Jan. 20, 2026

Internet safety: Predator-proof your kid

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Ask Rachel anything While counseling sex offenders, Anna Sonoda, LCSW learned firsthand that grooming, the prelude to child sexual abuse, is intentional, gradual, and observable. Her message to us is, we're not bad parents, we just have a skills gap and she wants to fill it. I grew up in an era of stranger danger, but the truth is the vast majority of abuse happens inside our homes, online and offline, with people our kids know. So how can we spot the signs that a predator is moving in ...

Ask Rachel anything

While counseling sex offenders, Anna Sonoda, LCSW learned firsthand that grooming, the prelude to child sexual abuse, is intentional, gradual, and observable. Her message to us is, we're not bad parents, we just have a skills gap and she wants to fill it.

I grew up in an era of stranger danger, but the truth is the vast majority of abuse happens inside our homes, online and offline, with people our kids know. So how can we spot the signs that a predator is moving in on us and our kids?

Anna says there are clear stages of grooming that, once we know about them, we can intercept. She introduces the "4F formula" for grooming: flattery, favoritism, forbidden fruits, and fear, and stresses the importance of recognizing grooming's subtle signs. Anna advises parents to set clear device usage rules, use parental controls, and maintain open communication with their children. She also advocates for delaying social media access until age 16 and emphasizes the role of parents in curating their children's online and offline environments.

In this episode we cover:

What Is Grooming? (And Why Your Gut Isn’t Enough)
Who Is at Risk? Myths About “Safe” Communities
Online vs Offline Grooming: Why Both Matter
The 4F Formula: Stages of Grooming Parents Need to Know
Red Flags of Grooming in Digital Spaces
Devices, Social Media and Age: What’s Really Appropriate?
Practical House Rules That Reduce Grooming Risk
Building “Predator-Proof” Kids Through Connection
Reclaiming Parental Leadership in a Tech-Driven World

Resources:

Anna Sonoda: www.annasonoda.com

IWF: https://www.iwf.org.uk/ UK-based for reporting and removing innapropriate images

Common Sense Media: https://www.commonsensemedia.org/ For useful and appropriate age guidance

Predator’s Playground: AI, Gaming, and the Kids at Risk

https://annasonoda.com/blog/f/predator%E2%80%99s-playground-ai-gaming-and-the-kids-at-risk?blogcategory=Online+safety

Protecting Families in the Age of AI: 'Take It Down Act'

https://annasonoda.com/blog/f/protecting-families-in-the-age-of-ai-take-it-down-act?blogcategory=Online+safety

teenagersuntangled.substack.com

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You can reach Susie at www.amindful-life.co.uk

02:00 - “It Doesn’t Happen Here”: Myths About Safe Communities

06:00 - Gut Feeling vs Grooming: Smoke Alarm or Carbon Monoxide?

09:30 - Online vs Offline Grooming: Predators Run on GAS

13:43 - The 4F Grooming Formula: Flattery, Favouritism, Forbidden Fruits, Fear

18:43 - Are They Ready for a Phone? Rethinking Devices for Kids

23:13 - Social Media Age Limits and Why 16 Makes Sense

26:13 - Late-Night Devices, Bedrooms and Bathrooms: High-Risk Zones

29:43 - Sextortion and Encrypted Apps: How Online Grooming Escalates Fast

35:13 - Predator-Proofing Kids Through Connection, Not Surveillance

39:43 - Tech Rules That Actually Work for Families

44:43 - Reclaiming Parental Power and Family Values in a Digital World

WEBVTT

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Rachel, hello and welcome to teenagers untangled the audio hug for anyone supporting someone going through the tween and teen years. I'm Rachel Richards, journalist, mother of two teenagers and two bonus daughters. Now most of us parents are scared about the concept of our child being groomed, but the reaction can be to either become too controlling and hyper vigilant, or we simply have talks with our kids, and I'll kind of hope for the best.

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My guest today says the reason grooming works is that we adults aren't taught how to evaluate behavior, and it's a skills gap, not a parental failure.

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Anasonorda is a licensed therapist grooming prevention specialist with clinical experience counseling convicted offenders, so she spent a good amount of time with the sorts of people who groom. And she's also a mum of five. Today we're going to talk about how we can spot the clues without fear or having to be hyper vigilant or constantly checking our kids devices. Thanks for joining us.

00:00:58.299 --> 00:01:16.560
Anna, thank you so much for having me, Rachel, I think it's so important to be having this conversation coming from the lens that you have run your program and your podcast, empowering parents, because that is absolutely what this moment calls for us. Yes, there's just

00:01:16.560 --> 00:01:26.959
not enough protection anywhere else. So we are the front line. We have to have this information, and I love that you've been working, you know, in the background, and writing books about all of this.

