How Parents Can Protect Children Online.

Titania Jordan. Best-selling author, CMO of Bark,  and regular TV Guest on national TV shows, Titania Jordan, joins us to discuss Parenting in a Tech World.

We discuss:

• Common misconceptions and Parental Challenges today
• The Role and Responsibilities Social Media companies have and should have
• Best Practices and Practical Suggestion to manage the tech your children are using
• How to Monitor their online activity without invading their privacy
• Warnings signs to look for
• Markers indicating more significant behaviors.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Overview
• 0:00 Writing the Book 'Parenting in a Tech World'
• 10:19 The Need for More Research and Tips for Parents
• 14:42 Impact of Cyberbullying and Online Predation
• 20:37 Entering the Digital World of Children
• 22:37 Balancing Privacy and Parental Involvement
• 24:57 Creating a Safe Digital Environment
• 26:45 From Consumption to Creation
• 29:17 Parental Monitoring and Guidance
• 35:23 Addressing Mental Health
• 40:01 Role of Platforms in Online Safety
• 46:21 Having Conversations about Suicidal Ideation
• 51:32 Determining the Right Age for a Child's Phone
• 55:27 Importance of Proactive Conversations

Transcript

Parenting Today with Social Media

Titania Jordan, CMO of Bark, joins us to discuss Parenting Today With Social Media. 

Parenting Guide to Social Media

Key Topics: parenting guide to social media, what parents can do with technology, parenting today with social media, social media companies and parenting today, parenting today with tech addiction, holding social media companies accountable today, online safety, parenting, tech world, relationships, cyberbullying, pornography, creation versus consumption, passwords, parental monitoring, digital safety, community support, mental health, online harms, transparency, accountability, how social media harms tech addiction, how social media companies effect parenting, parenting today with tech addiction and social media, parenting today with tech addiction, how social media companies harm parenting, the role and responsibilities social media companies have, what responsibilities social media companies have, what responsibilities should social media companies have.

Chapters

·      00:00 Introduction and Overview

·      04:21 Writing the Book 'Parenting in a Tech World'

·      09:32 The Need for More Research and Tips for Parents

·      13:26 The Impact of Cyberbullying and Online Predation

·      18:47 Entering the Digital World of Children

·      20:12 Balancing Privacy and Parental Involvement

·      22:39 Creating a Safe Digital Environment

·      24:30 From Consumption to Creation

·      27:51 Parental Monitoring and Guidance

·      31:15 Building a Supportive Community

·      33:36 Addressing Mental Health

·      36:30 Role of Platforms in Online Safety

·      40:54 Bark App for Monitoring

·      45:31 Having Conversations about Suicidal Ideation

·      48:35 Determining the Right Age for a Child's Phone

·      53:11 Importance of Proactive Conversations

Dino Mauro (00:17.644)

Join us as we go behind the scenes of today's most notorious cybercrime. Every time we get online, we enter their world. So we provide true storytelling to raise awareness, interviewing global leaders, making an impact and improving our world, translating cybersecurity into everyday language that's practical and easy to understand.

We appreciate you making this an award -winning podcast by downloading our episodes on Apple and Spotify and subscribing to our YouTube channel. This is cyber crime junkies and now the show.

Dino Mauro (01:07.778)

Well, welcome everybody to Cybercrime Junkies. I'm your host, David Mauro Today we're live and we're joined by Titania Jordan, CMO of Bark Technologies, which is an online safety company that helps families by keeping kids safe both online and in real life. She's a bestselling author of this book, Parenting in a Tech World. Fantastic book. We're going to talk about that in part today as well.

And she's also a well -known guest on major TV talk shows and a well -respected contributor to major news publications. Welcome to Tanya. Thanks for joining us today. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me, David. And I love how off camera we were chatting about our shared love of Chris Voss. Yeah. if you're listening, Chris, you should probably go.

Well, thank you for that, Tatiana. Yeah, I have reached out. I would absolutely be honored to meet Chris and have him on the show. He is a phenomenal leader. We've instilled the Black Swan method as best we can in our rigged version of it, right? Of how we interpret it for our team. It's really, really effective. It's really helpful, very practical. No, his masterclass is fantastic too, so.

If anybody's interested in taking a deeper dive into Chris Voss, please go ahead and check out that masterclass. It's fantastic. So we are live. And so if there's any viewers that any questions at all, throw them in chat. Taitani and I will be happy to address them. And we really encourage that as well. So let's start from the beginning. Tell us how you got started in this. Sure.

