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A Child Psychologist on Failure, Phones & Predators · The Parent Tap

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to the Parent Tap.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: This is the show where we skip the fluff, skip the useless advice, and build actual blueprints for busy, stressed-out parents who want to protect their homes.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: We are tracking right along with our season on the real everyday threats facing our kids.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Last time, we broke down why your teenagers completely lose their minds when you take their phones away.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Today, we're putting the spotlight on the stuff that happens when the house goes to sleep and the traps we fall into as parents when we try to shield our kids from the real world.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: We're back with child psychologist and mama for Dr.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Ashley Pokler.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Ashley, welcome back.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: You work with a lot of schools and you said that teenagers just aren't as tough or resilient as they used to be.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Why are kids suddenly breaking down over normal everyday stress?
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think it's a sudden thing.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's slowly been happening.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: My take on it and kind of what I've observed is that we had the helicopter parents and the tiger parents and those kind of movements of parents protecting their children from hurt feelings, protecting their children from sadness, from depression.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: The problem is if you're protecting young kids from all the hurts and all the pain and all the difficult feelings, then they're never learning how to navigate those hurts, those pains, those difficult feelings.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're keeping them from being sad or keeping them from being bored when they're young, then as they get older and they face normal sadness, normal boredom, the normal ups and downs of being a teenager and navigating friend groups, they haven't learned how to handle those feelings.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: So the feelings feel really big and really difficult, and they don't have the coping strategies that they should have learned as they grew with smaller situations and being gently supported by parents.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: Instead, parents were fixing it for them, bubble wrapping them, and then they fall down and they don't know how to get back up because they've never had to before.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so you've you've you mentioned that you've seen college freshmen like pack up come home because they just couldn't handle that real world.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: So how do we as parents, you know, let kids fail safely, you know, while they're still young so that they don't get to that stage and they're not sure how to like cope with the world?
• 2:15
  unknown: Yeah.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: Let them fail early.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: Have them do things that go beyond their capacity.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: I think a lot of times as parents, we want them to succeed.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: So we only set them up for success and we only let them lean into things that we know that they'll be able to do and be able to do well.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: And as soon as they don't do good, we let them quit, or we pull them out of that activity, or we push them in a different direction.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: So as parents, it's really up to us to create situations where the cost of failure isn't too big, but it's big enough to sting a little and then to help them learn to navigate that.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you hear a lot of people of my generation and older talk about the problem with participation trophies.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: And it does kind of boil down to that.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: If you still get a trophy and your team was awful, then you're not learning what it feels like to be the ones that don't get that don't get a trophy.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: You don't know what it means to lose if there's never a consequence for losing.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: So as parents to build resilient kids, resilience only happens in the face of adversity.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: So if our child never faces adversity, they're never going to become resilient.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: Growth is painful.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: If we're not gonna let them feel pain, they're never going to grow.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: So it's really up to us as parents, when our kids are young, to let them fail, to build situations where they're not gonna figure it out.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: They're gonna have to ask for help.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: They're not gonna win every game.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you see parents letting their kids win every card game, cheat to win Candyland.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: And at in the moment it feels easier.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, let them win.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: They'll be happy.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: But if they win every time, they're not gonna know how to handle themselves when they lose.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm such a competitor.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I win, I try to win everything, and I don't care.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like, uh, I don't care if it hurts my kids' feelings or whatnot.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I know that, like uh, you know, my my particular situation with my kid too, like four-year-old neurodivergent.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: She woke up this morning just screaming at us, just like, oh, don't look at me, like that kind of thing.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like, she just will go off.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I know that sometimes in those moments I am tempted to be like, okay, hon, you win, or these are the rules, and you know, whatever, like just give in.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: But but again, I don't want to get to that stage where it's like the real world is just this, you know, they're jumping into a pool that's freezing and they're just like they don't know how to handle that shock of everything.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so I know that I'm doing them a disservice by by by kind of just giving in and and playing it easy in the moment, but I know in the long run it's it's doing them a disservice.