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It's so important. So what made you decide that you needed to actually start writing about this?

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Well, I've had an experience where I sat with a mother on the playground watching one of my many children, and she opened up to me and said, I don't think this is an issue when we were talking about our careers and things that we had experienced. And she said, I don't think that's an issue that I ever have to deal with, because we don't seem to have those problems in this type of community. And so I leaned in a little bit more into the conversation, and I said, Well, what type of community do you think that is? And she said, Oh, well, you know, we're of a certain education level and we're of a certain affluence, and that just doesn't happen here. And I have to tell you, Rachel, all my alarm bells went off because, as a clinician, having worked with convicted offenders, I know that this is as something that's affecting every single community, every single race, every single level of affluence, every professional or non professional role. So we need to do a better job of educating people who are on the front lines of protecting our children. And from that moment, I realized there is a disconnect between what clinicians know having worked with offenders and who are in the prevention space.

00:02:51.340 --> 00:03:57.340
A large gap exists between then what the parents who are interfacing on a daily basis with potentially caring adults and potential predators. And I felt like when I explored the resources for parents, there's a tremendous amount of fear out there things that you have to be worried about and worried about and worried about. And as a mom of five, I can tell you, I don't have the time or the energy to possess that much worry. So I felt as if we needed something practical and empowering for parents about a very scary subject, and one that is probably every parent's worst nightmare, to package it in a way that distills down what I was taught about, how predators do what they do, because honestly, this moment does not call for us to explore why they do what they do, because why they do what they do doesn't make our kids any safer. It's in how they do what they do that we can actually arm ourselves and prepare our kids to partner for their own protection.

00:03:57.340 --> 00:04:21.920
It's interesting, isn't it, because I think an awful lot of our safety is based on this kind of gut reflex, oh, you know, that's a dangerous person, or that's somebody that we should watch out for. And I've always said to my kids, if you feel uncomfortable about something, step away. Be, you know, be vigilant and listen to that, that side of yourself. But it doesn't really work with grooming, does it?

00:04:22.819 --> 00:04:55.720
I'm so glad you brought this up. Yes, I was interviewed yesterday, and the interviewer asked about, you know, where there's smoke, there's fire, and what I want us to think about is that your gut acts like a smoke alarm. All of us have lived in homes, or hopefully do live in homes with smoke alarms, and that is responding to smoke and heat and something that is obvious and visible. But what I want you to think about is that grooming acts a bit more like carbon monoxide. It is odorless.

00:04:55.959 --> 00:05:03.660
It is present in in in grades.

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So. Don't need a smoke alarm to protect us. We actually need a carbon monoxide detector. We need something that's going to evaluate this silently building risk that may be happening in front of our eyes. But we haven't been given a framework.

00:05:14.939 --> 00:05:21.920
We haven't been taught as parents on the front lines. What am I actually looking for?

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Because all predation begins sweet. It begins with kindness.

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It begins with generosity. And as a parent, I am looking out for people who are aggressive or violent or cruel or mean. I'm not going to just hand my child over to anyone. So when someone shows up and they have attributes of generosity or kindness, my guard may automatically be lowered, and that's something that most parents aren't as aware of.

00:05:52.360 --> 00:06:16.439
They're looking for a scary chap who's maybe driving a strange car or lurking about. And while those people exist the large majority, over 90% of the time, the individual who preys on my family and my children is going to know me and is going to know my child, and that changes everything fascinating.

00:06:16.439 --> 00:06:33.499
And you mentioned he, I know in your book, you were quite clear that actually the reason why you, you deflected to he in a lot of your writing about this is the majority, not all, but the majority of offenders are male, for a start, but that doesn't mean that women don't do this.

00:06:33.499 --> 00:07:06.959
So we can't simply discount women. And that's obviously there is it, right? And there's and there's also a kind of, I think a lot of us are very alert to the online world now, or more alert than we used to be, and we want to talk about that, but it's also quite prevalent offline. So in the real world, can you talk a bit about, you know, the balance between those two things and why both actually matter. Absolutely.

