The Basics
Parenting is hard. Be kind to yourself.
Here’s the bad news –
Sexual predators, online scam artists, traffickers are equal-opportunity. It makes no difference where you live, how much money you have, which schools your child attends, or how innocent you believe your children to be. A predator’s goal is to successfully reach the easiest targets. Our job is to make their access as difficult as possible.
Knowing that…
Here’s the good news –
There is a TON that parents, kids, schools, and communities can do to significantly decrease the likelihood of being targeted on digital platforms. Even small changes to the how/where/when you and your children use digital tools can make a very large impact on your overall safety. (Remember – this includes Mom and Dad making changes.)
IMPORTANT: Making changes to digital habits INCLUDES Mom and Dad. If you’re constantly projectile vomiting your ‘humble brags’ about your child, your stuff, and your life on an open forum – it might not end well. Plus nobody cares. Oh, and, stop posting about your kids on *your* social media without asking them first – they hate that. And they’re right.
Resources for Parents
Share This with your Kids: signs that Your online “friend” is probably a predator (aka creepy guy in the basement)
- The person uses dating language almost immediately – even with very young elementary aged kids.
Wants to take you out, fantasies about taking “you away”
Compliments begin right away – the predator has never met anyone as: cool, amazing, pretty, artistic, athletic as you - Wants to move the conversation OFF the original social media or gaming platform to SMS, WhatsApp, Discord, Telegram etc. Also has the added benefit of separating you from your friends and usual community
Anyone who wants to separate you from people who love you – doesn’t care about you. - You’ve never met this person IRL
Which means that you literally have no idea what the truth is.
It could be a man pretending to be a woman, a woman pretending to be a man, a grown-up pretending to be a kid, a kid pretending to be a grown-up. You have no idea. - Tries to scare or force you to do things that you feel uncomfortable with – or know your parents wouldn’t like
Sends you inappropriate links via DM or Chat
Offers to send you gifts – money, gift cards, etc – and tells you to lie to your parents about their source
Tells you to do what he/she says “or else” - During videochats/facetime predator’s face is partially shielded from the camera- covers face with hair or hoodie and always has an excuse for why they can’t get on camera
ie claims that he/she has a scar they’re embarrassed by or some other reason can’t show face
background of their room is dark and can’t be completely seen
looks older than originally claimed
TIP: Focus on the person’s hands (hands don’t shield age well) - SUPER IMPORTANT – none of these things are *your fault*. You didn’t ask for anyone to be inappropriate with you, you didn’t do anything to ‘deserve’ being treated this way, you’re not stupid for falling for the lie. You’re the victim. These people are professional scam artists and they know exactly what to do and say.
Prevention Tips – for Parents
- No phones under 13yo
- No social media under 13yo – COPPA federal guideline – Children’s Online Privacy and Protection Act – says that children under 13yo are not allowed to have any social media accounts.
- Physically take phones and tablets away at night. Impact of reducing the amount of time your child spends on devices…Improves mental health outcomes. Studies show higher device time equals higher rates of depression, anxiety – etc. Particularly true of social media use. NOTE: Gaming is infinitely better for your child than social media.Forcing child to focus on in-person pursuits – reduces likelihood that child will become dependent on an online predator. This is especially true for children who feel marginalized – ie don’t have a ‘posse’ at school, feel unaccepted for whatever reason.
- Parents, put YOUR phone down, and spend more time with your kids. Your children want to spend more time with you.
Practice what you preach. If you want children to listen to you when you’re talking, then put YOUR phone down and listen to them. They’re trying to talk to you. - Have real conversations with your children. This generation has more pressure (emotional, academic, sexual, financial) than any generation in history. They’re trying to navigate and survive issues that we never had as kids. Talking to them as though they’re infants – isn’t going to help.These sex-related conversations are difficult to have at first. But if you do it constantly it will lose its sting. And your children are going to be way more likely to come to you for help when the time comes.
