Parents and Schools Unite Against Digital Dangers

What happens when the digital playground turns into a battleground? Our latest episode brings this harsh reality to light as we discuss the grave issue of social media bullying and child safety. We reflect on a shocking local news story where a middle school student was arrested for making online threats, a stark reminder of how the online world has transformed from our own childhood days. This episode explores how essential it is to educate children on the dangers of the internet, the increasing necessity for police intervention in digital threats, and the contrasting perceptions of safety in different countries. Through a critical lens, we also examine a reality TV show that depicts parents who, despite current challenges, consider the United States a safer place for their children.

We then shift our focus to the heart-wrenching case of Dolly, a young girl who took her life due to relentless online bullying, spotlighting the urgent need for protective measures. Delving into government proposals from Australia and Florida to restrict social media access for children under 16, we debate the effectiveness of age verification systems and the creation of child-friendly social platforms with strong parental controls. Personal stories about managing our own children's online behavior bring a real-life perspective to the conversation, emphasizing the delicate balance between trust and control. The role of schools in combating online bullying and the importance of teaching children resilience, ethics, and proper online conduct are key takeaways from our discussion. Tune in to explore these critical issues and learn actionable strategies to ensure our children's safety in the digital age.

Chapters

• 0:01 Social Media Bullying and Child Safety
• 2:32 Protecting Children Online
• 15:01 Parental Monitoring and Online Safety

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Turning off normal human male mode. Switching to dad mode. Welcome in to dad mode With your hosts Bearded, Nova and Morph.

Speaker 2: 0:19

So Nova was reading in my local newspaper today no online. There was a kid in a local middle school who got arrested for bullying and threatening people online through social media and whoever the target was, I guess they reached out and the parents called the cops and they investigated. It was bad enough that they actually arrested the kid. I don't remember what grade, but you know, 6, 7, 8, something like that. I was going to say what is middle school? Yeah, 6, 7, 8. And it just made me realize how crazy it is in the social media world for kids nowadays. You know, I don't want to compare it to like when I was younger, but like how crazy it is and like how much I feel like I have to warn them or teach them about that stuff.

Speaker 3: 1:03

Yeah, okay, to warn them or teach them about that stuff, yeah, okay. So to go into detail, what type of threats it was? Because I mean, I I guess in a way, in a sense threats if we're looking at it, you and I, if the threats were over here, it'd be a totally different threat to the threats that I could think of that would be in your end of the world, because you're in the world schools and threats, you know, as a parent. I don't know how you do it, but I'm assuming that must have been quite bad for the police to be involved it I, they didn't release details yet, like the story just came out today.

Speaker 2: 1:35

Yeah, you know I. But yeah, I agree, I don't think it was like a bomb threat or anything. I think it was like a physical harm, physical threat yeah, that's the one I was thinking of. But you're right, I'm not, I don't get into this, but you're right. Like in america, like it's getting to the point, like you send your kids to school and you hope they come home, yeah, it's.

Speaker 3: 1:53

Yeah, it's funny because you talked about that. My wife watches reality tv. No, both of us do, but you know my wife watches reality tv. I chime in. We watch some shows together. We've been watching a 90-day fiancee at the moment on there and it's funny.

Speaker 3: 2:10

There's a couple people living overseas and they're talking about their children and it's like I'm gonna take my children. I'm not gonna have my children here, but I'm gonna take them back to america where I feel it's safe, and my wife and I sit there like what, what, where? Did you just say this is what's safer right now, Like where you are here. You're saying you're going back there, it's a safe. What are we measuring in the term as safe?

Speaker 3: 2:32

Because online bullying is scary, especially the, you know, I think I brought up in the past. We have a day for Dolly, which is a girl who committed, who took her own life in forms of online bullying, and it's a very serious topic. They talk about it a lot in schools. Obviously, as much as you talk about it and schools bring it up, it's the internet. It's going to happen still, sadly, yeah, but you know that's a sense of seriousness. I guess that we do as a society is starting to realize it's not great for children. I believe you can keep going with this for a second while I double check, but I swear I heard in the news on my end and I haven't actually read on it yet that the Australian government was looking at removing children from social media.