00:07:07.199 --> 00:09:26.840
You know, the digital world is getting a lot of airspace right now. It's getting a lot of time in the media and on parental blogs and etc. And what we have to remember is that when we think about the concept of grooming, we're looking at a pattern of behaviors that shift slightly online versus in person, but we're looking for a set of actions as I educate people, predators are everywhere, but they're not everyone, and they're actually outnumbered by us, by the caring adults who Want to do right by children. Most people do not want to harm children, so the people who do actually stand out in their behavior. And although we're spending a lot of time concerned with tech algorithms and online spaces, that's predominantly because we see that children are spending, at least in the United States, upwards of nine hours, nine and a half hours a day, in virtual spaces. And so the concern is more, I think, heavily leaning into tech space, because at least when our child is home, we sort of feel like, Oh, well, I know they're safe because they're physically in their bedroom, in the bathroom, at the kitchen table, and what many parents are missing is that as soon as you open the doors to devices, you have opened up your child's world to the entire globe. And that wasn't possible when I was growing up. And I think as parents, we are bridging two very different worlds. Many of us were raised without the internet being a part of our everyday world, and now we're raising children who are digital natives. They are comfortable online. And so making, let's say making profiles or having social media platforms and interfacing with people online is very comfortable to today's child. So as a parent, I know how to keep my child safe in real life, in sports, in school, in our community, in our neighborhood, but online, you know, one of the frameworks that we have to start with today in our conversation is that predators run on gas, grooming, access and space.

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Those three ingredients must be present in order for child sexual abuse to occur. And when parents evaluate this, they're often ignoring the fact that space is online. We think, oh, space is being in a car with a coach or being in a classroom with a teacher, but online spaces are just as vulnerable to exploitation and grooming. So when we evaluate from a from a sort of 30,000 feet view, I want us to be thinking about gas.

00:10:00.299 --> 00:11:23.659
Predators run on gas. Predation is fueled by gas. So who has access to my child? What are the available spaces to them? You know, when we look at this issue, we see that many children have access to their devices in the most private parts of the home. Yes. Can you guess where that might be? Rachel bedroom, bedroom and bathroom. Yes, when I consult with with adolescent girls, I I do a middle school program and they say the two favorite places where they make content to post online is in their bedroom and their bathroom. Now we have to have a very real conversation about what was once private has now become public, and having worked with predators who have exploited kids online, they take something that is public and they turn it into something private. They take a gaming platform in which a child is joining his pals, and they try to remove that child and isolate that child. So some key themes of grooming that we're going to be discussing and looking out for is any relationship that isolates a child, isolates them from their peer group, or isolates them from their caregivers or the the Guardians in that in that physical or virtual space? Yes.

00:11:57.949 --> 00:12:08.750
And I'd love to get onto that. So there were you talk about key steps that are taken in the process of grooming. Can you talk a bit more about that? Yes.

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So grooming is a perverse form of courtship. Now, being somebody who's married, I've had the experience of being courted, which is an old fashioned term that we don't use much anymore, but it's a process by which someone is trying to help you fall in love with them, and predators steal what is so nice about courtship, and they perverse it. And what I mean by that is that they're going to use four stages, and those stages are what I shorthand called the 4f formula for grooming, so flattery, favoritism, forbidden fruits and fear. Now, in a healthy courtship, you do not have elements of this, but in courtship, you're trying to spend as much time with that other person. You would walk their dog if it meant that you could spend time with them, you'd go grocery shopping, boring things. Predators do the same thing. They're trying to find reasons and ways to spend time with the identified or targeted child and possibly their family. Because as we will discuss, grooming requires the buy in of the parents, the buy in of the adults around that child, because most parents are great parents, and they are not going to send their children off to somebody dangerous, which is why predators need to show up with that first stage of flattery. So what does flattery look like? Well, in person, it might look like complimenting my kids or complimenting their ability, or highlighting a skill that they have as being wonderful or exceptional.

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Online, it might look like compliments. It might look like a simple step of liking or following or subscribing to something that a minor is putting out into the world, and we have to keep in mind that most kids are using social media, even though there are age brackets of use and things like that. Those are not being enforced in a way that is effective. So if we know that children are online, and we know that the currency today is I want to know how many followers I have. I want to know how many likes I have. I want to build my brand right? How many times have you heard young children talking about building a brand and becoming an influencer? What a strange dynamic, but this is the one. It's the one that our children are being raised in. So if we as parents recognize that, then we have a role to play in sorting out who's going to again, back to that gas concept, who's going to have access and space with my child, whether it's in person or online. And how can I use that? What I know about grooming and those four stages, especially because it does start off sweet. What can I do in order to ameliorate or improve my odds of avoiding risk, or at least decreasing risk?

00:15:07.250 --> 00:15:19.569
If you're being courted, you're not going to think that there's anything wrong. In fact, you're going to love it. So how can we help our kids differentiate between someone who's grooming them and someone who's genuinely just connecting.

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That's a great point.

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So I think we have a few things to consider now, as I said before, isolation is really pivotal in predation. Every single offender would co would tell me again. Again, in our sessions, I've got to get the child away from their friends.