I have served my career really at the intersection of parenting and tech with another crossroads of media. It started in the traditional media space, actually terrestrial radio back in the day before Sirius XM and the iPod, you know, that was, you know, a whole new world. But it quickly escalated and evolved

Dino Mauro (03:23.022)

to digital media and then social media. being somebody who was born pre, know, computers and internet and email and social for the general masses, at least. And growing up at a time where we're getting all of those things and now being a parent whose son is really natively experiencing all those things from a much younger age. It's my whole life. It's my whole life. And so

I personally believe that it's by the grace of God that I'm able to be, at bark, a company with an incredible mission and the role that I have working with an amazing team and helping millions of families across the globe. yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it's a phenomenal, application. We'll, we'll, we'll touch on that as well, cause there's a lot of research that went into it. I'm fascinated by it. And.

It's just remarkable. We use it. Both Mark, my co -host and I have used it. My only critique of your book is I wish you would have written it like 10 years earlier while I was in the midst of raising a whole brood of children with and managing technology, right? Because I'm reading this, I'm like, well, that would have been a good idea. Like, I'm reading this stuff, I'm like, yeah, that would have really helped. That's good.

So lots of really good insight in there. Let me ask you, is there any event or person or something that kind of drove you to create the book and like anything like that? Like, was it just being a parent and recognizing the complexity of technology and parenting? Yeah, so my co -author, Matt McKee and I worked together at Bark.

He is a, he had already published books, I believe, was a former pastor, tech entrepreneur, dad of two. And he and I got to talking and just looking at the landscape of existing parenting books, right? There's all kinds of books around breastfeeding and sleep schedules and discipline, but there really wasn't a comprehensive.

Dino Mauro (05:47.351)

how to be a parent in a tech world manual. And so we set out to write one, not because we're the experts, right? We're still learning, but we wanted to share what we've learned based on our collective experiences as parents and tech executives, drawing on the data that we have seen and learned from at Barq. And then really, that's the beginning. know, this is still the first edition. More additions will be coming as we learn more.

since the book was published, Francis Haugen testified before Congress about 13 months ago now, which is crazy. It seems like it was just yesterday. More and more platforms have rolled out. Well, they call them parental controls. I call them fluff. They're not super effective. So there's a lot that has changed, but we needed at least to get it out there. So. Yeah. And when you were developing, when you and Matt were writing the book, what's some of the top kind of insight that you gained or things that

that you guys learned just through doing it. I mean, I can tell you from doing this podcast, I had a concern over cybersecurity before because of my job and my career. But wow, like the more and more I learn, the more it's so important and we're so far behind. it's just a, we need to change the entire trajectory of where we're going.

in business and organizations and government. It's pretty scary. tell me, like when you do a deep dive, I read like there's tons of research here. Like there's in the book reads real like the reads really smooth. So it's not like research dry. It's really, really entertaining. It's captivating. But yet it's based on like so much research that Bark has done and both you and Matt have have looked into. What's some of the key insight that you guys learned from

from writing? That's really long question, by the way. I apologize. No, it's fine. It's great. It gave me time to think. I'd say two things emerged primarily. The first is that relationship over everything. The relationship that you cultivate with your child from before they can even walk and talk is critical to helping them become a responsible digital native.

Dino Mauro (08:11.497)

You know, the goal is to not be so heavy handed. The goal is that when they have the option to leave the house, they want to come back and visit of their own accord. You don't want to be your child's best friend necessarily when they're younger, but the goal is that they will want to be friends with you eventually when y 'all are adults. So relationships over everything.

the technology is part of helping to build that relationship with your child and keep them healthy and safe. And we can talk about that later, but it's, it's, it's relationships. The second thing is that there's still so much we don't know because we are the first generation of parents parenting in a tech world because our children are the first generation of children growing up with so much access.

Prove digital natives, right? Yeah, little know how it's going to affect them. Their attention spans, their mental health, their dopamine, their serotonin, their physical activity, even just, you know, their neck muscles and their thumbs. humanity is now going through a very unique experiment that time will only tell over the next 20, 30 years what we need to know. And so there's a lot more that needs to come out in terms of research and tips and tricks. And that's what parents are craving.