Speaker 2: 3:23

Really. Yes, interesting, interesting. Yeah, I do know I want to say it's Florida was thinking of increasing the age to like 16 or something like that, to access social media. Yeah, I might be way off base but I swear I heard something like that. My oldest is about to be 13. He goes to YouTube, which isn't really social media, but that's. I don't let him on any of the social media you know, and I know his friends are.

Speaker 3: 3:48

But, like for me, it's, it's not a non-starter question right now yeah, so australia will ban children using social media, with minimum age set as 16, similar to florida, the prime minister said. Tuesday is bound to get kids off their devices and into the fields or footy fields, you know, parks, etc. Yeah, legislation is to keep children off social media will be introduced this year. The impact on sites as a scourge they know that. The minimum age for facebook, instagram, tiktok has been has not been decided, but it's expected between 14 and 16. They're hoping to push towards that 16. Age. Age verification trials will begin being held over the coming months. You know, I'm interested to know how that works because ideally, I know a lot of sites have age verifications set in place and you know both sides of the government, even the opposition, support this In a way. I, I I support as well.

Speaker 3: 4:46

We talked about children and social media as. But how do you stop it? You know, I mean like it's, it's, it's, it's just a fake birthday. You register a fake birthday? That's, that's kids. You didn't hear that, but you know that's that's your way around. Is you registering a fake birthday?

Speaker 2: 5:01

right, like if you want to verify an adult, you know you could ask them for a credit card or whatever id. I wouldn't, I wouldn't put it in, but I mean that's one way to do it. But you're not like your kids can't take your credit card and put it in, you know no, it's quite easily to do id checks as well on websites nowadays.

Speaker 3: 5:19

You can put in your license number and your state and it can check to make sure that that's an actual, verified id. Like yeah, that works still.

Speaker 2: 5:28

I don't see these platforms introducing things like that I don't know I I know a friend who you know maybe visited certain adult websites when they're younger and they said are you a routine? Yeah, yeah, it was yes. I was telling my friend, like I can't believe you would, you would do that. Oh, how, why would you lie to the internet like that is yes. I was telling my friend, like I can't believe you would, you would do that. Oh how?

Speaker 3: 5:46

why would you lie to the internet like that is what I was, why you're gonna get caught? You're gonna get caught, yeah, but that's the sense of you know, how do we control this and and I guess the government's stepping in and doing that. You know that's great. They can do that. It doesn't, like I said, it doesn't change much. The same with on your end and kids. There's only so much they can do. It doesn't change too much. So what else can we do as parents or as a society for our children?

Speaker 2: 6:15

I think a lot of it comes down to it. I mean, it flies to. This topic applies to other things. Everything else, probably, is just teach them right from wrong. Try to give them a solid foundation and like ethics and morals and like what to watch out for and like help make sure that they feel confident in themselves and and all that stuff so that when they're faced with a bully online or faced with some other kind of setback, that they know how to deal with it or they feel comfortable coming to you as a parent about whatever it is I'm just thinking.

Speaker 3: 6:48

In a sense I play a little bit of a crazy idea here, because I just thought about it. We have platforms for children to use messages, like facebook has kids messenger that I've spoken about. My children all used it growing up. It was a great way to allow them to connect with friends and talk online and had lots of great things in place to protect them from a lot of different things. So you know, limiting web links, pictures, etc. Kids can do so. You can. As a parent, you can adjust that per child, per child. What about a kid's social media? Actually make a social media. Dedicate creepy adults off it though that's.

Speaker 3: 7:25

That's the problem, and I guess what you could do is, as a parent, how the facebook one works. In particular, facebook actually has to have a parent linked to the children's account. Children, parents, you know, adults can create a child account, that's no problems. Yeah, you can get creeps on there, but I, as a parent, you can change this as a setting. So if you yeah, you can get creeps on there, but I, as a parent, you can change this as a setting. So if you trust your children, you can, obviously, but as a parent, you can actually set it.

Speaker 3: 7:50

So you're the one that does approvals, you're the one that sends the friend requests not them and you're sending it, usually to another parent. You're sending it to the parent of the child that you're doing. That's how the Facebook Messenger works. Weird Messenger works. Weirdly enough. They launched that in Mexico. It started in Mexico before it came anywhere else. Yeah, it took her ages to get down here, but I was just thinking like that's a great idea If you can expand that into a social media.