00:15:37.049 --> 00:16:07.189
I've got to get them away from onlookers, so predators will typically find a child through a gaming platform or social media platform and like or comment positively. Again, this sweet courtship, this perverse courtship that starts off really kind and building that familiarity. Oh, I really like the picture you posted, or I really love that picture of you.

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Like, you're so pretty, you know, you're so talented. Wow. I love the way your your hair looks, or whatever it might be.

00:16:10.849 --> 00:16:39.569
And for a child, living in a day and age in which the currency is attention, especially online attention. They're going to say, sure you can be my friend. Sure you know somebody who knows somebody, who knows somebody you know. The threshold for friendship online is non existent, if you will. So what we have to do is we have to utilize the systems in place.

00:16:35.730 --> 00:17:29.470
First and foremost, we need to decide, as a parent, as the cornerstone of raising this child through adolescence and all the different turns that come with it, is my child able to have the responsibility that comes with this device, because I think most parents are rushing to how to prevent abuse online, and they're not taking the first step, which is, is a device appropriate for my child at this age and at their stage of development? Because I can tell you, I've talked to many parents who say, Anna, I'm afraid to have this conversation. I don't want to talk about online pornography or child sexual abuse material or predation or grooming with my child online.

00:17:23.289 --> 00:17:40.170
And so my advice is evaluate that if you're unable or unwilling to have a conversation about the risks, a device may not be the suitable tool to hand that child at this moment.

00:17:41.009 --> 00:17:58.670
Anna, that's exactly what I have said in my blog. In everything I've written, it's basically, if you're not prepared to have these conversations, and obviously you can make them appropriate to that child, but if you don't feel comfortable having these conversations, then that's just I would question whether you really want to be handing them a device in the first place.

00:17:59.750 --> 00:20:24.250
And I feel like a lot of the advice that's circling around is coming from tech companies. It's coming from groups who are trying to sell me products to keep my kids safer on products. And what we have to remember is Apple products and smart products are adult devices. As we say in our house, phones are tools for adults, not toys for children. And we have put a very, very long runway before smart devices are handed to our children, and that is because of what we know about predation. It's what we know about our children and what we know about their their wellness and our family's wellness. You know, as a parent of multiple kids, and you can relate to this if you had, let's say you have a monitoring software that's sending you keystrokes of your child's device or alerts and notifications. Can you imagine what my inbox would look like with five children on five serious devices? Yes, it would be ludicrous. So I think we've we've lost the plot a little bit as parents. We've assumed that the narrative leader are these tech companies who are telling us, oh, your child needs this device. Well, I understand the need for being able to find your child and contact them. Guess what? We have dumb phones. We have bracelet phones where you know ladybugs and such, where you can phone your child. They could text you. You can know where they are, but the default to a smart device in the hands of in this country, on average, a 10 year old, means that I'm having to have a conversation about online pornography. I'm having to have a conversation about predators who pretend to be something and what I've realized in this conversation over the course of watching this issue build, is that I remember growing up and having a long span of time to grow up and make mistakes and be able to fail and to be able to make stupid decisions and not have it Follow me forever, and what parents seem to be missing is that when you hand your child a device, they have a tracker on them, they have a camera on there.

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They have the internet there.

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Everything is being saved. This is not something that goes away like it did in our childhood, where you have a phone conversation with somebody. And you get to hang up the phone and that's the end of it, and we are expecting children to have cognitive reasoning at an adult level, even though we know from research that their frontal lobe does not fully develop until their mid 20s. Why then are we saying in our education, in our platforms that children need to build. I think it's called digital citizenship. Well, guess what? There's a reason they have to live in our house for 18 years. There's a reason that we have to be active involved parents, because they need that shepherding over and over and over again. They sometimes need to learn lessons over and over and over again. So this expectation that we're going to hand a device and a child is going to have all of the wisdom to know when something's risky or when something is not risky, that's insufficient. And I think for many families, they're waking up to the reality that I don't have to make that choice.

00:21:35.970 --> 00:21:50.369
I can make a different choice and stand out in my parenting, because I don't need to be led, along with others, to believe that a smart device is the only path to a normal, healthy childhood. So it

00:21:50.369 --> 00:21:54.710
sounds like you're quite a fan of holding back for as long as possible.

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How what age would you say would be suitable?