Tell me what to do. I want to be a good parent. What do I do? Help me. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, because every every parent wants that. Right. And they don't know technology is supposed to have made our lives better. And to a large degree, it has. But it's certainly made it much more complex. mean, it's very much so. It's really I mean, you talk about some key concepts in in your book. And one of them are markers, like things to look for.

What can you walk us through that? Tell us what you guys found. Yeah. Whenever there is a problem in your child's life, be it physical, emotional, social. There are key markers that will be exhibited that are tells change in appetite, increase or decrease change in sleep patterns again, increase or decrease.

Dino Mauro (10:31.245)

a change in behavior? Did they used to be super outgoing and now they're much more reserved or withdrawn or vice versa? Do they no longer hang out with certain friends that they used to all the time? Are they no longer interested in certain activities that used to bring them a great deal of joy? Do they seem agitated, especially when this thing is nearby or notifications are going off? When you are

in the room with them? Do they turn this over, put it on silent? Do they seem like they're hiding something? Being more secretive. Yeah. Right. Grades, grades dropping. There's a That's really the easiest one to spot because that's something you have to talk to them about. But some of the others are really good. They're almost signs indicative of signs of initial stages of depression, right? Like just that apathy. The thing that we used to really be passionate about, they just don't care anymore. It's like,

That's not a sign of them not caring. It's a sign of them being depressed. Right. And it's not just depression. It's a, you know, depression is sometimes the result of cyber bullying, online predation, anxiety. Just being a kid is hard right now. In fact, you know, when we were growing up, we were exposed to certain things, but our kids today are experienced.

are experiencing really, really problematic issues, concepts and people at a much younger age and a much more frequent rate. And they, as humans, are not developing in maturity faster. They're not able to process this all of a sudden at that same rate or at that younger age. So it's really, really big problem. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, when we think of cyber bullying, you mentioned cyber bullying, when you think about it,

Back in the day, mean, like the entire evolution, just in the last 20, 25 years, when you think about it, we had two ways of doing things. We had the real world, the physical world, and then we had our digital version. It was almost like an electronic duplicate of what we were doing, but if the electronic duplicate way broke down, we still were fully functional in the physical realm. But today, everything is tied digitally. And so when things go wrong there, know, businesses,

Dino Mauro (12:56.957)

stop production, families can't navigate where they're going, to communicate with the people. Like it's it's it really we're so much more reliant on it today. We think about cyberbullying. You know, back in the day, that used to happen when you were at school, when you physically there and it was a limited period of time or after school or whatever. But it was that time and you could physically avoid it or physically go and get help and do things like that.

Now these devices are with the kids almost 24 seven. mean, oftentimes it's with them all throughout the day in their own bedrooms on their bed while they're at 1130 at night or later, right? They could be being cyberbullied and we won't know it necessarily. Exactly. And it's also, it can surface in more subtle ways. It's not always just somebody saying mean things to your child. It's.

It's impersonation. Kids will pretend to be your child and then go leave inappropriate comments on other people's pages and comments. It's just being left out. All of a sudden you're kicked out of a group chat or you're no longer in the close friends stories on Instagram, et cetera. There's just so many subtle ways now that kids can really dig at each other. And you would even feel bad. yeah, I didn't even think about that aspect.

either, right? Because people can say, hey, you said this about me or you didn't and be mad. You're like, that wasn't me. Like, yeah, right. Right. And before it was like, well, where did I say this? Well, it wasn't there. I was over here. Well, now you can't you can't explain that. Right. When they impersonate you online, they are you digitally. And so people won't know they're going to believe that it was you. really, really shocking. So that leads into then

what can parents do, right? Like when they see those markers, what's the data driven analysis you and Matt came to? Like what are they supposed to do? So the first thing is to stay calm. It's hard to do, right? love it. easier said than done, right? A easier said than done, but I guarantee you it will go much better if you remain calm. Example, if you find out your child is being

Dino Mauro (15:25.623)

bullied, cyber or in real life. And really there's so much crossover there. It's just bullying now. If you immediately want to go after that bully, know, call the school and call their parent and make that bully pay. Your kid is probably going to recoil in embarrassment and cringe. Just like, my gosh, I should not have told my parent. Now I'm going to become even more of a target. Meanwhile, or conversely,

If you stay calm and empathize and say, am so thankful that you told me this, I'm so sorry this is happening. I want you to know that it will not last forever. It will get better. And let's talk about the ways we can address this. I can reach out to the school. I can reach out to their parent. We can call in law enforcement in some cases, because there are cyber bullying laws, or we can wait it out and try to just block and ignore.

