or predators that you probably only need to have one
12:26
Speaker 1: or two conversations with them because they get it.
12:28
Speaker 4: They figure that out pretty quick. Kids too.
12:30
Speaker 1: But when you're talking about relationships that they're going to
12:33
Speaker 1: have with their peers and some of the potential problems
12:36
Speaker 1: that might arise in those situations, particularly when you have
12:40
Speaker 1: the peer pressure.
12:41
Speaker 4: Uh.
12:42
Speaker 1: And as you pointed out, those issues aren't covered as
12:44
Speaker 1: heavily in the media. I think those are the ones
12:48
Speaker 1: we need to spend more time having conversations with our
12:51
Speaker 1: kids about.
12:52
Speaker 3: So what are you seeing in the data in terms
12:54
Speaker 3: of these these interpersonal you know, the psychological term is
12:58
Speaker 3: relational aggression. Okay, we've got we've got kids that are
13:00
Speaker 3: being unkind to kids online. I mentioned ask FM from
13:04
Speaker 3: you know, two thousand and eight or whenever it was
13:05
Speaker 3: when that was going benign is now it just happens
13:07
Speaker 3: on Snapchat, and it happens on TikTok and and we
13:09
Speaker 3: see people engaging in harmful trends. They make the news
13:12
Speaker 3: all the time as well. Do we need to be
13:14
Speaker 3: mindful of that? How do how do we deal with
13:17
Speaker 3: the bullying thing? How prevalent is it?
13:18
Speaker 2: What about sexting?
13:20
Speaker 3: Give us a snapshot of where the world is and
13:22
Speaker 3: how our children are being affected.
13:24
Speaker 1: Well, a lot of people like to ask me, you
13:27
Speaker 1: know what the worst app is, or what the worst
13:29
Speaker 1: site is, or where bullying is happening happening most often?
13:33
Speaker 1: And I often when I answer that question, sometimes I
13:36
Speaker 1: throw them a curve ball and I say, well, bullying
13:37
Speaker 1: is happening most often at school, you know, because in
13:40
Speaker 1: all the research we've done, bullying still affects more kids
13:45
Speaker 1: at school than online. And so I wrote a blog post,
13:49
Speaker 1: kind of controversial post a few years ago saying, you know,
13:52
Speaker 1: ban school open Facebook, because the data is clear that
13:56
Speaker 1: the more there's more kids affected at school than online.
14:00
Speaker 1: But that's a function of kind of where they are.
14:02
Speaker 1: And so if you when parents or anybody wants to
14:05
Speaker 1: know the app that has the most bullying, just look
14:10
Speaker 1: at the app where more kids are hanging out. So
14:11
Speaker 1: now it's Snapchat, it's TikTok. So you're going to see
14:13
Speaker 1: problems in these environments. There's nothing inherently bad about most
14:19
Speaker 1: social media sites. There are some really bad ones, right,
14:21
Speaker 1: but most kids aren't using those and some are maybe
14:25
Speaker 1: experimenting with them.
14:26
Speaker 4: But the more popular the app is, the.
14:28
Speaker 1: More likely we're going to see problems on there, whether
14:31
Speaker 1: it's cyber bullying or used in any number of ways
14:33
Speaker 1: to get into trouble.
14:35
Speaker 2: Where the people are is where the problems are likely too.
14:37
Speaker 4: Exactly that's exactly right.
14:39
Speaker 1: And the other thing that we see consistently in our
14:41
Speaker 1: research is it's very rare for a child to only
14:45
Speaker 1: be bullied online. If they're being bullied online, something like
14:50
Speaker 1: eighty five percent of the time, they're being bullied at
14:52
Speaker 1: school as well. And it's hard to know if it's
14:55
Speaker 1: the same kids who are doing it about the same
14:57
Speaker 1: issues or what the causes are. But this is another
15:01
Speaker 1: reason why we know less of an issue now than
15:05
Speaker 1: it was fifteen years ago, with schools were reluctant to
15:07
Speaker 1: get involved in cyber bullying incidents, saying that if it
15:10
Speaker 1: happened online, it's not our responsibility, there's nothing we can do.
15:13
Speaker 1: I think that mentality is changing slowly for one reason,
15:17
Speaker 1: because we've been able to make the case that, look,
15:20
Speaker 1: if it's happening online is probably happening at the school
15:22
Speaker 1: as well, and once the school digs into.
15:24
Speaker 4: It, they tend to see that it is happening there also.
15:27
Speaker 2: So when I look.
15:28
Speaker 3: At the data around the online challenges that parents are
15:31
Speaker 3: most likely to experience, and you can correct me if
15:34
Speaker 3: I'm wrong, but I see the biggest three issues as cyberbullying,
15:39
Speaker 3: explicit content, children being exposed to online content that is well,
15:45
Speaker 3: you could argue that it's not for anybody, but it's
15:46
Speaker 3: certainly not for children.
15:48
Speaker 2: And the third thing that I see as.
15:50
Speaker 3: Being challenging for parents is just the compulsion that kids
15:54
Speaker 3: have to be online. You know, I can't get them
15:56
Speaker 3: off their phone, They're in their room and they just
15:57
Speaker 3: won't leave it alone. So I wonder if we can
15:59
Speaker 3: just talk about each of these and you can tell
16:01
Speaker 3: me what your data is showing in terms of how
16:03
Speaker 3: much it's happening, but also what parents might do to
16:07
Speaker 3: help their children to make good decisions around this. You
16:10
Speaker 3: write a very provocative piece at the start of twenty
16:13
Speaker 3: twenty about sexting, so let's start there. Sexting is what
16:16
Speaker 3: the adults call sending nudes, but essentially the definition is
16:20
Speaker 3: taking photos or a video of your private parts. And
16:25
Speaker 3: sending them to somebody else.
16:26
Speaker 4: Yeah, so we've been studying sexting now for a while.
16:29
Speaker 3: How much does it happen? Because everyone's paranoid that everyone's doing.
16:33
Speaker 4: It, everyone is not doing it.
16:36
Speaker 1: And I get frustrated because I do see headlines here
16:39
Speaker 1: in the US that say that exact thing, everyone's doing it,
16:42
Speaker 1: the majority of kids are doing it. It's just it's
16:44
Speaker 1: simply not true. And there's no research that has shown
16:47
Speaker 1: a majority of teens have participated in sexting, both either
16:52
Speaker 1: sending or receiving.
16:53
Speaker 3: There was an Australian government study done just a few
16:57
Speaker 3: years ago. I can't remember the government department that did it,
16:59
Speaker 3: but I looked carefully at the data and they were
17:01
Speaker 3: finding that around fifty percent of Australian teenagers were doing it.
17:05
Speaker 3: It's the only data that I've ever found with numbers
17:07
Speaker 3: that high. Usually it's less than twenty percent.
17:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, ours are less than twenty percent. We did a
17:12
Speaker 1: national study in the US in twenty sixteen. We replicated
17:15
Speaker 1: again in twenty nineteen, and you know, roughly thirteen to
17:19
Speaker 1: fifteen percent have sent an explicit image. And these are
17:23
Speaker 1: this is twelve to seventeen year old. So this is
17:26
Speaker 1: sort of middle school and high school for us.