Speaker 3: 8:13

That's a way for kids to get that, I guess, feel of being an adult doing what mom and dad does or my aunties do, or what I see other people do, so you know they're still getting that do. Or what I see other people do, so it's, you know they're still getting that, but it's contained. Yeah, it's a little bit more controlled, sounds great, but then at the same time it kind of you know, as I'm saying this out loud, I'm thinking how am I creating a sense of false security for children and said, you know, like the, the participation award, sense things where we're creating this thing just for them, so it's all happy and roses and all that. And you know it's like the kids that grow up too protected and then they get out into the real world and they don't understand why my boss is too mean. And I've got anxiety because the boss said no, I can't leave, you know, two hours early because I don't feel like it today, shit like that, yeah you know, is we're doing that social media worst problem, I guess.

Speaker 2: 9:05

I get it. You want to let your kids do what other kids are doing, so they feel part of it. You want them to experience things and learn, but you want to keep them safe. But it's super hard because you can't really police a lot of things on the internet and, as a parent, some people might be caught between. Well, that sounds great, but then I feel like I'm overstepping and getting too involved. I get that like I'm overstepping and getting too involved, and I get that. It's fine you striking that balance between being over protective and giving them room to breathe and grow and learn on their own.

Speaker 3: 9:37

That's yeah, that's really yeah it's, it's a very fine line of what you're playing, when. When are you doing too much form? And hindering their development would be a better way to put it. Yeah, compared to allowing them to try things out and explore.

Speaker 3: 9:55

And I think, in a sense, a lot of online bullying that could be and should be, curved by the parent, the parent of the child who is doing it, not the child, not the children, children receiving it. That's horrible and obviously parents should be there to help them navigate through that. How to avoid. You know what they can do to try and minimize it, but the onus for the attack in the beginning should look back on the parents themselves. Yeah, the parents are the ones that raise this child. They raise the child to do this in a particular way. Obviously, it's how you bring this child into the world, what you've done or, sadly, when you look at it, a lot of kids that do online bullying or a bit aggressive, there's somewhere attached to them in a family sense. That's very similar. You know it's a, it's a learned behavior, I guess would be the best way to to put it I agree, because you know, no kid is born and immediately is a bully.

Speaker 2: 10:57

You know something happened along the way. They learn something or whatever to make them feel like that's what they need to do exactly and I say that very similar to over here with youth crime.

Speaker 3: 11:09

I feel like, in a sense, youth crime and in a way, parents should feel accountable, because you do get kids that repeat offenders over and over again. And then you get those parents that are like it's much like online violence, these kids could be doing something online. The parents are like I can't help what he does, he's just going to do what she does or she's just going do what she wants to do. I've got no control. Well, if the parents were getting in trouble, you know the kid does it two times, three times or whatever. And the next thing, you know, the parents start getting enforced at the same time as a child. I guarantee you that parent is going to do something on their end so they don't get enforced again. You know what I mean, right?

Speaker 2: 11:47

yeah, I mean on. I mean on that note, a quick story. There was gosh I remember the kid's name but I wouldn't say it here anyway. But there was a kid in the US who not too recently, not too long ago, went to a school with a gun and shot four kids and you know he was arrested. They sentenced him to as an adult, even though he's 14. And the parent, the dad, got arrested and sentenced too because apparently he gave the kid the gun as a birthday present. And oh, he was actually found liable for like manslaughter as well. So you know that he said he set an example for his kid and his kid obviously had some kind of issue and did what he did. You're not off the hook as a parent. You were responsible for what your kids do, even if that seems unfair sometimes. You were responsible for what they do. So teach them right. Wow that's very interesting.

Speaker 3: 12:45

I didn't hear that. I mean obviously, sadly, with looking back the amount of shootings that you guys sadly have, it's hard to go oh, that's shooting, because that could just be last week, you know. I mean that's tuesday, sadly, that's, and I do fear for everyone's children over there a lot of the time. I look and go. I'm sorry, sorry to do that as a parent and I sent my children to school each day. Definitely not one thing I ever have to worry about, I guess it's, it's crazy, you know.