this, this. So staying calm will really do you and your family a great service. No, go ahead, please. I was going say you talked about like having the conversations with kids. Yeah. No matter what it is, sexual content, pornography, online predation, cyberbullying, mental health, suicidal ideation, drugs and alcohol. You know, it's so many fun topics.

that you don't come home from the hospital carrying your baby thinking, we're gonna talk about this stuff. But you will, you should at least, because they're going to hear about it, much better that they hear about it from you than somebody else. And you can do it in age appropriate ways. For example, I realized I needed to talk to my son about pornography when he was around nine years old, based on the data that I was seeing.

If I didn't have access to that data, I would've thought, maybe 11, 12, we'll cross that bridge. Nope, nine years old. And that might've even been too late. So I on Amazon, I purchased a book called Good Pictures, Bad Pictures, and it was a very, very disarming way to talk about this topic with him. And it was really helpful. It was a little awkward. Yeah. But does he know that I know this and that it can be problematic and addictive and that there's no shame in sex or sexuality?

Dino Mauro (17:49.239)

but there's a healthy way to encounter it and an age appropriate way to encounter it and then a not so healthy way. you know, then with the conversation of online predation and we call them tricky people with younger kids. This is why you don't give out PII, personally identifiable information, because there's some people online that might seem really friendly. They might seem like they're friends your age, very complimentary, but it can quickly turn into something that is not good for you.

something that can be problematic, something that might cause you to feel shame and embarrassment and worry about telling a parent, but know that it's not your fault, you're not in trouble, and we can work on this together. can take care of this tricky person together. It's ongoing age -appropriate candid conversations over your child's childhood. Yeah, that's excellent. You also mentioned entering into their world.

meaning if they're using an app, right? If they're on Discord, you need to be on Discord. You need to know what Discord is. So many parents I know have no idea what it is. there are, especially if it's a young boy and they game and they're in that gaming culture, the video games, the first person shooter games, like that could be extremely aggressive. And there's almost just as many

girls that do it as boys, but you'd need to really be aware of it, right? And the conversations are often done through Discord or Telegram, and you need to really be aware because they do, you know, when those things escalate, if somebody accidentally shoots their own character in a video game, right? There are countless stories where the opponent gets mad and just doxes their own, you know, actually exposes who the child is.

They might swat them, meaning they might actually call in paramedics or police saying that you have a gun to somebody. And it's just unbelievable. So how do we do that without, you do a good job of explaining that in the book. How do we do that without invading their privacy? Like without losing the relationship, without damaging the relationship. So one great way.

Dino Mauro (20:12.493)

to embark on that journey with your child and honestly learn from them is before you give them access, you yourself need to access it. If your child wants Roblox, cool. Let's think about it. Let's talk about it. Go to the Google, type in, what do I need to know about Roblox or Roblox parental controls, right? And there's about 50 YouTube videos that will walk you through it, right? Exactly.

then download it, play it yourself, have your child sit beside you. They will be happy to point out things to you of, you hey, let's go in this server or let's go in this world and let's, you know, do it with them. And then if you see something that bothers you, like, hey, is that, is there live chat? you talk to Exactly. was just about to say, when you start to play the games, they activate the chat feature.

Changes the whole dynamic does it and that's how you start talking to them about hey, right? I'm not gonna drop you off at the airport all by yourself when you're eight years old We're not gonna do that same thing here with roblox or fortnight or anything else When your child has a smartphone and and they want to download snapchat If you don't yet have snapchat on your phone, you need to do that first again You need to google whatever the app or game or device is plus

dangers plus parental controls. What do I need to know about this and learn and weigh the pros and cons? What you don't want to do is give your child everything all at once. If you, let's say for your child's sixth grade graduation or 12th birthday, just hand them an iPhone. Can even be an older iPhone. Doesn't have to be brand new iPhone. But you give them an iPhone and you haven't implemented parental controls, used screen time.

used bark or something like it, which there isn't really anything like it, so use bark. But if you just give them this without anything, you're giving them access to everything. You can't do that. It's like throwing them the keys to a Ferrari with no driver's ed and no car insurance. You wouldn't do that. Don't do that with these either. Right. That's exactly right. And, you know, when you have these conversations with kids, you talk about