17:28
Speaker 3: And just before you go on too, the other data
17:31
Speaker 3: about twelve to fifteen percent of twelve to seventeen year olds.
17:34
Speaker 3: I presume that there's a linear relationship between age and
17:37
Speaker 3: likelihood of sending. So the older you get, the more
17:39
Speaker 3: likely it is that you're going to send something explicit.
17:42
Speaker 1: Absolutely, so the seventeen year olds, I think we're like
17:44
Speaker 1: twenty three percent or something compared to I think it
17:47
Speaker 1: was like six percent of the twelve twelve. But it
17:49
Speaker 1: was just perfectly linear in terms of the older, the
17:52
Speaker 1: more likely they were to do it. To send and
17:55
Speaker 1: then receiving was about twenty percent, a little bit less.
18:00
Speaker 1: And so we ask whether it'd been a boyfriend or
18:02
Speaker 1: a girlfriend, or a mantic interest or some other person
18:05
Speaker 1: who wasn't a current boyfriend or girlfriend, and uh so
18:08
Speaker 1: it's more likely they're going to send and receive to
18:11
Speaker 1: and from somebody that are romantically involved with. And so
18:16
Speaker 1: that's that's twenty percent is not good, right, We don't want,
18:20
Speaker 1: you know, kids to be doing this these kinds of things.
18:22
Speaker 1: But it's not fifty percent, it's not seventy five percent.
18:25
Speaker 1: And I'm concerned because We've done some work on kind
18:28
Speaker 1: of social norming, and if we if we talk about
18:31
Speaker 1: this as normal behavior, not in the sense of is okay,
18:35
Speaker 1: but as common as frequent, like every kid is out
18:38
Speaker 1: getting drunk on the weekend, every kid's having sex, every kids.
18:42
Speaker 1: Then if there's one thing that everybody can agree upon
18:46
Speaker 1: when it comes to adolescence, is the one thing they
18:47
Speaker 1: want to do is fit in.
18:48
Speaker 4: They want to do what other people are doing.
18:50
Speaker 1: So if I hear these these stories that everybody is
18:54
Speaker 1: engaging in sexting and I'm not doing it, then I'm
18:56
Speaker 1: going to feel some pressure to do it, and maybe
18:59
Speaker 1: my partner is pressuring me to send an explicit image
19:03
Speaker 1: and I don't really want to do it, But you know,
19:05
Speaker 1: I've seen all this stuff where everybody's doing it, so
19:07
Speaker 1: then I might acquiesce to that even though the reality
19:09
Speaker 1: is most aren't doing it.
19:10
Speaker 3: Your article highlighted that we need to teach our children
19:14
Speaker 3: safe sexting now for the last for the last decade
19:17
Speaker 3: or more, I've been saying to children, to adolescents, and
19:21
Speaker 3: to parents, there's no such thing as safe sexting. So
19:25
Speaker 3: you're taking a harm minimization approach. And what I've been saying,
19:28
Speaker 3: is you just can't do this safely. Now, once I
19:32
Speaker 3: read your article and the excitement of the headline went away,
19:35
Speaker 3: I actually think that there's an extraordinary amount of common
19:38
Speaker 3: ground here. We pretty much say the same thing, but
19:39
Speaker 3: we've framed it a little bit differently. So why would
19:43
Speaker 3: you say that we need to teach our children to
19:45
Speaker 3: sext safely or you know, to send explicit content safely.
19:49
Speaker 3: Tell me a bit about that and how you would
19:51
Speaker 3: have that conversation with a child.
19:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we use that title provocative title intentionally, and
19:58
Speaker 1: some of it is just riffing off, you know, safe
20:01
Speaker 1: sex education because we talk about safe sex and you know,
20:04
Speaker 1: is sex ever one hundred percent safe?
20:07
Speaker 4: And it's not. And it's the same thing with sexting.
20:09
Speaker 1: And so the reality is some young people are engaging
20:16
Speaker 1: in sexting, they are exchanging explicit images. And I got
20:21
Speaker 1: a lot of messages about that article. So it was
20:23
Speaker 1: in the Journal Adolescent Health last year, and I got
20:27
Speaker 1: a lot of correspondence, most of it very positive, kind
20:30
Speaker 1: of like what you said. Some of it was very negative,
20:35
Speaker 1: but it was clear from the criticism that they hadn't
20:37
Speaker 1: actually read the paper right, So maybe they read the
20:40
Speaker 1: abstract or but they didn't actually read the argument. But
20:44
Speaker 1: the point is if there is some segment of the
20:47
Speaker 1: population that's doing it, if they're going to do it,
20:50
Speaker 1: I would prefer that they do it in a way
20:53
Speaker 1: that will limit the most extreme, the most serious consequences
20:58
Speaker 1: that that could happen. So, if you think about sexting,
21:01
Speaker 1: the couple of things that you're most worried about as
21:03
Speaker 1: a parent if your child would do it, is that
21:06
Speaker 1: the image they send will be shared with others, right,
21:09
Speaker 1: will be kind of posted online for others to see.
21:13
Speaker 1: To youth in a committed relationship exchange explicit images with each.
21:18
Speaker 4: Other and they don't go anywhere else.
21:20
Speaker 1: If it's just between those two and they never go
21:21
Speaker 1: anywhere else, we probably don't want them doing it. But
21:25
Speaker 1: there's no long term serious consequences there. There is a
21:28
Speaker 1: good chance that I mean when you're talking about adolescence,
21:30
Speaker 1: that those images will potentially be shared. But kids need
21:34
Speaker 1: to know that, they need to be made aware of that. Look,
21:35
Speaker 1: if you share an image with somebody, they could share
21:38
Speaker 1: it with their friends, they could post.
21:39
Speaker 4: It online, so they need to be aware of that.
21:41
Speaker 1: The other concern is the potential criminal implications is you
21:45
Speaker 1: don't want your child to be arrested for creating and
21:49
Speaker 1: distributing child pornography. So the kinds of strategies for safe
21:53
Speaker 1: sexting that we talk about, we may be taking the
21:56
Speaker 1: fun out of sexting. I mean, so you're doing it
21:58
Speaker 1: in a way where maybe you're not sharing something explicit,
22:01
Speaker 1: but you're you're you're sharing a flirty photo that has
22:05
Speaker 1: you know, the most explicit of explicit parts covered. You
22:08
Speaker 1: don't include your face so that if it does get posted,
22:11
Speaker 1: it can't be linked directly to you, right, don't don't
22:13
Speaker 1: include any any identifying characteristics. Don't have it in your
22:16
Speaker 1: bedroom with you know, posters in the background, or you know,
22:19
Speaker 1: if you have that.
22:21
Speaker 3: Family photo family photo photo, don't have the picture of
22:24
Speaker 3: Grandma on the back as you're doing this.