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so I love how you put that because that really kind of helps me and probably the viewers out there realize that, like, okay, this is how we should be raising our kids, this is how we should be approaching it because the real world is not gonna let them win.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: The real world's not gonna roll over and be like, okay, you're special.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the real world doesn't give a damn about any of us, I feel like.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: So it's just like, you know, kind of just giving them those hard lessons as they're younger might be their best approach, it sounds like.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and the reality is it doesn't have to be every time.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like you can still let them win sometimes.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: You can have a day where you're tired and you don't want to deal with it, and it's easier to just do something for them.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: That's fine.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's not a all or nothing.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: It like it's just a there has to be a blend a little bit into both sides.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's funny because as I was talking, it made me think of one of the interventions that I do with kids in therapy, is we play games, we play Uno, and the whole point of it, besides getting them comfortable talking, is to build frustration tolerance.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: I purposely try to win and then to help them work through their feeling of frustration when they're losing.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's awesome.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: I love how you model that.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, that's that's one thing honestly I could probably use because I am the worst like loser.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: I I try to win everything.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: I just did a half marathon this weekend and I was quite pissed that 20-year-olds were way ahead of me.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: And like it's like this, like, what what was I expecting?
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Was I really like legit expecting to get first?
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like, yes, I was as a 40-year-old man.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: I was expecting to beat these 20-year-olds, but then when you see it in action, I'm like, holy shit, like there's no way I'm gonna, you know, be able to catch up with that.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: But that's the world showing me that, like, hey, that's reality.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, like you're not gonna always win.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, some people train better.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of people are in better shape than you and whatnot.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: Better athletes have been doing this their whole life.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that that's the those are strong lessons, you know, to give our kids.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: And like you said, the consistency like doesn't have to be 100%.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, sometimes it's like, oh, I have a headache, or you know, like last week when I got laid off, it was like, I don't, you know, I'm not gonna like be the best parent that day, you know, I was just like crying and just like completely like lost with myself.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's real though.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like we're not as parents, you know, and your mom before, we're not always gonna be like in the best head space or the best, like, you know, energy-wise or whatever to kind of handle what's going on.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: So sometimes it is like I I throw this on the back burder, if you will, like, you know, like, you know, like you can have this one today because I'm just like things have gone horribly.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I'll handle this tomorrow and I'll work back more on the consistency phase because it's just really hard to be 100% consistent because life is constantly throwing us different stuff.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's at least my experience with stuff.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: And again, citing back to my child, my kids waking up this morning, both having a meltdown, both screaming at us.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: My daughter was saying, Oh, I want a brother, or I don't want a brother, I want a sister, you know.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, that's super rude, you know what I mean?
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, first of all, it's not happening, you know.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: Dad's 40, you know, and uh, you know, your brother is he is what he is, you know.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: We can't change that.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: So like it's just like some things are like when you when I'm going through that, it's like, okay, let's just get him off to school and I'll handle this stuff later.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because right now, like, this is this is too much to handle.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: I don't, I don't even know like how to, you know, kind of argue that that that statement of that.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, right.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's like it's so irrational.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, I honey, I'm sorry.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I I didn't get to select if he was a boy or you know, or a girl.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, my wife was kind of devastated at the moment because she really wanted a girl, you know, and again, again, because we had all this stuff, and it was like we did this big reveal at Disneyland, and we had her sisters like give like uh order a cupcake for us, right?
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: It was either gonna be blue or pink to to like know what it was, and it was blue, and I'm like, oh, I think their sisters messed up.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I think you know, like I was like, we were like both thinking it was a girl for sure.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyways, that was just kind of like the irony of it is like now she's like she's mad about it, and it's like, well, we we kind of were hoping you were a girl, but you know, that's not the way it works.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: So uh, anyways, Ash, I wanted to get into the anti-trafficking space because I know that you mentioned this last time.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you do great work at the foundation, and I don't know if you want to mention this too, you know, as I asked the question about all the work that you do and the the websites and the free guides for the parents, but so what's happening on these smartphones in the middle of the night when parents are asleep?