Dino Mauro (22:39.173)

not making them an interrogation. So like walk us through that. Like, you what I think you mean is open ended questions. Yes. Yes. Start with the words what and how right? Like ask open ended question as opposed to why would you want to do that? Why do you think you start with why and you feel you can feel a question coming to you as why as like a parent barking at you like coming down on you right? And so opening up with open ended questions to really gain

better understanding can help with the conversations. Yeah. One of my favorite examples that Matt gives specifically is instead of saying, you know, hey, how was your day? Well, kids are going to say, fine, great. Instead of saying that you could say, what was the most interesting thing that you saw or heard today? Or what was the funniest thing you experienced today? Or who did you sit by at lunch today? You know,

questions that elicit an answer that are non -threatening can start to open that conversation. And in fact, that's how Matt discovered his oldest son had been exposed to pornography because he asked his son, you know, hey, what's the most interesting thing that you've seen lately? And his son said, did you know that Superman and Wonder Woman take their clothes off? And that was a wake -up call. That was a...

It was veiled as a part of it. Asking open -ended questions to kids, you're going to be really surprised by some of the answers because it's not going to go the way that you thought, right? Absolutely. You're going to be very, very surprised. Yeah. That's good. So you also talk about creation versus consumption. Yes. I think that's really important because so many of us just consume.

flipping through Instagram, flipping through LinkedIn, flipping through Facebook. We're consuming, right? We're taking in things that we see as opposed to creation, meaning creating a post, creating a newsletter, creating a blog, and kind of coaching the kids on how do they create a blog? I mean, when I think about it, I remember my wife was very good about kind of monitoring what the kids would do. We'd all be in the same living room. And all of a sudden she would say to one of the children when they were in high school,

Dino Mauro (25:00.685)

Hey, you need to take that post down. And they're like, what? And like, it was like, we needed to coach them on how to say and how some of your words could be misinterpreted, right? And it might look really aggressive or it might look off color, right? You don't want to do that. So what else? Tell, like, walk me through what you found when you were looking at creation versus consumption. So.

One of the first worries that parents have is just how much screen time is too much. I would really like to reframe that question from a time question to a content question. What is the quality of the content that you are consuming? And are you just passively consuming content that doesn't really do much for

for you mentally or spiritually or emotionally? Or are you creating or are you curating or are you competing? Are you learning something? Are you coming away from this interaction with tech better for it? Or are you just becoming sedentary and stimulating the pleasure center of your brain, know, pinging your dopamine and serotonin and not

getting any physical activity. There are a variety of ways that you can interact with tech, positive and negative. And parents really need to have that awareness and conversation with their child about the fact that kids need to move. Kids aren't meant to sit still for hours at a day. They need to be physically active. Their hearts need to pump and their blood needs to flow and...

The variety of neurons and synapses that need to form in their brains from a variety of experiences are so critical to happen during childhood and adolescence. Sitting in front of a gaming platform for hours at a time is not good for anyone. Right. Absolutely. You guys also talk about passwords. Yes. So passwords, kind of a big topic in cybersecurity for obvious reasons. Multi -factor authentication and all that. I mean,

Dino Mauro (27:22.701)

That is decades of discussion. But how does it apply in the parental technology realm? So we like to say that passwords are doorways. I like to give an example. I give this to my son, who's almost 14. There's a reason why you, at almost 14, don't have your own apartment yet. You live with mom and dad. You live with adults.

And also you don't just have one key to your very own apartment because you are a minor. And anything that you have access to needs to have the ability to be monitored and you need to be able to have guidance from adults who love you and care for you and have your best interest in mind. It's our job to help you be healthy and safe.

both in real life and online. And so my son and I have this agreement where I am not going to go and grab his phone and go through it every day, every night, you know, looking at every text message and every DM and scanning through his camera roll. But if I ever do go to his phone for whatever reason, and I go to try to open it and the password does not unlock it, the one that he gave me, that's when we have a problem.

I need that password in case of an emergency. Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah. So it's really about the ability to have complete access. It's ability to have complete access. What if he's sick? What if he's injured? There's so many what ifs. And in some cases, as a parent, you do need to go through your kid's phone. It's not recommended.

Yeah, there was a real life scenario that happened about a year and a half over in Ohio. The old tangy boy that was cyber bullied and had like a sextortion thing against them and he killed himself. the parent couldn't, and it just came out in the news recently, but the parent, because the reason why was because they couldn't access the phone to even find out why he killed himself. And the bullying started at 1101 AM on a Sunday.