22:26
Speaker 1: It's that's not a good look. But we're not encouraging
22:29
Speaker 1: kids to engage in this behavior. We much prefer that
22:32
Speaker 1: they don't. But the kind of arguments I've had with
22:35
Speaker 1: people is they say, well, how would you feel if
22:37
Speaker 1: you're child sexted? And I said, I'd be mortified, I'd
22:41
Speaker 1: be disappointed.
22:42
Speaker 4: But if they did and.
22:43
Speaker 1: They followed each of the strategies I offer in this article,
22:47
Speaker 1: I it would minimize my concern because there's it's least
22:51
Speaker 1: it's less likely that the really worst of the bad
22:54
Speaker 1: implications will happen.
22:56
Speaker 2: Okay, So how do you have the conversation with your child.
22:58
Speaker 3: Let's say you've got a a fifteen year old who's
23:01
Speaker 3: entered a romantic relationship and you just know that this
23:05
Speaker 3: is going to have to be a topic of discussion
23:07
Speaker 3: because eventually somebody's going to put some pressure on someone
23:10
Speaker 3: somewhere to send an image.
23:11
Speaker 2: This is it is part of the course.
23:13
Speaker 3: You know, when you look at the numbers in terms
23:15
Speaker 3: of how many children are being asked to send something
23:19
Speaker 3: like this to their romantic interest, those numbers are pretty high.
23:22
Speaker 3: Most girls will say that they've received substantial pressure from
23:26
Speaker 3: a number of places to send something explicit. So how
23:29
Speaker 3: do you have that conversation with your son or your
23:31
Speaker 3: daughter around the consensual aspect of it? And also just
23:35
Speaker 3: how do you even bring it up?
23:36
Speaker 4: I think you do need to bring it up.
23:37
Speaker 1: I don't know that the data is that clear that
23:39
Speaker 1: it's happening as much as you say, I think the
23:41
Speaker 1: data are mixed. We've asked students in both of our
23:44
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen or twenty nineteen, if they've been asked for
23:48
Speaker 1: explicit images, and if they have asked others, and that
23:50
Speaker 1: the numbers aren't above forty fifty percent.
23:54
Speaker 4: But I have seen some data. I was just talking
23:56
Speaker 4: with another researcher.
23:57
Speaker 1: Earlier this week, and her data was like, sick to
24:00
Speaker 1: your seventy percent. She did more qualitative stuff, and I
24:02
Speaker 1: think I think the numbers are somewhere in between.
24:05
Speaker 4: I mean, I think it is happening.
24:06
Speaker 1: But nevertheless, as a parent, you need to have a
24:08
Speaker 1: conversation with your child, both boys and girls, about this.
24:12
Speaker 1: And it's all about kind of respect and consent and
24:17
Speaker 1: giving kids strategies for deflecting, making sure number one that
24:23
Speaker 1: they're not pressured to do anything they don't want to do,
24:25
Speaker 1: you know, empowering them to make good decisions. And it's
24:29
Speaker 1: just like having to talk about sex, right, I mean,
24:31
Speaker 1: parents have been struggling with this conversation for generations and
24:35
Speaker 1: this is just another part of that conversation. At some point,
24:39
Speaker 1: as a parent, you have to recognize the place that
24:42
Speaker 1: your child is in and then maybe you have the
24:44
Speaker 1: conversation about sex and sexting and relationships and consent and
24:49
Speaker 1: what healthy relationships mean. And it's not common. Most kids
24:53
Speaker 1: aren't exchanging these images. Here are some considerations. Realize that
24:58
Speaker 1: this may be your boyfriend now, but you know, not
25:01
Speaker 1: very many people end up marrying their high school you know,
25:03
Speaker 1: boyfriend or a girlfriend. And so I actually had a
25:05
Speaker 1: student told me this. I was speaking at a school
25:08
Speaker 1: and a student said, you know, what I think about
25:10
Speaker 1: is what I want my ex boyfriend to have these
25:12
Speaker 1: images And given that probably my current boyfriend is going
25:16
Speaker 1: to eventually be my ex boyfriend, I don't know that
25:19
Speaker 1: I want to send on these images. And I thought
25:20
Speaker 1: that was kind of interesting, but definitely having this conversations,
25:23
Speaker 1: and honestly, I think as parents, you don't need to
25:27
Speaker 1: be an expert on this issue to dive into it
25:30
Speaker 1: with your kids. Take the time, you know, do some reading,
25:34
Speaker 1: you know, try to do some basic research. But struggle
25:37
Speaker 1: with these issues with your kids together. Maybe do some
25:40
Speaker 1: research together and learn about these things together. It's a
25:44
Speaker 1: difficult topic, but you can be in this with them together.
25:48
Speaker 1: It's that relationship that you have with your child is
25:52
Speaker 1: going to more than anything, influence the decisions they make.
25:55
Speaker 1: They don't want to let you down, their behavior is
25:58
Speaker 1: more a function of what you think and your relationship
26:02
Speaker 1: with them. Then they don't think they're going to get
26:04
Speaker 1: arrested for distributing child pornography. Plus they're not going to
26:07
Speaker 1: the odds are they're not going to But are they
26:09
Speaker 1: going to be Are they gonna upset you as the parent?
26:12
Speaker 1: Are they going to disappoint other relatives if they find
26:14
Speaker 1: out that they did that? So that relationship building is
26:17
Speaker 1: hugely important.
26:18
Speaker 2: I love that.
26:19
Speaker 3: The other thing that strikes me quite strongly as you
26:22
Speaker 3: say this, is that most of our children actually want
26:26
Speaker 3: to have this conversation with us. You know, they're looking
26:28
Speaker 3: for us to show some Yeah, they've got questions, they're
26:31
Speaker 3: looking for us to show some leadership. They're going to
26:32
Speaker 3: think that it's all icky and weird, and they don't
26:34
Speaker 3: know that they necessarily want to get into it. But
26:36
Speaker 3: once we start the conversation, most of them will actually
26:40
Speaker 3: be like, Oh, I'm feeling relieved that I can talk
26:42
Speaker 3: to you about this, So we need to do that.
26:45
Speaker 3: You mentioned some deflection strategies. So let's say I've got
26:47
Speaker 3: a son or a daughter and my child is being
26:51
Speaker 3: pressured by their romantic interest to send an explicit image
26:56
Speaker 3: or they've been sent images that they didn't request, and
26:59
Speaker 3: as much as they really like the romantic interests, they
27:01
Speaker 3: would really kind of prefer that they not send that
27:04
Speaker 3: stuff to them. What are some useful deflection strategies that
27:07
Speaker 3: a parent could teach their child?
27:09
Speaker 2: How do you say no?
27:12
Speaker 4: Yeah?