Speaker 2: 13:15

Kind of going back to the social media piece, though, what are your thoughts on? You know, like, looking at the messages your kids get like kind of at that level or like, do you think that parents shouldn't do that? They should just trust, trust their kids and give them their own privacy?

Speaker 3: 13:30

I think parents should trust their kids and give them their own privacy but at the same time, have a conversation with their kids, and I believe my wife has that. I don't do this with them because I don't want to. It's just girls' stuff and I might not understand. So I don't want, not that I don't want to, it's just girls stuff and you know I might not understand. So I don't want to get involved with teenage daughters and what they talk about and get confused. But my wife has a rule in place that she can check their phone If she feels like there's something going on. Then the kids have to hand over the phone to check, and she hasn't really ever done that. It's rare, very rare that it happens. To be honest, I can't even really remember the last time it happened. But that's the conversation that my wife and I had in place was hey, at some point, if we feel like something's going on, we have the right to check your phone just to make sure you're doing the right thing or that nothing else is going on. That's funny, right, and I think you're doing the right thing or that nothing else is going on. That's funny, right. I think that's a good, good start. Yeah, now that they're teenagers you're giving them that more freedom. I guess when they're younger you probably check way more what they're doing.

Speaker 3: 14:38

But then you know, as I said, we we use the facebook messenger growing up, so the kids were very limited. When they first started messaging people off the hoods, it was basically, uh, grandparents, siblings, that was it, that's it. You know, that was the only people that were really messaging occasionally arts and office, but they weren't really messaging because they didn't want to and that felt safe. We didn't really have to check too much. That was going on there.

Speaker 3: 15:01

Every so often one kid would say something stupid to another one and then, okay, I gotta go back through and see what they're saying. Oh crap, what are they saying about me? It's like I hate dad because you, you know I've said no to something that was in there a few times. It's I hate. Oh, yeah, it's great. I love it when they write notes. I don't think so. No, no, no, yeah, it's exactly right. That happened like three months in a device.

Speaker 3: 15:31

I'm like back in january you said you hated me and then the kids come in. We haven't had anything with being great. I die, canvas. No, that's, that's our own place. That's how we manage it as the teenagers. Nowadays it's a lot more we just I guess there's a lot more trust and communication in in the chats that we have that we feel that they would come and talk to us if something more was going on. I guess that inkling of something happening isn't really there. Every so often I look at if a kid does something weird with the phone and I'm like it instantly ticks in my head. I'm like what are you hiding? Are you hiding something? What's going on? Type of thing.

Speaker 2: 16:00

I hate it when they do that yeah, my, my son, my older son, every now and then I'll walk, you know, knocking the door, go in his room and he has the phone he quickly, like, puts under his under the covers every time.

Speaker 2: 16:15

And I'm like yeah, and then part of me like wants to know what's going on and part of me has visions of what it is and I have no desire to see what the fuck he's looking at, like beyond zero desire to do. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I love you know, keep going, you, you know like it's I. I remember I had a co-worker years ago who was checking internet history and his son and like he was seeing like the search terms and stuff putting in and he's like I, just I, I know I was like oh my god. I just told him stop doing what you're doing. I don't want to get into it, oh my God.

Speaker 3: 16:52

You know, that's the thing I got on my phone. I love it. If my phone's going to strike, it's a part of my Wi-Fi here, the home internet, but the Wi-Fi itself. Actually, I have devices all teamed to the kids, so each phone is tagged to them, each tv they have, or you know, switches, etc. It's all tagged to the kid. Because, realistically, if I really don't like the kid, I can hit that block button and that'll just cut the internet off. I haven't done that in a very long time, but you know, for example, bailey, what it does give me an update on what kids are doing, it tells me how long they've been online, etc. But it also shows me what websites they've been on and I can't. I can search the internet. If it's something weird that I don't know, I can click search and it'll just open up a browser to that page.