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so kids are kids are in all of the different uh online forums.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: So they're they're on Instagram, they're in Snapchat, they're playing Roblox and then going off to a discard Discord server to talk to people.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: And the nighttime kids being on their devices after like 10-ish PM, that is a huge like green flag waving for predators because it's a good indicator that these kids are not being as monitored as maybe some other kids are because they're on their phones, they're in online forums, in spaces where they're openly chatting to strangers at night, late at night when parents are probably asleep.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: So that is like open door policy basically for predators saying, hey, this this kid at least has one vulnerability because they're allowed free access to devices later at night.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then they start to engage with that child, pretending to be somebody, or just being a stranger if the child doesn't have a whole lot of privacy settings, and they start to search for other vulnerabilities and start to exploit those other vulnerabilities.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so they're looking for kids who don't really fit in, who lost some, like lost somebody that they love, moved, who's parentified so they're the parent of their siblings, or they they play that parental role, or who doesn't feel seen or heard or loved by their own parents or by their friends.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: And they're using those late-night conversations and late-night interactions to start to build a profile of is this teen or child worth engaging with further to try to then further exploit.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, that's incredibly scary.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: Even, you know, with kids my as young as mine are.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: Especially, you know, and I'm not sure the ages of your kids.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: Are they teens?
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: So mine are currently 12, 13, 14, and 15.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so yeah, they're they're preteen or in that teen space.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: And and so the data says that the average parent spends about 45 minutes talking to their kid about online safety in their entire life.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: That is it crazy.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna do that probably on this show today.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like that's that is mind-boggling to me, like 45 minutes in their whole life.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: So if if someone has a kid entering middle school right now, what's an actual effective conversation look like?
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: Leading with curiosity.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: You know, hey, I've I read some things online about all the stuff the the teenagers or the the middle schoolers do online.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: How do you how do you use uh your smartphone?
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: What what apps do you like?
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: Show me how to work this app.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: I heard something about Snapchat and I can't figure it out.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: Can you show me how to do it on yours?
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: Uh looking at articles, looking at uh online resources.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: There's so many resources out there that it almost becomes like a decision fatigue for parents as they're looking at them.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: But finding a resource that resonates with you as the parent, and then sitting down and asking your child, middle schooler, teenager what they think about it and and kind of exploring it from their perspective, not from a place of judgment, not from a place of I want to teach you this, but from a place of help me understand how you view it as a teen or as a preteen.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: And that kind of leading with curiosity tends to get more buy-in from the child.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you tend to get a more honest answer from them.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: And honestly, you get a lot more information from them than if you were coming in telling them how it is, hearing from them, asking them what their friends have experienced.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: Because what I find, for example, talking to ninth graders is the numbers that are like 20% of teens by the time that they're 14 get sent some sort of imagery that they don't want to see online.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: And talking to teens myself, it's way higher than that.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: But they just flip through it because it's so normal for them to see it online that they just push right past it.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: But it's it's there.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: They're just not even identifying it as a problem because it's so normalized for them.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: So being able to have those conversations with them about what normal looks like for them and schooling your own thoughts and your own expressions so that again, they don't feel judge.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: It just feels like a conversation of them teaching the parent uh seems to be the one of the best ways to have those conversations, especially if you start them early and young, because then it's just how you talk about online spaces.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that I have found that to be most helpful.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's how I tend to run therapy sessions with teenagers as well.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's actually so I created a program for Sentinel Foundation on foens and for parents about online safety.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: And it's multiple modules, it's the same information being shared either through videos, through documents, through activities, but the parent version has talking points.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: So, how do you have this conversation with your child?
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: You read the same information or you watched the same video, you did a similar activity, how do you talk about it?