- Data privacy
DO NOT post about your children on YOUR social media without your child’s permission. You may be embarrassing them publicly.Videos and photos of your young children seem harmless and adorable to you – pedophiles see your children as sexual objects. Set all sm accounts to PRIVATE. Do not share content with the public. You’re making it easier for your children to be targeted. Plus, nobody cares what you had for dinner. None of us are that important – get over yourself. - Logistical Tools for Parents
Ring doorbell
Make sure school has a ‘white-list’ of who can pick up your child at school without your permission
Use mobile carrier tools to review which phone numbers are communicating with your child most often. Set up alerts
To learn more about the impact of devices on mental health:
- Listen to Season 1: Episode 7 Kids, Mental Health, & Devices : increased device time equals diminished mental health
- Download the cheat sheet
- Jean Twenge website
- Monitoring the Future Survey – website
- The UnLonely Project – website
Did you know the new age of onset of pornography consumption is EIGHT years old?
(FANS ONLY EPISODE) Listen to Season 01: Episode 03: Young kids are sexting and watching porn aka: Don’t dress up like a seal if you’re going surfing
Non-Fans – here is a summary of tips. Questions to ask yourself and your child….
□ Does your child have a smartphone? Was it given under 13?
□ Does your child have social media? Were the accounts created under 13?
□ Does your child have SC or TT
□ Have you gone through your child’s list of FOLLOWERS?
□ Do you personally know all of the FOLLOWERS? (Any followers you don’t know, need to go)
□ Are all of your child’s SM accounts set to private?
□ Does your child have multiple IG accounts?
□ Get a list of all your child’s social media logins and passwords. You should be able to login at any moment of
your choosing. If your child changes the password without telling you– they lose the phone
□ Have THE TALK with your child about sexting, sexual predation, etc and when you’re done – have the
conversation again. Wash. Rinse Repeat.
Resources for Schools
School administrators and educators should listen to the following episodes:
- Season 1: Episode 5 Part One: When Schools Overshare – COPPA Law and Your Child’s Privacy
- Season 1: Episode 6: Part Two: When Schools Overshare – A Principal’s Perspective
- COPPA Law – learn more about the FTC’s COPPA law here
- CIPA Law – learn more about the FCC’s CIPA law here. To learn more about this Internet Safety Podcast, internet safety and parenting, and more, go to the START HERE document where you can watch videos, download school resources, parent resources, and more.To learn more about joining the Big Mama’s House Fan Club go to www.Patreon.com/BigMamasHouse
Digital parenting can be overwhelming – it’s not just you.
If “Ecstatic Anticipation” were a perfume, it would be made up of equal parts: autumn leaves and school bus exhaust. Parents everywhere would wistfully dab a bit behind each ear in mid-July as their children stared aimlessly at a glowing screen. Despite our best intentions, in the absence of the structure of a school day, the summer months can be filled with high rates of digital device use.
Why less is better
Last year I presented to over 70,000 students and gathered millions of lines of self-reported student data. Here’s what I’ve found consistently (regardless of socio economics, geography, or school type):
- The age of onset of pornography consumption is 8 years old
- The age of onset of pornography addiction is 11 years old
- Sexting is beginning in the 4th grade (sexting = sending sexualized or “sexy” content via phone/web)
- Smartphone ownership begins as young as 2nd grade (7 years old)
There is no question that children who have unfettered, unsupervised access to web-enabled devices are multiplying their risk of being a victim and/or becoming a perpetrator of cyberbullying, sexting, sexual predation, and human sex trafficking – not to mention the absurd amount of pornography which is being consumed by extremely young children. The single thread which binds all of these risks together is access. Every single one of these risks requires access to the device in order to exist. Simply speaking: minimizing your child’s access minimizes their risk.
Changing any single habit or behavior can be tough – changing several can seem almost impossible. However, if you think just in terms of time and location, it will be far easier to cultivate and enforce healthier digital behaviors.
Time-based restrictions
No smartphones under 14 years old. In this case, the best place to begin is to not begin at all. A child under 14 years old has zero justification for owning a smartphone. (If there is a divorce situation – buy your child a flip phone.) Wherever you begin, your child will expect to expand on that starting point. If you bought an iPod Touch for your 8-year-old, the expectation to “upgrade” to a phone will come earlier rather than if the iPod Touch was gifted when the child turned 12 years old instead.