Dino Mauro (29:45.997)

without any prior mental health treatment issues, anything. And he had killed himself within 30 minutes after this whole thing. They had just blackmailed him. They had just gone on, pretended to be a girl from school. was just, it was just a horrible scenario. But it took him 15 months to get access to the phone from Apple. It wasn't Apple's fault. They have that safeguard. But the point is, is they didn't have access to, they didn't have the passwords.

Right? Had they been able to do it, they would have learned that this was the reason why they didn't even know why for 15 months. They had to bury their son and then 15 months go by before they even figure out what happened. It was so much torture there mentally. So you also talk about you just touched on something and that was we can't do it alone as parents. Right. We have to connect with allies. Yes. So what do mean by that? You know,

The phrase, it takes a village, is said a lot. Some people think it might be kind of cheesy, but it is so true. Every kid is different. Every experience is different. And from our collective insights and wisdom, we can band together and help our kids. It's why I started a Facebook group called Parenting in a Tech World a few years ago, because I needed that village. There wasn't a place to go, a community that was

like you and me talking today where we could learn from each other and bounce ideas off of each other. And fast forward to today, that group has close to 250 ,000 parents in it. We are learning from each other. We are helping each other. We're not meant to do life in a vacuum. We're not meant to be alone. So is that Facebook group open to the public? It's it's it's fine, but it's closed. You have to request a join because

We want to preserve its integrity. We want to make sure to keep the trolls out and keep the good and productive conversations in. It's over 50 ,000 strong. Holy cow. Yes, I know. Because it's needed. Right. That's really good. So let's switch gears a little. Toward the end of the book, you talk about a lot of the research that BART did to come up with these opinions. And that's really important for people to know. We're not just

Dino Mauro (32:11.149)

a good mom with good ideas, like the data supports all this. I Bark apparently researched and check this out for the listeners, I believe it was 874 million, 874 million messages, social media posts, texts and things like that. That's a good sample size. It is a good sample size.

Yeah, I mean, and it's all real and it's in real time. That was that was really good. So if I can, I just want to share with the listener some of the stats that I found kind of shocking. Yeah, so it said like 35 to 54 percent of teens had been texting about self harm or suicidal ideation, right. And which is suicide is the second leading cause of death for children.

55 % to 67 % were conversations indicative of depression. 76 % of the kids texting and posting had been cyberbullied, yet only 11 % had spoken to their parents about it. I mean, that's really telling, isn't it? Very much so. What was your take on it? What was yours?

and your colleagues take on it when you saw some of these stats.

It really breaks my heart, as you mentioned, to know that suicide is the second leading cause of death in children. children as young as seven and eight and nine years old. We have got to reverse that trend. In fact, our annual report is going to be coming out for 2022. I will be releasing that in January 23. And I'm

Dino Mauro (34:10.253)

really worried about what the story is gonna show there. See where it's changing, see if it's trending in a more positive way or trending in a more negative way and the odds are, you know, that's trending in more negative way, unfortunately. Yeah, I mean, in 2021, we analyzed 3 .4 billion data points across text, email and over 30 apps and social platforms. wow. Okay, wow.

And between 43 and 75 % of teens were involved in a self -harm or suicidal situation. So it's gotten worse year over year, 2020 to 2021. I'm thinking we're going to see the same thing for 2022. And so I will speak until I cannot speak anymore to anybody who will listen about the importance of talking about mental health with your children.

Letting them know that it's okay to not be okay Just like when you get a cold you maybe take Nyquil if you have diabetes You might need insulin if your head or your heart or your emotions aren't quite right You need to talk to a doctor. You might need some medicine. You might need to make some lifestyle changes heck you might just need some more sleep our bodies are changing and

really need to reduce that stigma and also help children realize that the things that seem so immediate in their world, like the example of the boy you gave who was sextorted, that probably felt like the end of the world to him. That was all he could see. He had tunnel vision. But if these kids can just know that it does get better and it will get better, we can help them. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So what boggles my mind here is what

What role do the platforms play? Like the platforms that create the ability for messaging in secret or the ability to have things be very, very harmful and then disappear, right? What are the laws say right now as we see here today?