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I really built it off of that idea of leading with curiosity.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: I co-wrote it with my 15-year-old daughter.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I kept on checking with her to make sure that the materials I was providing that I sounded like the cool aunt and not the parent lecturing to ensure that it had that feel that I was looking for, that I know teens resonate more with that feeling of, okay, here's some information.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: What does it mean to you?
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: How do you apply it to your life?
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: Not just read this and and put this privacy setting in, but more what settings do you already have?
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: What do you already know about it?
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: And would you like to know more kind of thing?
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, that's great.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a great resource.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll definitely link that in the description.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, because you do great work with law enforcement and actively protecting kids in the trafficking and online safety space.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so you mentioned last time the Bark phone.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so I did a little bit more research on that myself, signed up, have the affiliate, and tried to get some Bark people on the, on the on the show as well.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: But like when a parent gets an alert about a weird text or someone, you know, love bombing their kids, so how do you handle that with making that without making them like shut down, feel ashamed?
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: And is there anything else beyond Bark that you think is like a great tool parents should be, you know, kind of utilizing with their own teens?
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: So in terms of how to talk about it, similar to the answer to the last question, lead with curiosity, lead with just, hey, I got an alert.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: You want to take a guess as to uh what alert I got?
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: Like my kids, it's almost a game now.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: They'll be like, Did you get an alert because so-and-so said this and I thought it was gonna go off?
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: Or it's funny because like I'll send them something that sends off an alert because you know, like I have a migraine and I need some medicine, or can mommy's gonna go buy some wine and it's like alert, alcohol.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's like it becomes kind of a joke of even I'm setting off the alert.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: So keeping it just open and playful and and leading with again curiosity seems to be the best approach, especially when it's genuine.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's not like I'm faking curiosity when I can come at it honestly.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: I personally like Bark Best.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's the most well-rounded, but a big one, a big thing that parents can do is not allowing devices in their kids' room at night.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: Sounds really easy, but once kids get used to it, it's really hard to take the device back.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: They uh they listen to it for nighttime music, they use it for homework.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: They it's very hard for them to separate it.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: So for again, most of this stuff, if you can start it early, it's way easier than having to walk backwards.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: But no devices in the room at night or turning off all of the apps and things like that.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: I think Bark's not the only one that can do that.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: There are others that you can get in and limit how long people can be on on certain apps or limit uh access to different apps.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um but you know, and it's not just phones, it's iPads and computers and all of those things.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: I think the biggest thing that we do as parents that's a problem is we assume that once we set safety measures once that they stay when the phone updates, some of those go away.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: When different apps update, some of those go away, your child can go in and change the purposely or not.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_01: Uh school computers are not nearly as protected and safe as parents assume they are.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so being a being a consumer that is informed and that knows how to set the proper privacy settings is huge.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love that.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: So re-auditing um our situation or even out school, like you said, it's not this 100% effective uh, you know, like safety net because I, you know, I was a teacher as well.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: And and so like I know that in my background of like kids would stumble upon stuff on accident, completely accident.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: I worked third graders, completely accident, but it's like uh shoot, like you know, there's stuff out there that if you if you you know Google a certain thing or look up a certain app or whatever, like you're gonna see something that's inappropriate.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so I love I love how you said that.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: And then also, so like when you when you act surprised, like did did you know, like, oh, I got an alert, and you know, like, oh, I'm you know, surprised.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like, are you kind of like acting as a parent?
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: Because like internally, I feel like I'd be kind of annoyed or upset if I got some sort of suspicious notification, you know what I mean?
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like I know my kids kind of going the wrong path.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't know if it's like if it matters if it's incidental or you know, on purpose or whatever, but uh I mean, are you do you feel like you're kind of acting on that?
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but I mean, I mean, how do you handle that as a parent?
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because I feel like some of the some of it is acting being a parent, you know, like sometimes we have to act happy when we're not or or act like, you know, like I don't know.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: How do you can you just describe that more for me?