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Well, I think when we're talking social media, I love that Australia has taken some really big, strong leaps with age 16. I cannot see any benefit to social media under the age of 16. I would question whether or not it's necessary at 16, but I wholeheartedly agree that social media is an adult, an adult tool. It is one that many companies are using. It's one that many small businesses are using and to assume that a child can handle that level of pressure and intensity that remember, it's with them. 24/7, it's not as if it's like a school bus, where you're on the bus and it's social time, and then you get off the bus and you're away from it. No these kids have a slot machine in their pocket, and at any time, they can get a dopamine hit with seeing if somebody followed them or likes them. So no wonder predators are benefiting, because all they need to do is get out their own smart device and get on a gaming site or get on social media. So I'm not going to put the burden of responsibility on my children to discern risk online, because I don't believe that they had that skill set. I don't know that I would have had that skill set at 12 or 13 or 14, and I would much rather that we have a long runway before we just hand these devices out as if they are nebulous.

00:23:25.089 --> 00:23:50.609
I love the reframing of the Australian ban as I'm not banning you from social media, I'm banning social media from accessing you, and I think looking at it from a different perspective can really change the way that we think about it. So what would you say to parents who've already given their children access to social media, to devices, because I know that you're not a fan of over restriction panic, because this shuts down communication.

00:23:48.149 --> 00:23:51.869
What would you be saying to somebody in that scenario,

00:23:52.709 --> 00:24:14.949
absolutely so when we make the decision to give our child a smart device, we have to use whatever parental controls are available. What we know from research is that less than 1% of all parental controls available to parents are being utilized, so we have a mismatch between available parental controls.

00:24:15.068 --> 00:26:14.568
That statistic reflects gaming sites. But when we think about social media, what are the limitations? Are there limitations on where you can use the device? You know, most Child Exploitation happens after the hour of 11pm so maybe as a household, we make a distinction. We say you can have your device up until a certain period of time, or the internet goes off in the house at this certain time, because if a child is able to take a device into a bedroom or into a bathroom, not only is it impacting potentially their mental health, but think about things like sleep hygiene and overall wellness that are impacting school performance, family function and other elements of childhood that we don't want to be usurped by the technological platforms. So what I like to remind people of is that tech should be like a cherry on top of a cake. It shouldn't be the entire cake if all your connection and all your interaction with friends and family and and building relationships is solely coming out of the technological platform, we have a problem. We need to make sure that we're supplementing things that we're doing in real life with tech. So if I'm get it gathering together for. A game with the guys. It's great to have a tech resource where I can say, this is where we're meeting, these are the logistics, and then pop out and meet them in person. But if I'm withholding my involvement, if I'm not participating in life, if I'm making the decision to isolate myself, then that's an indication of a potential problem as a parent. So as a parent, when I make that decision to hand over a device, I'm going to be having some really clear expectations and standard settings. I'm also going to be having some very randomized checks. So apps are not just going to be something that are freely downloaded.

00:26:14.568 --> 00:27:02.028
We're going to have a system of asking permission, and we're going to keep usage in public spaces, as we've talked about before, the private usage is often what gets kids in trouble, because it would be very strange for a child to take a nude picture, for example, if they're sitting at the dining room table or they're sitting in the living room. But when you're in your bathroom and somebody says, Oh, I really like that shirt. I wonder what you'd look like with that shirt off. It might be exciting. And one of the things that we have to address is that predators are exploiting a child's natural developmental stage. So typically, kids are given devices as they enter adolescence. Well, what's a hallmark of the adolescent period?

00:27:03.470 --> 00:27:05.690
Sexual awakening, development,

00:27:06.470 --> 00:28:37.409
puberty development, risk taking, going against the grain, saying, Oh, well, Mom and Dad believe this, but I don't know if I agree with that. And when you look back at those stages of grooming, that 4f system starts with flattery, goes to favoritism. Oh, you're the you're the coolest kid on this game, or I really like talking to you're my favorite kid in the class, or you're the best athlete I have on this team. When you get into that third stage, that forbidden fruit stage, whether online or in person, that's when a predator is going to exploit your developmental stage against you. They're going to say things like, Oh, your parents wouldn't want you to do this, but it's okay when you're with me to do this. It's okay to drink when you're with me. It's okay to smoke when you're with me. Oh, you can look at pornography when we're together, these ways a predator is building in shame and guilt in the child and creating isolation from caregivers, because it's going to be extremely difficult for that child to go back to mom and dad and say, Yes, well, this person that was really nice to me online said that they would Give me virtual currency in this game or on this platform, if I did this one thing, and part of me kind of wanted to do that thing, so I did that thing, and now I regret it. And predators are exploiting the fact that they have, they've almost found, like a little wormhole, right?

00:28:33.670 --> 00:28:58.549
They've, they've found a way to sneak past adults, because my job as a parent is to protect my child and transfer trust to them bit by bit, not all in one Wallop, But bit by bit in an integrated fashion. You know, you learn how to load the dishwasher, you learn to use knives, but the way we do that is in person, with supervision.