Dino Mauro (36:30.103)

I don't think they're ever held accountable or do they ever have to change anything or put in real parental monitoring abilities? Where does that sit? So right now there is the Kids Online Safety Act that was introduced into the Senate February of this year. And it sets out requirements for covered platforms to protect minors from online harms.

and a covered platform must act in the best interest of a minor using its application or service. Now, I don't believe that has passed yet, but to be seen, right? We all know how that goes or sometimes doesn't go. But in the meantime, every day, every hour, more and more children are experiencing harmful content, harmful people. And so the onus is not only on parents,

to try to protect their children, it lives in the platform's hands to at least be more transparent about the data. So many platforms neglect to surface what's happening with children on their platforms by falling under the guise of, we don't let children under the age of 13 on our platform. Well, that's crap because we know that children under the age of 13 are in fact on your platform. And we also know

through self -reporting mechanisms in the apps, you can gather how many kids have reported cyberbullying or inappropriate people or inappropriate content. And there are even some instances where there have been inappropriate images and video of children uploaded to platforms. And when they went to a request to get it taken down, it wasn't taken down right away. That is completely unacceptable. Not to mention the amount of children

who are trafficked on these platforms. Right. That's exactly right. And we've always cautioned parents about if your kids are making platforms, know, making, creating online, such as TikTok videos, or they're live streaming themselves. Lots of kids do it when they're playing games and they'll live stream their games on YouTube, right? And on Discord.

Dino Mauro (38:56.465)

and on Twitch and all these platforms. And in the back of their wall, they can see what high school they go to, what grade they're in, what their name is. It's all visible, right? It stays online. that, you know, just guarding your identity, it's the same reason you have a password, right? You don't want to, you want to keep that barrier of safety in place. And parents need to lead by example. Don't be, don't host.

you know, your family's holiday card on Facebook that shows the front of your house, your mailbox, mailbox number, what your front door looks like. Or that you're on vacation right now. Right. Like, wait until you get back to post the images. Why do people do that? I still don't understand. Like, you're on vacation right now. Hello, alert. Go break into our house. Like, go do it. We're, you know, only grandma's home. Don't worry about it. Come on. Like, what are you doing?

Yeah. But again, coming up at a time before all this even existed, no one ever taught us that. No one ever kind of taught parents how to parent in this tech world. So everybody's kind of like making a best guess. They're hoping tragedy doesn't hit. So we need our pediatricians. We need our pediatricians to help us out.

Yeah, absolutely. So walk us through the the bark app. So first of all, what is it? So bark alerts you, parent caregiver via text or email when your child has encountered problematic content or people through their smartphones, through a variety of social media accounts, through text messages, through emails. Bark will not only alert you to problematic content or people.

but it also gives you best recommended next steps for how to address. Okay, thanks, Bark. You just let me know that my kid has suicidal ideation. How do I talk to them about that? What do I do? What are next steps? Bark will also help you if you were looking to set screen time limits or implement filters or allow access to certain things and not allow access to other things. And then finally, Bark will help you if you're trying to check in with your child with regards to their location.

Dino Mauro (41:23.469)

You can help keep tabs on your child's whereabouts with location. And in a few short weeks, we're actually going to be launching our own smartphone because of all the... Yeah, I'm so excited for the bark phone. I can't wait for it to be here. And I wish that could have been my son's first smartphone. Will they be able to... Will that play in the Google Play Store or the...

the Apple Store as well? how, what apps would be able to be on that phone? I know it's not released yet. I was just curious. Yeah, so the bark phone is a Samsung A13. So it is not an iPhone, but you'll be if you want to allow it, a parent can allow any app to be downloaded on it from the Google Play Store if you want. Also, if you don't want, you can make sure it doesn't download anything. And in fact, you can turn off the ability.

to even You can actually select which apps are allowed on the phone. Exactly. that's a whole other level. Yeah, it can grow with your child. It's the best first smartphone for a child, and it's also a non -kid branded, fully unlocked phone for an older teen or tween, if you wish to have that. Yeah. Well, that'll be really interesting to

to see when that comes out. And from the kid's perspective though, does Bark read all of the texts? Do they still have privacy? Yes, kids absolutely have privacy. That's one of our core tenets. Because that could only damage the relationship, which is the core of it all. Exactly. If Bark is just giving parents a copy of every single thing their kids are doing and experiencing online, it's

cumbersome and it's very, it will create a lot of friction between parent and child. Bark is only going to send parents an alert to potential problematic content in people. Everything else is, you know, doesn't come across the parent or caregiver's plate. And so Bark isn't accessing everything. Bark's algorithm is scanning everything, but the algorithm is looking for problems.