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: Because I don't know how I'm phrasing this right.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: So uh for example, there was one that I didn't expect.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um my son had all of a sudden had like eight alerts from his, and it was all like drug names and like weird stuff.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: And that one was hard for me to act like not bothered as much.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like it was hard to lead with curiosity and not like, what the were you doing?
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: And so yeah, it turns out it turns out he was Googling and Gemini had just been added to the to the phone, and so it was all of the search results for a question he had asked.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so he's like, I don't, I don't know what you're talking about.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I was frustrated and probably came at him harder than I needed to or should have in that moment, but because it had been something that we had already discussed in terms of I get, you know, I get these these results, you know, I get these alerts.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: So he knows that I I ask about the alerts all the time.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: So when it was an alert that was actually really concerning and that I was a little harsher about, it didn't break down our entire relationship.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't have to like build rapport back with him to have that conversation.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: He was a little taken aback and really confused because he had no idea what he had done to get those responses.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: But had it been something that he did know, he would have been prepared for me to ask because I ask all the time.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: So once it becomes just part of part of how we do things, it's not a surprise for me to say, I got a weird alert.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: What were you looking up?
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: And that has become the the question now.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: Now that I knew what it was and we had that conversation, now it's like, geez, what were you looking up on Google?
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: Because you got some weird responses coming through.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: And they and they know that I'm asking.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: And like my my older daughter does a lot of, she likes YouTube, and she's like right on the edge, she's older.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: So some of the stuff that she watches is like right on the edge.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll be like, I got alerts for a lot of sexually inappropriate things.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: Can you show me some of the YouTube videos that you were watching?
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: And like, can we talk through them?
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so, and it gives me the the YouTube links, so then I can see from her if she's showing me everything or if she's showing me just what she wants me to see, and then that becomes another conversation.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's that's great insight, and that's that that's a great tool to have and be able to sort of you know assess how well you're or how open and honest your kid's being with you because you kind of have all the information.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's almost like I, you know, if my Wife, when she asks me if I did something, like she knows the answer, right?
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm not gonna bullshit her.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm just gonna be like, Yeah, Lenny, this is exactly what happened.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: If I leave something out, she knows, right?
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's it's like it's it's kind of like funny, like how the wives always kind of know what's going on in the husband's life.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, and I wanted to also mention, because you mentioned the tools for more of the teens, but I was gonna get into like, or just briefly mentioned for the littles, you know, I have a two and a five-year-old.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I use Tony's a lot, which is like it plays, you know, music without having an app or anything like that, where there's little animals you put on the little music box and it can play a story or a song.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: So those are good for like bedtime things.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: And also we have like uh we have Sono speakers, and so we can we can use our own apps to put on the music or you know, the the soundscapes or the the the bedtime stories for our kids.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: So they don't have the app that or the phone or the device or whatever.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I know it's only two and five, so they probably wouldn't, you know, be getting into too much trouble at that age, but still it's something that again, they don't have those devices in their in their possession, but they're also getting, you know, they're still getting the music, they're still getting the soundscapes, whatever they need to kind of fall asleep and and have that peaceful rest.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I just wanted to throw that out there for parents that are a little bit younger, you know, that that that maybe like maybe that the teen stuff doesn't resonate as well.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's something that I personally could recommend.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to get into so like you trained police officers on this stuff, right?
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, what's the one thing cops wish every single mom and dad in America understood about internet safety before they ever, you know, kind of handed their kid a smartphone?