Speaker 3: 17:42

But you know I can see she spent an hour on snapchat. You know that's that's snapchat, followed by netflix, followed by facebook. That's yeah, that's Snapchat, followed by Netflix, followed by Facebook. That's yeah, that's. I don't even really check that. If I really, every so often I might pop up, or something will pop up in the monthly report, what's that? And then I'll check and it's just nothing. But yeah, compared to that's my wife's control, she, she's, she's over that. I don't. I do worry about snapchat and kids a lot I do, but my wife's got enough with them that she trusts. Trust them. You can pull up snapchat records anyway, so it's not. Oh, you can, yeah, just log into the account.

Speaker 2: 18:25

You can request the history oh, how do you know that?

Speaker 3: 18:28

yeah, yeah, snapchat does keep the history so you can pull up a log anyway from previous. If you really really concerned and I believe if something was that serious, police definitely can very quickly. I've heard police can very quickly get into snapchat if it was something very serious that you thought requires the attention of the authority yeah, I have not, as of yet.

Speaker 2: 18:56

My, my kid has had a phone for two years now. I have not, as of yet, ever looked at his history, ever looked at that stuff. He only gets a limited amount of time per day on his phone anyway and I I know for a fact he's on youtube for 99 of that, just looking at shorts or whatever. Yeah, youtube, even if it's not the kid version. Like there's limited things you can see that are bad on youtube that's exactly right and that's how I feel as a parent.

Speaker 3: 19:22

I think most of the time what the kids are looking at, or my kids in particular looking at, doesn't interest me in the slightest, like I could tell you my 16 year old. If I went through hair history, I would say 90 of it is online shopping messaging friends online shopping, because I see the boxes showing up at my door every week. So am I concerned? No, not really, and I feel like my kids not dumb Dumb is a strong word.

Speaker 3: 19:52

Yeah, let's go. They're dumb enough to act in a weird way. If they were to do something stupid, I can just be like what's going on? Something's going on here. You're doing something odd and you'd probably decipher it pretty quickly what they'd done. But my kids don't do that and thankfully none of my kids have been involved in any online bullying as far as I'm aware so far, or came across it in the in the slightest. I believe schools get quite involved with it as well on our end. If there is a report of online bullying, I think schools try and do parts on their end even more to to mitigate it. But like we said at the start, it's, it's unavoidable, in a sense that you can't. There's no sure proof way of stopping your kids from being having a chance of being exposed unless you give them no exposure to the inside.

Speaker 2: 20:49

Right yeah, it's all or nothing basically Right, you don't want to be that helicopter parent, you don't want to shelter them too much. You got to teach them right from wrong and then let them experience things and hope that you have a relationship where they'll tell you if something's wrong, or at least pay attention to their behavior because you'll know when it changes, Like if they're usually a pretty happy kid and whatever, and all of a sudden they're just like completely quiet and you know they don't say anything. Maybe it's just hormones, maybe there's something wrong, you know, but pay attention to their how they act. Maybe you'll notice something.

Speaker 3: 21:25

Have a listen, pay attention to their how they act. Maybe you'll notice something. Have a listen, just just just you know, I guess. Pay attention to your children in the best way you can, without being over the top of them, and if you notice a change in their, it could be anything diet, mood, body language, check in with them, ask them like, hey, what's going on? Is this something that I can help you with? Put they, put an olive branch out in a sense. Or if they don't feel comfortable talking to you, then I feel like there's some great places online that they can speak.

Speaker 3: 21:57

To look into your own local areas. There are lots of support online. I know there's been support for kids since I was a kid where you could free call numbers off pay phones. You know those young enough that don't know what a pay phone is. You don't need to know. Yeah, you don't. But I believe those services have been around for quite a while now and there's still probably way more services now for children to seek help in case they don't feel comfortable with you. For children to seek help in case they don't feel comfortable with you, and that's okay, but I think it's still great to push them in a way to find someone they do feel comfortable in talking to and letting out what's inside them.

Speaker 2: 22:37

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 22:39

You've been listening to Dad Mode. Our passion is navigating this wild journey of parenthood and modern life, from balancing family time to managing your career and still squeezing in some gaming and content creation. And no matter what the women say, they will never be able to pry the controller out of our cold dead hands. Anyway, we hope you enjoyed the show. If you did, find us on Twitter, tiktok and YouTube at DadModePodcast and we can be found on every podcast site at DadModePodcast. Y'all be cool. See you next time.