27:13
Speaker 1: I think there are actually quite a few websites that
27:16
Speaker 1: provide some kind of humorous responses, or you send, you know,
27:19
Speaker 1: pictures of fruit, or you do that kind of thing
27:21
Speaker 1: in response, just kind of make a lighthearted response. But
27:25
Speaker 1: I mean, there are some things you can do and
27:26
Speaker 1: say it's something to the fact of, look my parents
27:29
Speaker 1: look through my cell phone, or you know, I don't
27:31
Speaker 1: feel comfortable with this, or I've seen too many examples
27:35
Speaker 1: in the news where even though I love you, I
27:38
Speaker 1: just don't want to put either of us in a
27:39
Speaker 1: situation where something bad could happen in our relationship. So
27:42
Speaker 1: I think it's recognizing the nature of that relationship. But also,
27:46
Speaker 1: if you have a partner that is pressuring you to
27:48
Speaker 1: send images and you just you don't feel comfortable inside
27:52
Speaker 1: doing it, that's a problem that you're going to have
27:55
Speaker 1: to bring up in your relationship with that person. What's
27:59
Speaker 1: more likely is you really do love that other person.
28:02
Speaker 1: You're feeling some of the person and you want to
28:03
Speaker 1: make them happy and you don't want to let them down.
28:07
Speaker 1: And so having that conversation with them, if they're a
28:11
Speaker 1: good partner for you, they will understand that. And as
28:15
Speaker 1: long as you explain what your heart is telling you,
28:18
Speaker 1: I think that it'll you know, it will definitely be
28:20
Speaker 1: an opportunity for you to have this conversation without it
28:23
Speaker 1: getting too messy. And it's a difficult conversation, but you
28:26
Speaker 1: have to. You have to have these conversations in order
28:29
Speaker 1: to advance the nature of that relationship.
28:31
Speaker 3: I say to my kids all the time. True friends
28:34
Speaker 3: don't ask you to do things that violate your principles.
28:38
Speaker 3: And if you're clear about your principles and you've got
28:40
Speaker 3: a boyfriend, because I've obviously got all these girls and
28:43
Speaker 3: they mostly boy crazy, if you've got a romantic interest
28:48
Speaker 3: and he's pressing you to do something that violates your
28:51
Speaker 3: deeply held principles, then he's not the right guy for you.
28:54
Speaker 3: And you know, they respond really well to just an
28:57
Speaker 3: upfront conversation. I guess what you're really saying is it's
28:59
Speaker 3: about consent and respect, which is kind of where we started. Okay,
29:03
Speaker 3: let's switch the conversation to cyber building because we've got
29:05
Speaker 3: so much more to cover, and time in these conversations
29:07
Speaker 3: always runs out so quickly. So how much is that happening?
29:11
Speaker 3: And how to parents support their children because this is vexed, right.
29:13
Speaker 3: I mean, you've got a child who's getting bullied or
29:16
Speaker 3: feels like their relationships are falling apart, and trying to
29:19
Speaker 3: try to gently support them and help them through these
29:22
Speaker 3: hard times is terribly hard, terribly challenging.
29:25
Speaker 2: So how much is it happening? And what do we
29:27
Speaker 2: need to know?
29:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, here in the US, our data show that about
29:30
Speaker 1: probably twenty five percent maybe a little bit more than that,
29:33
Speaker 1: of middle and high school age students have been cyberbullied
29:36
Speaker 1: at some point in their lifetime. Ten to twelve percent
29:39
Speaker 1: say they've experienced it in the most recent thirty days.
29:43
Speaker 1: Those numbers are pretty stable over the last five to
29:46
Speaker 1: seven years.
29:46
Speaker 3: And they're similar here in Australia too, not a huge
29:49
Speaker 3: amount of difference there.
29:51
Speaker 1: No, I mean, I think there's the perception, the public
29:52
Speaker 1: perception that cyberbuilding is skyrocketing or that it's an epidemic,
29:57
Speaker 1: and it really has been pretty stable. Bullying at school
30:01
Speaker 1: has maybe decreased a little bit over the last you know,
30:04
Speaker 1: five years here in the US, but it still happens
30:06
Speaker 1: more than the cyber bullying. In our research, we ask
30:10
Speaker 1: about cyber bullying in a pretty comprehensive way. We ask
30:13
Speaker 1: about you know, we define cyber bullying it's intentional, repeated
30:17
Speaker 1: and harmful things. And then we say have you been
30:19
Speaker 1: cyber bullid? And then we ask about a dozen specific behaviors,
30:22
Speaker 1: you know, as somebody posted hurtful rumors about you online,
30:25
Speaker 1: and somebody said something you know, like sexually explicit about
30:29
Speaker 1: you on let's we ask about it in a number
30:31
Speaker 1: of different ways. And the reality is, you know, maybe
30:34
Speaker 1: a third of kids have experienced it, and it's it's
30:36
Speaker 1: probably likely that your kids will experience it at some
30:38
Speaker 1: point in their lifetime. And here again I'm going to
30:42
Speaker 1: go back to the importance of the relationship because kids
30:47
Speaker 1: are reluctant to tell parents about while all the negative
30:51
Speaker 1: experiences they have online, but especially you know, cyber bullying
30:54
Speaker 1: or sexting, because they're afraid that parents are going to
30:56
Speaker 1: freak out, that parents are going to take away the technology.
31:00
Speaker 1: And we know how important technology is in the lives
31:03
Speaker 1: of adolescents these days. So I think parents need to
31:05
Speaker 1: be proactive and talk with their kids and say, look,
31:10
Speaker 1: I know that you're going to run into some challenging
31:12
Speaker 1: situations online. I know you're going to have some problems
31:14
Speaker 1: with your friends and your partners, and just realize that
31:18
Speaker 1: I am here for you. We'll work through them together,
31:21
Speaker 1: whatever it is. I'm not gonna throw your cell phone
31:25
Speaker 1: out the window. Certainly, if a child misbehaves online, if
31:31
Speaker 1: they're cyber bullying others or doing something they shouldn't be,
31:34
Speaker 1: maybe a break from technology is warranted right as a
31:37
Speaker 1: kind of a natural consequence. But far too often kids
31:40
Speaker 1: who are being targeted are losing kind of their their
31:44
Speaker 1: either social media privileges or online privileges under the guys
31:49
Speaker 1: that look, if you're being bullied on Snapchat, if we
31:51
Speaker 1: kick you off Snapchat, you're not gonna be bullied on
31:53
Speaker 1: Snapchat anymore. And basically now your child is being essentially
31:56
Speaker 1: victimized twice, and so help them work through that.
32:00
Speaker 4: The other way to do it.
32:01
Speaker 1: Is have conversations with your kids in a way that
32:04
Speaker 1: empowers them. So give them tools. So let's talk about
32:08
Speaker 1: Snapchat or let's talk about Instagram. How do you block
32:11
Speaker 1: somebody who is being me and to you? How do
32:13
Speaker 1: you report somebody? Because in all of these major apps,
32:16
Speaker 1: cyber bullying is a violation of their terms of service,
32:19
Speaker 1: So how do you report somebody?
32:20
Speaker 4: What should you do?
32:22
Speaker 1: If you are being cyberbuloid? You should maybe keep the evidence,
32:25
Speaker 1: take a screenshot, right, don't say something mean back to
32:29
Speaker 1: the person. So give the child some very practical tools
32:33
Speaker 1: that they can use in the moment when it's happening,
32:35
Speaker 1: so that they're not panicking. And because the gut response
32:38
Speaker 1: of a kid who's being cyberbloid is to lash out
32:40
Speaker 1: and say something back mean to the other kid. And
32:43
Speaker 1: now it's not cyber bullying. Now it's a fight, you know.