One-hour non-academic time per day. From that first day of school, the biggest difference in your child’s digital behavior comes from the reduced amount of time he has available to spend on devices. There are several studies suggesting that anything more than one hour of non-academic screen time per day increases your child’s digital risks. This solution also supports the idea of being mindful via proactive portion control versus reactively becoming a victim to the consequences.
Not on a school night. A great solution, especially for students in 6th grade and younger – no gaming or device use on school nights (Monday through Thursday). This is my favorite time-based solution mostly because it’s simple, super easy to enforce, travels easily with your child, and has fantastic outcomes.
Not before bed. Regardless of the day of the week or the person (this means you too dad) no one in your home should be using their phone, tablet, or laptop less than one hour before bedtime. The blue light waves given off by a backlit screen (versus a television) confuse your brain’s circadian rhythms into thinking it’s morning and it’s time to wake up. Additionally, this blue light can make a negative impact on the neural messages sent to your internal organs. If you look at your phone right before bed and you can’t sleep – that could be why.
Not after mom and dad have gone to bed. There comes a natural tipping point when children stay awake later than their parents. It’s very hard to keep an eye on what’s going on when, well, your eyes are closed. The easiest solution is to move the wifi/router into or near your bedroom and plug it into an outlet which has a timer. This way the power gets automatically shut off at X o’clock each night. The low tech solution? Yank the power cord out of the router as you head off to bed.
Location based restrictions
Not in the dead zone. Create dead zones for technology in your home – these are specific locations where devices are forbidden. Here are a few suggestions: all cell phones (including mom’s and dad’s) can travel through the kitchen but can never stop at the dinner table….no devices should ever be sitting or charging on a nightstand….there should be zero posting, texting, or web surfing during a family outing – especially while eating, etc.
Create a charging station. At X o’clock every evening all cell phones should be placed in a predetermined charging location. This includes your child’s friend’s phones if they’re sleeping at your home. Be sure to make it clear to their parents that this rule is non-negotiable.
Change the view. Make your children play outside! Studies show extended lengths of time engaged in immersive tech usage negatively impacts impulse control and anxiety. Conversely physical exertion and exercise increase blood flow to the brain which improves impulse control and lessens anxiety.
As parents, we’re expected to be infallible and omniscient – a tough combination. Mistakes and missed opportunities are inevitable. It happens to all of us. Going back to school in the fall is a natural time to re-engage. It might be hard, but don’t lose heart. You can do this. #BeFierceBeUnafraid.
Very often, I get questions from fans which I attempt to answer as quickly as they arrive.
Photo Credit: ooVoo.com
One of the page followers asked for more information on ooVoo…what follows is my response to Marie (thanks Marie for the great question). In the meantime, there’s a new arrival in the cootie community and it’s called Flinch (that review follows below after ooVoo).
Internet Safety Tips for Children & Teens: Big Mama Reviews: ooVoo
ooVoo is essentially a benign videoconferencing app/website. Think: Skype or Facetime. On its own merits there is nothing egregious here. HOWEVER: online gamers have made this their favorite way to see and communicate with each other live while they game. It’s popular among Minecrafters, etc.
Recently, ooVoo has added some other features in addition to the videoconferencing (see below).
What you need to know about ooVoo
- Sexual predators love ooVoo (for obvious reasons).
- Sexual predators can reach out to your child without knowing them in real life via the ooVoo directory. You only need 3 characters of a person’s ooVoo ID to see a list of similar usernames. Sexual predators will troll these and see if they can discern if the user is a child (most are).
- The app/website allows users to group text, group-watch YouTube videos (watch out for the massive amount of porn on YT), and they can also video record a video call (so can the OTHER person communicating with your child)
- Children under 13 are not allowed to setup an account – so they lie about their age – routinely.
- The site captures DOB, gender and other personal info.