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh most of the cops that I talk to that are in that like ICAC internet crimes against children's space, they'd rather teens not have access to all of the social media type stuff.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um and for those who do, they want the parents to be aware of of what their kids are doing.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: More often than not, the parents have no idea of what their child is doing on their phones.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: They're they're completely blown away and surprised once all of this is brought to their attention because again, parents don't know what they don't know.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_01: And this online space is not what we grew up with.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: I grew up right at the start of the like chat rooms where it's like age, sex, location, and it's that times like a million.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I used to go and sneak and hide and pretend like I was older.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I think to myself, if I had lived in today's world, I would have been a victim for sure.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: Cause I was all of those vulnerabilities and I had close to it at my fingertips, but the predators hadn't quite figured out how to utilize it.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: But now there's just so many opportunities.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: And parents, again, they don't know what they don't know.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: They don't know what they should even be protecting their child from.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: And they think that having that 40-minute conversations of don't talk to strangers, don't friend people you don't know, and don't tell people where you live is enough to protect their child.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just, it's not anymore.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: That's not enough because these predators pretend to be friends of friends and pretend to be their age or their demographic.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so stranger danger looks different online than it than it used to look for us growing up in like the 80s and early 90s.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm from the ASL age too.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, I mean, that was those are the the the days where you could like you know just chat with everybody, and it didn't feel like there was any imminent dangers at all.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: It was just people being friendly and like you could talk to anybody in America and then be, you know, be whomever you want into, because like you didn't, I don't people were ever honest with the ASL stuff anyways.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, now it's just like the game has changed completely and you know, like predators are evolving and getting better, which is which is awful because it's like, you know, it's like we almost have to be re um re you know, evolving with them to kind of catch this and and to make sure that we're they're not like kind of getting past some of this stuff that we're throwing out there.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, you mentioned that 45-minute talk with our kids, like, you know, like let's say they they stumble upon something that's completely awful, like pornography or you know, something that's a little bit even worse than that.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: That that's online, right?
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like there's there's awful, awful stuff that that people can see.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like, let's say like an 11, 12-year-old is is in that.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how do you have that talk?
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I know you want to be open and honest, and you you, like you said, come in at with a curiosity, but you know, how do you like kind of stop that without like scaring them or you know, kind of making it weird?
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think that like some of these taboo topics.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: I know my my my wife, for instance, will will will, you know, she she told our daughter, you know, like the names of her private parts, right?
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's like she wants us to be, she wants her to be able to tell us if somebody, you know, looks at her or touches, you know, in those places, right?
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: And that's like I get that, but for me, it's like this super awkward thing where it's like, I don't know, it's like that, like I don't even want to go there because that's such a hard like concept for me to even like get around my head of like, oh my god, this is something that's needed in this day and age.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't know, like I if that makes sense, but like how do you like have these really, really, really tough conversations with your kids?
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I know you want to come in at with you know curiosity and openness, but have you experienced something like this?
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: And you don't have to get super detailed, but like with your own kids where they've really just stumbled upon something like super inappropriate and and how you kind of approach that.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, one that I didn't handle well.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: So because of what I do, my kids actually know a lot because they hear me talking about it a lot.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but even then, I still, I still things happen that I thought I had more time to tell my kids about before they stumbled on it.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: So, for example, my son, it was about a year ago.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: So he was 11.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: He was sitting at the table, we're all sitting down for dinner, and he had his headphones on.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, bud, headphones off.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: And he like took the headphones off.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: And my husband asked, What were you listening to?
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: And he goes, A podcast.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, which one?
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: And he goes, nothing, and like kind of like moved it away.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, hmm.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: And it wasn't on the phone, it was on his computer, so I wasn't getting bark alerts for for it.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_01: And his just the way he said nothing was enough that I was like, there's something going on here.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: And my husband grabbed it and looked at it, and it was a podcast that was titled Santa Claus is coming, spelled C U N and So Are We, the Stiff Sock Edition.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: And my husband and I were both like, whoa.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I should have, I should have like stopped the conversation there and like told him we'd talk about it later because we're at the dinner table with all of siblings, all his three older sisters.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: But that like shock, I addressed it right then and there.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, buddy, do you do you know what that means?
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_01: And the girls are like, What?
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: What what means?
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so I I'm all for doing it, having that honest conversation.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_01: I would definitely recommend that, but I would recommend doing it one-on-one and not in front of the whole family.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_01: But we once he calmed down because he was embarrassed and he like ran upstairs.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_01: So I had to wait till he calmed down some and kind of explored, like, who told you about this?