32:45
Speaker 1: Now it's conflict, and so that's different. So you don't
32:48
Speaker 1: want them to fall into that trap of getting involved
32:51
Speaker 1: in those behaviors.
32:52
Speaker 3: I love the advice that, especially that last idea. Somebody
32:56
Speaker 3: might provoke you, somebody may niggle and tease and bully,
33:01
Speaker 3: but once you start to fight back, it becomes a
33:05
Speaker 3: conflict and it just gets so messy. So if I
33:09
Speaker 3: was to summarize some useful strategies, what you're suggesting is
33:12
Speaker 3: you teach them how to block, you teach them how
33:14
Speaker 3: to report, you teach them how to actually come and
33:17
Speaker 3: get help. A lot of children don't want to come
33:19
Speaker 3: and get help because even if they're not going to
33:21
Speaker 3: lose their device, which is a far too common threat,
33:25
Speaker 3: most teenagers that I talk to will say, oh yeah,
33:27
Speaker 3: but when I involve the adults, that only makes it worse.
33:30
Speaker 3: You talked about empowering your children, and there's a strategy
33:33
Speaker 3: that I often share with parents where I talk about
33:36
Speaker 3: whether it's explicit content and you know, sexting and all
33:39
Speaker 3: those sorts of things, or cyberbullying. I like to start
33:42
Speaker 3: a conversation with my child nice and wide, whereby I say, so,
33:46
Speaker 3: I want to have a chat with you about cyberbullying.
33:49
Speaker 3: I'm not going to ask so much about you. I'm
33:50
Speaker 3: just curious. Do you see much of it happening while
33:52
Speaker 3: you're online? You know, are your friends involved in it?
33:55
Speaker 3: So you start wide. Do you see it happening much?
33:57
Speaker 3: Is it happening much at school? Do your friends get
33:59
Speaker 3: involved in it? How safe are your friends? How safe
34:02
Speaker 3: do you feel? And you get closer and closer to
34:04
Speaker 3: your child, but you've inched your way into the conversation
34:08
Speaker 3: with a very general commencement and just gotten closer and
34:11
Speaker 3: closer to them. And what my experience has been there
34:13
Speaker 3: with parents that I've shared with and with my own
34:15
Speaker 3: children is that because we're not asking them anything directly
34:18
Speaker 3: about them, initially they feel completely safe and secure. This
34:21
Speaker 3: is a conversation about what's happening at school, not about
34:25
Speaker 3: what's happening to me.
34:26
Speaker 2: But bit by bit we.
34:27
Speaker 3: Just come closer and now they're in the conversation and
34:29
Speaker 3: it's got some momentum, and they can feel what our
34:32
Speaker 3: motives are. They know that we're not on the attack,
34:34
Speaker 3: We're not coming at this strategically so that we can
34:37
Speaker 3: find out what's going on. I mean we kind of are,
34:39
Speaker 3: but not in that way that makes them feel uncomfortable.
34:43
Speaker 3: And then they're much more likely to open up and say, actually,
34:46
Speaker 3: yet it has happened, or I'm watching it happen with
34:48
Speaker 3: my friend. And what I'm always conscious of is, hopefully
34:53
Speaker 3: it's not happening to our children, but if it is
34:55
Speaker 3: happening to somebody, they know we get to talk to
34:59
Speaker 3: them about all these hype theeticals.
35:00
Speaker 2: Well, what are some of the ways that you could
35:02
Speaker 2: help your friend. What are some of the things that
35:04
Speaker 2: your friend could do?
35:04
Speaker 3: What are some solutions that might be useful if it
35:08
Speaker 3: was to ever happen to you?
35:09
Speaker 2: And we're kind of pre arming them before they're in it.
35:12
Speaker 4: Now.
35:12
Speaker 3: Of course, if they're in it, we can go through
35:14
Speaker 3: the same process, but it's not quite as comfortable, and
35:17
Speaker 3: so I encourage parents to have these conversations ahead of time,
35:20
Speaker 3: especially if they know that something's happening in the friendship
35:23
Speaker 3: group or in that general social circle.
35:24
Speaker 2: It just it just seems to soften it a little bit.
35:28
Speaker 3: I agree, justin this has been such a such a
35:32
Speaker 3: really wonderful conversation. There's there's a couple of other things
35:35
Speaker 3: that I really briefly want to ask you before I
35:37
Speaker 3: get to my rapid fire five quick family questions. So
35:41
Speaker 3: just a couple of quick things. I know that you've
35:43
Speaker 3: watched those brilliant New Zealand Net safe adverts talking about pornography,
35:49
Speaker 3: talking about grooming, talking about cyberballing, talking about explicit material
35:53
Speaker 3: with your children. We've kind of covered a fair bit
35:56
Speaker 3: of that already, but I wonder if if you could
35:58
Speaker 3: tell me, first of all, did you in enjoy the
36:00
Speaker 3: content that they've shared as much as me. And secondly,
36:04
Speaker 3: can we just talk about developmentally when children are needing
36:08
Speaker 3: these conversations, because obviously we're not going to talk to
36:10
Speaker 3: an eight year old about the same things that we
36:11
Speaker 3: will talk about with a.
36:13
Speaker 2: Sixteen year old.
36:14
Speaker 3: So when when do we talk about cyber bullying and
36:16
Speaker 3: being safe online? What are the right ages to be
36:19
Speaker 3: having these discussions.
36:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, first of all, I love the videos because they
36:24
Speaker 1: have a little bit of a humor to them, and
36:26
Speaker 1: they approach really difficult subjects in a very approachable way,
36:31
Speaker 1: and it shows that you can have conversations with your
36:33
Speaker 1: kids about these things without you know, making a huge
36:37
Speaker 1: deal out of it and going back to what you
36:38
Speaker 1: said earlier about these conversations and being proactive. I think
36:41
Speaker 1: it's also important to pick the right time right So
36:44
Speaker 1: don't you know, necessarily broach these topics right after your
36:48
Speaker 1: kids get out of school. They're worn down, it's been
36:50
Speaker 1: a rough day, and now you're going to be pelting
36:51
Speaker 1: them with all these questions. So we tell you're on
36:54
Speaker 1: that you know, forty five minute drive to you know,
36:56
Speaker 1: this fun thing that they're going to do, or just
36:58
Speaker 1: make sure they're in the.
36:59
Speaker 4: Right mind that to have these conversations.
37:02
Speaker 1: And when it comes to and you know, these kind
37:04
Speaker 1: of advertisements like this can help stimulate those conversations.
37:07
Speaker 4: You know, you can watch them together.