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There is no such period online.

00:28:58.909 --> 00:29:29.710
There is no you're going to get a Snapchat account, and then I'm going to be in a small Snapchat community with you. It's as if, once we make that distinction and we're online, we're suddenly all online, and many parents because they're not in that space, or they're not in the rooms with their children in those spaces, the child is in many forms, isolated from the very people that would have protected them. Fascinating.

00:29:29.710 --> 00:29:51.450
And I know from reading your book that that third stage is is kind of the tipping point where, once they've got to that, that sort of fear and shame kicks in, because after that, there's there's so much power in the hands of the groomers. So what are the practical skills and tips that you can offer parents that they can use with their kids?

00:29:52.349 --> 00:30:13.309
I think when we're looking at online risk, we need to show kids that there is a formula to how predators are going to act differently than maybe a PAL or a friend online or like this. They're typically going to attempt to send you some sort of a direct message.

00:30:09.049 --> 00:30:40.889
They will build a relationship with you. You said before relationship is connection, and kids feel like the connections they have online are real, because to them, they are so once somebody has established themselves as being a friend to them online, it's going to be very easy for that relationship to progress. Grooming in person takes weeks or months or years.

00:30:35.730 --> 00:30:58.190
Grooming online happens lightning fast, so it's inherent for children to realize that individuals are going to direct message you, they're going to ask you for something, they're going to ask for a photograph, they're going to ask for your location, they're going to ask for your age, they're going to ask where you go to school.

00:30:58.190 --> 00:33:37.230
They're going to try to generate as much information about you as possible, and they're going to encourage you to move with them to an encrypted site of some sort. There are many platforms nowadays that allow strangers to meet up or have that end to end encryption resource so predators want to be in those environments rather than staying on, let's say, like a Minecraft platform or Roblox platform. We also see this pattern when we're looking at on in person grooming something like a teacher's behavior. A teacher is rarely going to abuse a child in a classroom, but what they're going to do is they're they might have been introduced to a child in the classroom, get that child's cell phone number, contact them offline, find ways to remove the child from the environment. So similarly, predators are typically going to find children, whether on social media or through gaming platforms, and try to lure them to go to encrypted sites where the child is then going to be asked to do things like send a nude picture, send something that is currency, right that gives that predator leverage over them so that They can move into stage four, which is that threats of I'm going to send this to your contact list. I'm going to tell your parents now you need to send me, whether it's money, or you got to send me more images like this, or you have to do a video like this. I remember there was a famous case in Roblox in which two brothers were groomed online through the gaming platform, and this individual took them off to an encrypted site and convinced these boys, you know, these are minors, so they don't have consent. They didn't make this choice. They're being manipulated into making Child Sexual Abuse material with each other to then send to this individual for E currency, right? So what we have to be speaking with our kids about is the fact that chats need to be disabled. It's very fun to chat with a friend you know in real life online. That's wonderful, but we need a way to ensure that the person you're speaking to is actually somebody you know in real life. And if anybody tries to leverage another and your age, yes, absolutely. And if anybody tries to take you onto an encrypted site, that should be an immediate red flag, not necessarily to shut down the game or things like that, but to alert an adult, to alert somebody who's in your space.

00:33:37.409 --> 00:34:11.809
You know countless times these children are being groomed while they're down the hall from mom and dad, while they're down the hall from grandma and grandpa or aunties or whomever their caregiver is. So as parents, what a wonderful environment it would be if children were using their devices in public spaces, it would be very difficult, as we talked about before, to be manipulated. If you're sitting in the living room and mom and dad can see your device. And you know, everybody's in a space together, and that's something less and less.

00:34:12.530 --> 00:34:19.389
I agree, and I know that for some people, they're very space restricted.

00:34:15.010 --> 00:34:40.889
And I totally get that because, you know, I've, I've mentored a girl who was a, you know, they were refugees, and it was a tiny apartment, and they had no spare space. But I kept my kids devices in the kitchen. We had the main computer that the kids could use up until they were teenagers, and even at that point, they weren't allowed to have connections in their rooms.

00:34:37.950 --> 00:35:33.190
They had to only use stuff outside of their rooms because all these reasons. And I remember a horrific case in lockdown where they actually talked about a girl who they found the video of her performing something that she'd been asked to perform by a predator. And you could hear in the background, her mum going, darling, it's supper time. And it was such a benign situation, but with such malign intent by the person who was was getting her to do these things. And she was in her own bedroom. And this, I guess this is the thing, this is the thing we've got to remember. And are there things that we can do to predator proof our kids like I'm thinking about, you know, when kids get into the sort of teen years, we know that they're seeking status, respect, affection and love, and are there things that we can be doing in our home environment that can give kids what they looking for?