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_01: And and he's like, I listened to it before.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so again, that's where that leading with curiosity came from of like, tell me more.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: How'd you come across this?
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: How'd you find it?
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: What did you like about it?
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what kind of resonated with you with it?
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: And what questions do you have after listening to it?
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: Because it sounds like it's some things that are more grown-up humor.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's what he liked about it was it felt like the cool guys, like dad and his friends joking around.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_01: And he knew some things were funny, but also didn't understand some things.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_01: So then it's what did he hear that's beyond what he should have heard?
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: And what questions does he have arising from that now that I'm gonna have to address because he heard more than an 11-year-old should have heard in the moment.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate that example and and kind of the real world aspect of it.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: And even, you know, a doctor, a clinical psychologist, sometimes, you know, I think it's, you know, the vulnerability and just admitting that maybe you didn't handle it in the best in the best way.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that too, as a parent, too, there's real realness to that authenticity.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of these shows, a lot of these podcasts I listen to, it's like they're just gonna tell you, like, oh, I did it this way, and it worked perfectly and beautifully, and life was awesome.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, that's not how it goes.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's not how being a parent is.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's like sometimes we we we don't really handle things the best.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: But I think what you like you giving us that example is like telling us, okay, if if we were to get in that same situation, this is how we would do it a little bit differently to make sure that you know, we're not gonna kind of have that awkwardness with, you know, especially with the kids like you know, your younger kids that are like, oh, what they would have no idea what that means, right?
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, even even your older kids seemed like you didn't know what that means.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: So that's a good thing.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: But it's also like, yeah, I mean, you gotta, you gotta handle it, right?
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: So Dr.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: So Dr.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: Ashley Poe clerk, thank you so much for coming back on and giving us the raw truth without all the textbook, medical garbage, your expertise to kind of help us navigate these, these, these mighty waters.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, even if it's, you know, things are gonna change so fast in this technology technological world, and it's like what works now might not work in you know six months or a year from now.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like I feel like we kind of need to constantly do this this own you know audit and assessment of our own safeguards and our own approaches to how we're you know managing our kids.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_01: We haven't even got into all of the AI stuff, so there's a whole other world.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, sorry.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_01: But but the uh the program or the project you were talking about is I call it 21st century Sentinels program.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's this idea that teens and preteens and teens and parents can become 21st century sentinels.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: They can protect themselves and their peers and their children and their children's friends.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um again, it's a mirrored program.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: So the information that the teens are getting is the same information the parents are seeing.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: So as a parent, you're seeing what your teen sees, but it's directed towards you, whereas theirs is directed towards teens.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_01: So similar activities, but not always the same from module to module.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: And then the parent side has those talking points.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: How do you talk to your child about this?
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: How do you lead with curiosity?
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_01: What are the the what's the language you should use?
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_01: Because when when I was looking online, um, because I was originally just gonna pull a bunch of stuff that's already there and just say, here's a resource page.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_01: But what I found is there's a lot of things out there that tell you to talk to your child, but nothing tells you what to say or how to talk to your child.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: It just says, talk to your child.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_01: And if we knew how to do that effectively, we wouldn't have to be looking for all of these things.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um so it's it really looks at how do you build that relationship, how do you have those conversations?
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_01: There's a vulnerability quiz that the teen takes and that you as the parent can take.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_01: And that one is really interesting because again, I do this for a living and my child still had a different vulnerability score than what I gave them.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: So it opened conversations that never would have happened otherwise.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the whole point of it, to open the conversations and to build that curiosity and to hopefully give people skills and strategies to protect themselves and others and to know what to do if something goes wrong.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a lot of information about who do you go to if your child comes across something or if your child shares a nude image and then tells you afterwards, like, what do you do?
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_01: The this this program really helps you with that.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm really proud of it and excited to offer it.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's currently still free.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_01: So it's at our website, foundation sentinel.org, and it's on the training tab.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: So please feel free to use it.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm in there in the background answering questions and providing feedback as well.