37:09
Speaker 1: And you can it can be an opportunity for you
37:11
Speaker 1: to have this conversation. But when it comes to the age,
37:14
Speaker 1: that's a really tricky thing because every kid's a little different, right,
37:18
Speaker 1: And so I think as parents we need to kind
37:21
Speaker 1: of sense like when our kids are on the cusp
37:24
Speaker 1: of participating in certain technologies, like you know, maybe your
37:28
Speaker 1: child is is just now getting into a relationship with somebody,
37:31
Speaker 1: So then you need to sort of ease into those
37:33
Speaker 1: conversations if you can.
37:35
Speaker 4: See that they're maybe having.
37:39
Speaker 1: Some difficulty in interpersonal relationships at school, if they're using
37:43
Speaker 1: technology more often, if they're obviously if they're just getting
37:47
Speaker 1: logged onto new apps, is a good a good opportunity
37:50
Speaker 1: to talk about safety on that particular app. So I
37:53
Speaker 1: think it really does differ depending on the child and
37:57
Speaker 1: you what do you have? You have six daughters, I think, right,
37:59
Speaker 1: I mean, so I have to imagine each one was
38:01
Speaker 1: a little different in terms of when it was appropriate
38:04
Speaker 1: to brought certain subjects and at what points you just
38:07
Speaker 1: pass it off to your oldest daughter to do the
38:09
Speaker 1: hard work.
38:10
Speaker 2: We do a bit of it all.
38:11
Speaker 3: So sometimes we just have a general family conversation, you know,
38:14
Speaker 3: we'll sit down and say, all right, guys, let's just
38:16
Speaker 3: talk about X, Y or Z, and the whole family's in.
38:19
Speaker 3: And other times we sit down with the child because
38:21
Speaker 3: they've come and said, you know, I'm on this app
38:23
Speaker 3: or I want to download this app. So yeah, I
38:25
Speaker 3: think that there's got to be that level of personalization.
38:27
Speaker 3: Let me spin the conversation around for just a sec.
38:30
Speaker 3: When you think about the work that you do, you
38:33
Speaker 3: would hear you'd be hearing stories all the time, and
38:35
Speaker 3: many of them would be scary and deeply concerning. Yet
38:40
Speaker 3: you're wonderfully optimistic. So I'm guessing that there have to
38:43
Speaker 3: have been some wonderful, uplifting, positive, powerful stories that you've
38:47
Speaker 3: seen in the cyber world in terms of people being
38:50
Speaker 3: resilient or making good out of the ugly that happens.
38:55
Speaker 3: I wonder if you can think of an example that
38:57
Speaker 3: might be hope giving to parents who have heard this
39:00
Speaker 3: long conversation about all of these challenges and I'm wondering,
39:03
Speaker 3: how am I really going to survive this?
39:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can appreciate that question. So Samir and I
39:09
Speaker 1: have written a number of books, and I don't know
39:13
Speaker 1: if it was five years ago or so. We came
39:16
Speaker 1: to the realization that we've written a lot of books
39:18
Speaker 1: for parents and educators, but we hadn't written anything for teens.
39:22
Speaker 1: So we set about to write a book for young
39:25
Speaker 1: people about cyber bullying.
39:27
Speaker 4: And so we started writing.
39:28
Speaker 1: This book and it was really depressing, right because it
39:32
Speaker 1: was talking about all these really bad things.
39:33
Speaker 4: So we'd have a chapter on.
39:34
Speaker 1: What to do if you're targeted, what to do if
39:36
Speaker 1: you're thinking about cyber bullying others or engaging these behaviors,
39:39
Speaker 1: what to do if you see cyber bullying, and it
39:41
Speaker 1: was all very helpful advice, but it was just kind
39:45
Speaker 1: of depressing. And then it's sort of I had just
39:47
Speaker 1: seen a couple of examples where young people were using
39:51
Speaker 1: technology to promote positivity, and I thought, you know, the
39:58
Speaker 1: cyber bullying is is bullying amplified by technology, And I thought,
40:04
Speaker 1: why can't we amplify positivity, right, And I'd seen these
40:07
Speaker 1: examples of kids in the US and abroad who are
40:10
Speaker 1: using technology to promote positivity and kindness and creating social
40:14
Speaker 1: media pages for the sole purpose of promoting kindness within
40:17
Speaker 1: their school or saying nice things about their classmates, and
40:21
Speaker 1: so that realization we shifted that whole book where it is.
40:26
Speaker 1: The book is called basically Delete cyber Bullying and Make
40:31
Speaker 1: Kindness Go Viral. So it's half about cyber bullying, but
40:34
Speaker 1: then it's also how do we promote kindness and compassion
40:37
Speaker 1: and caring. And there's lots of examples of this, and
40:39
Speaker 1: so I think we can't lose sight of the fact
40:42
Speaker 1: that most kids are using technology safely and responsibly and appropriately.
40:49
Speaker 4: The more guidance we can give them, the better.
40:52
Speaker 1: The reality is most kids who do experience bullying and
40:55
Speaker 1: cyber bullying and come out of it okay, and especially
40:58
Speaker 1: with some supports from adults in their lives. So I
41:01
Speaker 1: think there's a lot to be optimistic about, even though
41:04
Speaker 1: there are some very negative things online, but just the
41:06
Speaker 1: examples of teens themselves taking a leadership role in mentoring
41:11
Speaker 1: young people younger people, or you know, creating some kindness
41:15
Speaker 1: campaign or creating an app to help you wipe.
41:17
Speaker 4: Away some of these things. It's just it's it's pretty inspiring.
41:20
Speaker 2: What's your favorite one?
41:21
Speaker 4: I have a soft spot in my in my heart.
41:25
Speaker 1: This is something that is a Twitter feed that was
41:27
Speaker 1: created many years ago called ossio Nice Things, and there's
41:30
Speaker 1: been many examples since then. But this guy, this young
41:34
Speaker 1: man named Kevin Kirwick, he was I think a junior,
41:37
Speaker 1: a senior, year eleven, a year twelve, and he just
41:40
Speaker 1: saw all the negativity online. So he created a Twitter
41:44
Speaker 1: feed where he just posts nice things about all his
41:46
Speaker 1: classmates and celebrities would retweet his stuff and it was,
41:49
Speaker 1: you know, it didn't have a ton of followers, but
41:51
Speaker 1: just a simple thing. Connress s Wave. Another kid, this
41:56
Speaker 1: is a validictorian at this high school. For a whole year,
41:59
Speaker 1: he created an Instagram page where he anonymously posted pictures
42:03
Speaker 1: of his classmates. It was a pretty big school and
42:06
Speaker 1: every day he would post a picture and then something
42:08
Speaker 1: nice about that person.
42:10
Speaker 4: And sometimes this is a big school.
42:11
Speaker 1: Sometimes he didn't know these kids very well, but he
42:14
Speaker 1: found something nice to say about them. He did this
42:16
Speaker 1: the whole year long, completely anonymously. He was valictorian. He's
42:20
Speaker 1: given a speech a graduation and he came clean about
42:22
Speaker 1: this project and said, look, I did this to try
42:24
Speaker 1: to make people feel good. At least on one day
42:27
Speaker 1: but it really changed me in terms of how I.