00:35:33.190 --> 00:37:00.769
Yeah. Yeah, well, I think when we when we evaluate what our role is as parents, our our function, our job is not to survey them constantly. We need to be building a relationship with them that is based on open, honest connection. So one of the things that we need to do is we need to have true connection with our children through the form of having open conversation and communication we can use current events. I mean, how many times have we been able, in my own family to role play a situation because there was a case that was making national news or local news, that was fodder for understanding the complexity that might be present online or in person, so we can have open, honest conversation, we need to put our own devices down. As a parent, I've had the experience of really putting my foot in it when maybe I'm checking an email or I'm writing something, because it doesn't look like that to a child. It looks like you're playing on your phone. And I need to be I need to be honest and open with myself about what does my usage look like, and when I'm with my children. When my children are in the space, do they feel seen?

00:36:56.029 --> 00:37:45.989
If I'm looking at my screen, can I really be seeing my child? Can I really be fully interacting with them? So in the same way that we have, you know, headphones on and we're looking at smaller and smaller devices, which going back to that isolation concept as adults, sometimes we're isolating away from our role as connecting with our kids. So I think first and foremost, we need to be building communication with our kids, whether it's through conversation, but I know that for many of My children, conversation is not the best way that they communicate. Maybe it's through drawings, maybe it's through having a written journal. One of my children and I have a journal that goes back and forth, almost like pen pals.

00:37:40.349 --> 00:38:18.670
Back in the day, she'll write down questions or issues that came up that day or things that she wants to talk about, and then I have a chance to write and respond and then leave it in her room. So it's her way of initiating when she's comfortable to say, I need a little help on this. Or, gosh, I'm really frustrated by this situation. So let's not just look at communication and connection with children as adult dialog from A to B to C, because rarely that's how children communicate. But find a way to connect with your child.

00:38:16.090 --> 00:38:18.670
What are they interested in?

00:38:18.670 --> 00:39:28.570
What are their hobbies? What do they do? If, again, if the connection is just through social media or through gaming, then join the space. Go to where the computer is, go to where that environment is, sit and watch the screen, cast the screen up onto the TV in a common space so that you can follow along, join the game yourself. We need to, as parents, recognize that we're the gatekeepers. So we have the ability and the right, because we're paying for these devices, to have all the passwords for any accounts, it's our permission that grants for things like apps to be downloaded onto devices, and we need to become savvy. There are many ever changing platforms that children are downloading that many parents might think, Oh, that's not harmful, but maybe it is harmful, so we have to do our due diligence. And again, that harkens back to the original piece of this conversation about, Is my child ready? Am I ready as a parent, to have to manage this device?

00:39:23.949 --> 00:39:38.130
Because I'm not only managing my behaviors, but I'm managing my child's behavior when they may not be with me, when they may not be around me we're going to do. I saw I

00:39:38.730 --> 00:39:59.269
I like the what the idea of going in when they're going to download an app or start a game that actually you go in with them at their age group, and you actually have a look around too, because then you can actually see what they might be exposed to in that time. And then you could just say, No, that's not going to work. Going to work. We're not going to do that and

00:39:59.269 --> 00:41:44.369
explain why. And there's a resource here that I'm that I know is available where you are, called Common Sense Media. It is a wonderful nonprofit that not only do they review movies and TV shows and they give it a sort of a grade when, whether it's on profanity or nudity or substance use. But that's a wonderful resource for parents. So when my adolescent comes to me and says, I'd really like to play this game, Do I have permission to look into this game? He knows our. First step is to go to Common Sense Media and to look up this game and to see what are the risk factors on this game. Because I'll tell you, the environment on something like Roblox has changed dramatically because more and more parents are getting educated, and that's what we have failed to do for parents. We have we have almost dialed down the volume on their own sense of intuition, their own sense of leadership in their own homes. And I for one, want to champion a day and age in which parents reaffirm their their leadership within their homes. They're completely agree co partnering, co parenting with whether it's a spouse who lives in the home or someone else, this is our job and our responsibility. We do not need to be led by the children. We need to lead them, and it's in our position, in the way that we orient our household, in the way that we are who we are and why we do what we do that informs everything. It's like our ethos or our character as a family.

00:41:44.849 --> 00:41:46.170
Yeah, it's our values.

00:41:46.170 --> 00:41:48.690
Legally agree.

00:41:46.170 --> 00:41:48.869
I back on about this all the time.

00:41:49.528 --> 00:42:21.489
Yeah, too many families have forgotten that family wellness, mental health is really important, but family wellness is integral to everyone's functioning. So if I'm worried about a suicidal teen who's spending 10 plus hours on a device, then the family wellness is in peril. And too often, we feel like, well, in order to be like every other kid or be like this, guess what?