- Users can mass-invite all of their Facebook & Twitter friends/followers, all of their Gmail email contacts, and Yahoo email contacts. This means that if they have friended, followed, or emailed people that they don’t know in real life – those same people will be invited to video connect with your child.
First an ooVoo story – are you sitting down?
OGeek fans who have seen my live presentation have heard this story. …
I was presenting to a large audience in NE Ohio, and this mom (to her credit) raised her hand and offered the following story….mom told us how every single day her son would rush off the school bus and snap on the tablet in order to play Minecraft. On this particular day mom got to the tablet before the son did, in order to look up a recipe for dinner. When she turned on the tablet she saw a live and naked man on the screen via ooVoo. This sexual predator was waiting for her son to get home, and she accidentally intercepted the communication.
Bottom line on ooVoo
- Children under 13 have no business using ANY of these apps, social media, or websites per COPPA Federal regulations, but more importantly because *Big Mama said so* ….that’s me 🙂
- The risks here are high – it requires parents needing to constantly be checking in on the child at the moment that he/she happens to be using the app. What makes it more difficult is the fact that if the child has an ooVoo account they can access it on almost ANY device. So you may not even know that he’s using it in the basement on the tablet rather than where you’re expecting him to use it like on the PC.
- Letting your child use this app adds a significant amount of work to YOUR life
- If your child is 13 or 14 I say NO. Well I would say ‘hell no’ – but that’s your call.
- If your child is 15 and up you need to make it clear that sexual predators are on the hunt for kids their age and will do whatever they can to get their hands on them. This is not an over exaggeration. If you don’t want to have that conversation or if they don’t believe you – then ‘no’ is a much easier solution.
The Barf Thickens.
Internet Safety Tips for Children & Teens: Big Mama Reviews: Flinch Game App
Photo Credit: Flinch Game: http://makemeflinch.com
If you’ve read the review above on ooVoo you can probably see why the app/website is a terrible idea for children. But do you know what would be even WORSE? If there were a game based on the ooVoo platform where users can open up a live stream with each other and play a live “game”, competing for example to see who cracks a smile first. Sounds cute. It’s not….and it’s called Flinch
Basically this is the equivalent of a staring contest with friends or strangers. Originally the app was created to be used for adults in a business setting due to its facial recognition. Six million individual games are played every single day and it’s growing by 98k users every single week. The software automatically determines the winner. (yeah so, creepy).
The big issue is that you are LIVE streaming with people you might know, and people you might NOT know. Sound familiar? The option to play with a friend, or randomized play is open to the user. You can’t black list or white list.
The app description in iTunes specifically states that you have to be at least 17 years old to download the app, which of course is being completely ignored by the legion of 11-15 year old’s using the app.
In the end though, Flinch is meant to be a game where you earn tokens in order to purchase in-game distractions so that you can win even more tokens. So we can reward these children (who are not meant to be playing the game in the first place) with points, and tokens, and higher rank. Zing-Pow-BARF
The rest is obvious:
- There is NO WAY that your child is NOT going to accidentally meet up with a sexual predator (see review below from a user)Your child can be victimized by cyberbullies they KNOW and those that they haven’t met yet
- Your child is literally opening up a live visual link into his/her bedroom and into your home
- One user can easily take a screenshot of the other user during the live stream
- The app was CREATED by the app developer for users over 17 years old. Did they really think that young adults and adults were going to spend time playing visual chicken by *smiling*?
Again, just to be clear – it’s not the app developers fault that there are sexual predators in the world who are going to jump all over this, and already have.
Here’s a review that was posted by a Flinch user on the iTunes page for the Flinch App
“This app was so great people wise and now basically the only people I see on here are grown men from Saudi Arabia. This is super difficult with the languages and given the fact that I’m a teenager and want to be talking to other teens rather than horny guys who speak different languages. “
Bottom line review on Flinch Game: Parents: your children under 17 years old should NOT be using Flinch, per the app developers guidelines. This is a big NO.
Did you learn something? **Read. Learn. Share.**
— “Big Mama”