42:30
Speaker 4: Look at people and I look at people differently.
42:32
Speaker 1: And so just those are just a couple of examples
42:34
Speaker 1: off the top of my head that are very inspiring.
42:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that.
42:38
Speaker 3: It's given me the whole goosebumps and wet eyes kind
42:41
Speaker 3: of thing. That's beautiful. All right, last question before we
42:44
Speaker 3: do al famous five. How do you protect your son?
42:48
Speaker 1: Well, I have conversations with him. He's my guinea pig. Right,
42:51
Speaker 1: So he's ten years old and I probably five years ago.
42:56
Speaker 1: I remember having a conversation with him before bedtime and
42:59
Speaker 1: I had to travel somewhere the next day to give
43:01
Speaker 1: a talk on cyber bullying, and so I was putting
43:04
Speaker 1: him to bed and I said, you know, I'm not
43:05
Speaker 1: going to be here in the morning because I'm going
43:07
Speaker 1: to be traveling to whatever city it was. And he said,
43:12
Speaker 1: what are you gonna be doing. I'm gonna give me
43:13
Speaker 1: a talk and he said about cyber bullying, and I said, yeah,
43:18
Speaker 1: that's right. I said, do you even know what cyber
43:19
Speaker 1: bullying is? And he said, yeah, it's bullying using a computer.
43:24
Speaker 1: And I said, that's that's pretty right, you know, And
43:26
Speaker 1: as a five year old or whatever he was back then,
43:28
Speaker 1: and I said.
43:29
Speaker 4: Are you ever going to cyber bully anybody?
43:31
Speaker 1: And he says no, And I said, well why not
43:33
Speaker 1: and he said, well, you're because you're the guy that
43:35
Speaker 1: goes into schools and tells kids not to do it. So,
43:39
Speaker 1: you know, for years I've been having conversations with him
43:41
Speaker 1: and he's he's kind of, I think, a little behind
43:46
Speaker 1: the curve on his technology usage than a lot of
43:48
Speaker 1: his peers. So he doesn't have a cell phone yet.
43:51
Speaker 1: He'll be in year five next year. Some of his
43:54
Speaker 1: classmates do have their own smartphones. He's not on any
43:57
Speaker 1: social media app app.
43:59
Speaker 4: He does have his.
44:00
Speaker 1: Mother's old iPhone from about five years ago that has
44:04
Speaker 1: Wi Fi, but it doesn't have a cellular network, so.
44:06
Speaker 4: He can use it in the house.
44:08
Speaker 1: And what he uses it for is he'll google some
44:11
Speaker 1: insects and creatures and amphibians and stuff running around the yard.
44:14
Speaker 1: And he likes looking at the weather, so he likes
44:16
Speaker 1: to tell me what the weather is going to be
44:17
Speaker 1: like on any given day. But literally just about every day,
44:21
Speaker 1: I'll have a conversation with him about his online use
44:24
Speaker 1: and if he runs into trouble, and you know, He's
44:27
Speaker 1: very shy, and so even if he seees kissing on TV,
44:30
Speaker 1: he'll turn his eyes away. So I think I've got
44:32
Speaker 1: a little bit of time before I get into the
44:34
Speaker 1: relationship stuff.
44:35
Speaker 4: But it's a daily conversation for.
44:36
Speaker 3: Him, and I love the fact that it's a daily conversation.
44:39
Speaker 3: This is not something that you have the talk and
44:41
Speaker 3: you put it away and say, all right, we've done that.
44:42
Speaker 3: This is a this is an ongoing how we live
44:45
Speaker 3: our life, all right, justin let's let's dive into these
44:48
Speaker 3: five questions that I love to ask. Everyone gets the
44:51
Speaker 3: same ones, and they're meant to be pretty quick.
44:53
Speaker 2: We'll see how we go.
44:54
Speaker 3: Number one, if we asked your son his favorite thing
44:57
Speaker 3: to do with you, what would he say?
45:00
Speaker 1: So that I cheated and I saw you listen, I
45:03
Speaker 1: quickly asked him before logging on with you.
45:05
Speaker 4: But he said exactly what I would have said. And
45:08
Speaker 4: this has changed.
45:09
Speaker 1: So this is something that stems from the sort of
45:12
Speaker 1: quarantine of the pandemic. So, as you know, I'm a runner,
45:15
Speaker 1: and so I try to run every other day.
45:17
Speaker 4: I don't run every day, but I run every other day.
45:20
Speaker 1: And since mid March, since he's been out of school,
45:24
Speaker 1: he has ridden his bike with me as I've been running,
45:27
Speaker 1: and so I'll run anywhere from five to twelve miles
45:29
Speaker 1: and he'll ride his little bike with me. And it's
45:32
Speaker 1: been incredible. We've been having long conversations. Most of the
45:35
Speaker 1: time we're just doing storytelling, so he'll we'll make up
45:38
Speaker 1: some fictional story right now, the current stories. We're on
45:41
Speaker 1: a different planet and we have to survive and there's creatures,
45:43
Speaker 1: and so that would be the one thing that he
45:46
Speaker 1: loves doing with me, apart from just adventures out in
45:49
Speaker 1: the wilderness. But it's been really a blast over the
45:51
Speaker 1: last couple of months, just spending more time with him.
45:54
Speaker 2: What's been your trickiest parenting moment.
45:57
Speaker 1: I think the hardest thing to deal with with our
45:59
Speaker 1: son is he's harder on himself than we are on him.
46:03
Speaker 1: So if he makes a mistake or if he does
46:06
Speaker 1: something he knows is wrong, he's really hard on himself.
46:09
Speaker 4: And he'll be upset.
46:11
Speaker 1: He'll lock himself in his bedroom, not literally, but he'll
46:13
Speaker 1: just he'll just want to be away, and we're like, look,
46:15
Speaker 1: it was a mistake. It was fine, you know. And
46:17
Speaker 1: when we gave him a knife for his boy Scouts,
46:20
Speaker 1: like the first time he's using his knife, he cut
46:22
Speaker 1: himself right, there's blood everywhere and he's crying. I'll never
46:25
Speaker 1: use a knife again. And I, you know, just way
46:27
Speaker 1: over that, it's like, look, mistakes happened. So I think
46:29
Speaker 1: the hardest thing for me is balancing him being harder
46:34
Speaker 1: on himself than us being on him. And that's really
46:36
Speaker 1: hard to figure out.
46:37
Speaker 2: Yeah.
46:38
Speaker 3: Great, if you could spend an hour with your son
46:40
Speaker 3: at any age at all, what age would you pick
46:43
Speaker 3: and why?
46:45
Speaker 1: Well, this is probably a cop out, but I would
46:47
Speaker 1: pick right now. I honestly would. And part of it
46:50
Speaker 1: is he's ten. I mean maybe when he's sixteen or eighteen,
46:52
Speaker 1: it'll be different. But he's really fun to be around
46:55
Speaker 1: right now. He's starting to think more deeply. He loves
46:58
Speaker 1: he's very inquisitive. He loves creatures, animals, and you know,
47:03
Speaker 1: I don't want to go back to the you know,
47:05
Speaker 1: the diaper days and the early days of no sleep
47:08
Speaker 1: when he was a baby, but these are really good days.