00:42:17.768 --> 00:43:30.788
I don't want my kids to be like every other kid. Do you see what's happening with today's kids? I'd much rather we chart our own path based on our values and our system of functioning, and it's not cool and all of those sorts of things, but I can remember generations of parents before us that could care less about what somebody else was doing on a different block or in a different neighborhood, and too often we as parents are fixated or are looking at what everybody else is doing rather than dialing down the noise and remembering that we have key intuition, we have key awareness, and we know our child best. We know them. The tech companies don't know them, the algorithms don't know them. The people they're playing with online don't know them. We know them, and we have one shot at childhood once childhood is over, it is over. So I think it was maybe Jonathan Haidt. I may be misquoting, but an individual said, feel free to hand over a device to your child as soon as you're ready for childhood to be over.

00:43:30.789 --> 00:44:25.750
Childhood, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's a very good point, and I do think that for many parents, and I speak personally here too, if you came from a family where you weren't given any kind of definite structure, you're sort of having to start from scratch, and then you have a society that shifted so dramatically that you feel really disoriented, and it's kind of like you've lost your compass. And that's what my whole podcast is about. Is trying to give us a chance to come back to who are we? What do we stand for? What are our values? What is the Richards family ethos? What do we believe? And I love what you've been saying, because I do think that if we can show our kids this process where, rather than just saying no, because I say no, if we actually show them the process of, oh, let's look at Common Sense Media and let's go through this, what you're doing is you're showing them the steps that you take in order to decide whether something's good or bad.

00:44:25.750 --> 00:44:50.610
And you can do this on so many rules and boundaries that we set where we say, well, this is the boundary. And the reason I've done that is because of this, and I'll have a conversation with you about it. But it doesn't mean to say it's going to say it's going to change, and there's a reason for it. And I think often we're just so busy we're not thinking these things through, which is why we need these spaces to actually go. I think I'll think this through and then maybe come up with a more secure way of moving forward as a family.

00:44:51.929 --> 00:45:36.509
I love what you said, because I think one pivotal piece about grooming is that it's it works because it's a relationship. It works because it mimics a relationship. If we are not the chief influence, and we're not curating the other people who will be influencers for our children, then we have allowed there to be a gap, and predators know when gaps and vulnerabilities exist. So if I know that, and now your audience knows that, then I would much rather build up and curate those individuals who are going to be in my child's life, in their hobbies and activities in real life, and I'll take the risks of grooming and access and space.

00:45:32.288 --> 00:45:56.869
But there's a discernment in parenting that seems to be waning, and what I'd like to do alongside you, you with your efforts, is to re embolden discernment, parental discernment, not a tech company telling me what I need, not commodifying my child. Because they're thinking about profits.

00:45:54.268 --> 00:45:58.788
They're not thinking about protection, no.

00:45:59.750 --> 00:46:02.029
And I think lean back into your own power.

00:46:02.029 --> 00:46:14.829
You have it. You know your kids, like you said, You're the world expert on your child. And remember that, Anna, if people would like to find you, have conversations with you, read your books, where would they come to to access you

00:46:16.150 --> 00:46:37.409
sure I have a website, Anna sonoda.com, anybody's welcome to email me or follow any of my resources that are there. I'm also on Instagram at at Anna sono dot LCSW, and I welcome the opportunity to partner with parents, because if we want to make change, we need to know that we're not alone.

00:46:37.650 --> 00:47:15.190
Too many parents feel as if they're on an island making the decision to either wait till eighth grade, to hand a phone over or something like that. And what I want to remind parents of is you're not alone. I'm out here in the soup with you, and we can have them understand patterns of behavior so that they can use that skill when they get to university and they have a predatory professor, or when they get to their first job and they have a predatory employer, or they get to their first apartment and are living alone for the first time. This is not a skill that recedes.

00:47:11.150 --> 00:47:21.070
This is a skill that needs to be enhanced and refurbished and redone and renovated time and time and time again.

00:47:21.250 --> 00:47:53.730
Yeah, fantastic. Thank you for that, Anna. If you want to reach me, you know my teenagersuntangled@gmail.com nothing's changed. My website's www.teenagersuntangled.com and my substack is teenagersuntangled.substack.com which is a place where you can find PDFs which give you all the top tips from the show and my other writing and the actual podcast itself. So have a look on rummage around there. I'll put all the links in the notes, and I hope this was very helpful. Bye, bye. Anna, thanks very much. Have a great

00:47:53.730 --> 00:47:55.429
week. Thank you so much for having me. You.

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