47:10
Speaker 4: I would take an hour with him right now, all
47:12
Speaker 4: day long, no.
47:13
Speaker 3: Matter how good life has been, justin and how glad
47:15
Speaker 3: you are to be in the moment right now, what
47:17
Speaker 3: are you most looking forward to as a dad.
47:20
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to seeing my son evolve and doing
47:26
Speaker 1: more fun things with him as he becomes more independent.
47:30
Speaker 1: You know, I'm nervous about the future, of course, but
47:33
Speaker 1: I think that every year has been better than the last,
47:36
Speaker 1: and so I'm really excited for seeing his independence and
47:40
Speaker 1: his growth and his learning and seeing him interact with others,
47:45
Speaker 1: and so maybe moving beyond sort of us as parents
47:47
Speaker 1: and finding his peer group and doing fun things with them.
47:52
Speaker 3: If you could go back to Justin Patchen as a
47:53
Speaker 3: young dad having one of those tough moments with literally
47:57
Speaker 3: no experience at this parenting thing at all, what advice
48:01
Speaker 3: would you give yourself.
48:03
Speaker 1: I think I would tell myself that not to get
48:06
Speaker 1: too worked up about it. And it's it's you know,
48:09
Speaker 1: when I look back on the kind of challenges I've faced,
48:12
Speaker 1: they're probably I've been really lucky and blessed and fortunate
48:15
Speaker 1: because I.
48:16
Speaker 4: Haven't been to the emergency room with my son yet.
48:19
Speaker 4: You know, I haven't.
48:19
Speaker 1: There hasn't been any really serious problems. There's been challenges,
48:23
Speaker 1: of course, but I think I would tell myself, chill out, it's.
48:27
Speaker 4: No big deal.
48:27
Speaker 1: You're going to get through this, and I hope I
48:29
Speaker 1: can tell myself that in a couple of years in
48:31
Speaker 1: the future when other things happen.
48:35
Speaker 3: Well, Justin I've just thoroughly enjoyed this conversation. I wish
48:37
Speaker 3: we could keep on talking. If people want to find
48:39
Speaker 3: out more about you and the work that you do
48:42
Speaker 3: and how to keep their children safe online, what's the
48:44
Speaker 3: best thing that they can do well.
48:46
Speaker 1: Our website is Cyberbullying dot org, and that's where we've
48:49
Speaker 1: got all this stuff about cyberbullying, sexting, social media. You can,
48:53
Speaker 1: you know, look more about me kind of professionally and
48:56
Speaker 1: personally at Justinpatchen dot com, but cyberly is definitely.
49:00
Speaker 4: Where it's at.
49:01
Speaker 1: We have a blog where we comment on things, usually
49:04
Speaker 1: about every other week or so, so a lot of
49:07
Speaker 1: free information for you to figure out how to navigate
49:09
Speaker 1: all these online challenges.
49:11
Speaker 3: Justin Patchen, it has just been a great conversation. Thank
49:15
Speaker 3: you so much for your time and sharing your insights
49:17
Speaker 3: and wisdom and experiences with us.
49:19
Speaker 4: I appreciate the opportunity. This is a great conversation.
49:23
Speaker 3: We've discussed some really confronting but important topics on the
49:26
Speaker 3: podcast today, and I hope that you'll be able to
49:28
Speaker 3: take some of doctor Justin Patchin's insight and put it
49:32
Speaker 3: into practice with your own children. And you can also
49:34
Speaker 3: find all of doctor Justin Patchen's books available at Cyberbullying
49:38
Speaker 3: dot org.
49:39
Speaker 2: Well, thank you again for being part of the Parenting
49:41
Speaker 2: in Perspective podcast.
49:43
Speaker 3: I'd love for you to join me doctor Justin Coulson
49:46
Speaker 3: next time as I talk with the award winning children's
49:49
Speaker 3: author mem Fox about her experiences growing up, her parenting journey,
49:54
Speaker 3: and of course her work writing some of our children's
49:57
Speaker 3: favorite books.
49:58
Speaker 5: The books comes from my they don't really come from
50:01
Speaker 5: my brain. If they were coming from my brain, I
50:06
Speaker 5: would probably say, yes, I want to get this lesson out.
50:10
Speaker 5: But it's because I think because of my love of
50:12
Speaker 5: humanity and I just want warmth them in the world.
50:15
Speaker 4: I just want kindness.
50:17
Speaker 3: That's author Mem Fox. She's my next guest on the
50:20
Speaker 3: Parenting in Perspective podcast. If you've enjoyed the podcast, could
50:23
Speaker 3: I ask one thing before we run? Could you jump
50:26
Speaker 3: into Apple Podcasts and leave a rating and a review
50:30
Speaker 3: of the podcast. This is how people get to find
50:32
Speaker 3: the podcast. They get to hear all these great conversations
50:35
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50:38
Speaker 3: review that came through just in the last week or
50:40
Speaker 3: two from Size account. The title of the review is
50:44
Speaker 3: life changing. It's a five star review. Thank you so
50:46
Speaker 3: much for that. Here's what it says. Since doctor Justin
50:49
Speaker 3: Colson has entered our parenting life, things have changed for
50:52
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50:53
Speaker 2: The podcasts may.
50:54
Speaker 3: Be short, sweet, and at times hilarious, but wow, they're
50:57
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50:59
Speaker 3: husband and my parent our four children. Thank you, doctor Colson,
51:02
Speaker 3: your advice has made such a positive difference to our
51:04
Speaker 3: family life. From Merrilees and that's a five star review.
51:08
Speaker 3: It's those five star reviews. I don't need to know
51:11
Speaker 3: about the word on two star reviews, please don't leave them.
51:13
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51:15
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51:17
Speaker 3: The podcast, please leave those five star reviews and help
51:21
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51:23
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51:26
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51:27
Speaker 4: Be.
51:27
Speaker 2: So very grateful for that.
51:29
Speaker 3: Additionally, if you'd like more information about how you can
51:32
Speaker 3: get up close and personal with me and how I
51:34
Speaker 3: can really be that parenting.
51:35
Speaker 2: Expert in your pocket.
51:36
Speaker 3: We have Happy Families memberships available on a month to
51:39
Speaker 3: month basis for as little as twelve dollars per month,
51:42
Speaker 3: or if you pay up front for a year as
51:44
Speaker 3: little as ten dollars a month. It's so so valuable
51:47
Speaker 3: and so cheap. If you would like more information, visit
51:51
Speaker 3: happyfamilies dot com dot au. Okay, well that is really
51:55
Speaker 3: everything for the podcast.
51:56
Speaker 2: Now.
51:56
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for listening to the Parenting in
51:59
Speaker 3: Perspective podcast, a Happy Families podcast from Happy Families dot
52:03
Speaker 3: com dot Au. And a very quick thanks to Justin
52:06
Speaker 3: Rulan for making the podcast sound great