Dino Mauro (43:48.685)

Again, problematical. As I understand it, it identifies that the AI involved or the machine learning involved will identify the difference between like, my biology test is coming up. I feel like I'm going to die and I feel worthless. I want to die. Exactly. Two different things. And it's hard to discern in text because you can't hear the tone. But Barks AI or machine learning actually does that.

Right. And then that would alert a parent, go have a conversation with your child. There's potential suicidal ideation. then, Mike, that begs the question then, then what? Like, how do you have that conversation? Like, how do you how do you do that? What do you what do you you and your colleague from the book? Like, how how do you approach that? Because I know that's something that every parent keeps asking us. Like, what do we do? Right. How do we

How do we start that without jeopardizing the relationship? So I would venture to say that any child would understand why you would be coming to them.

to talk to them about them experiencing potential suicidal ideation. But from our end as parents, we need to be kind, calm, empathetic and responsible with that information. So if that were to happen to me, I would go to my son, not in the middle of when he was gaming, not when he had friends over, I would wait for a time where like he had food in his belly and he was reasonably calm and insightful.

And I would say, hey, buddy, you know how we have this bark thing that alerts me to problems, potential problems. Well, I got a bark alert for suicidal ideation. And I just want to say, first of all, I'm so sorry if you are struggling. It's a really tough place to be. And I love you. And I'm here for you. And it's going to be OK. Do you want open? Yeah, like ask an open -ended question like, so what's going on?

Dino Mauro (46:00.413)

What's going on? Or can you tell me more about this? Well, more right. That's a great. Yeah. And hey, if for some reason you don't want to talk to me about this, that's absolutely OK. Right. Allies come in, right? Maybe you want to talk to me. But if they're active at church or if they're active in sports, like, is it OK if we go talk to to Coach A? Yeah, something like that. Something just to get them.

to help in a comfortable, safe environment. Right. Do you have somebody that you can share these thoughts and feelings with that isn't a peer? I want to make sure that you have an adult that you can talk to about this because it's going to be OK. It's going to get better. But you need to not go through this alone. Yeah, that's that's really, really good. We have a question from one of the listeners. Yes, I see that.

What would the ideal age be for a child to have their own phone? We struggle with this in our own home on when to get our son his own phone. Great question. Great question. That is the second most popular question I get right after how much screen time is too much. That's the one too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because how do you define screen time? Let's address this question. Yeah, yeah. First of all, it's hard. It's hard. know, every family is different.

is the child in a dual parent household situation where they, you know, maybe the parents aren't talking to each other and the kid needs to be able to talk to either parent.

Is the child able to handle mature themes? Do you, have you done the research on parental controls that come with whatever device you're going to give your child? Have you decided on an iPhone or an Android phone or even a flip phone? Maybe you just want them to have an old school dumb phone that can literally call and that's it. It's really a matter of determining

Dino Mauro (48:05.517)

why they need a phone and what capabilities do they need in that phone? Do they need to be able to call just parent and 911? Do they need to be able to text or call parent or 911? Are you wanting them to have a - why they want it, right? Let's assume it's a nuclear family with both parents and there isn't one parent offering to give it earlier than they should just to, because there's a separation or divorce or something. if there's,

Just assuming that scenario, we know why they want it. They want to be able to make TikTok videos and they want to be able to see Instagram and that's what they want to do. They want games, right? That's what they want. So again, it's really not so much about a specific age because that will vary based on the family and the parents' own judgment, right? Yes, 100%. And when it's not even...

so much about the time, but how you roll it out. When give them the phone, do what you said earlier about what apps are we going to put up? Yeah. I need passwords to all of them and we're going to get on it together. I'm going to walk through it with you. Walk like and then roll it out to them. Like go app by app. Yeah. What do you want to use this phone for?

Do you need to be able to send disappearing messages to your friends? Yeah, if so, why? Why? If so, why? Because red flags are going off all over the parent. So. Do you need to be able to watch videos? Cool. We have a smart TV in our living room. You're welcome. Exactly. Right. You want to connect with your friends because literally all of your friends have a smartphone and they're all on this text thread and you're not. OK, let's talk about that. Let's think about that.

You know, we don't want you to be left out. We don't want you to be the last child to have a smartphone, but you also don't need to be the first. Right. And you can always blame us. You can say, well, I watched this podcast and they said not until you're 21. So they said, no, because the kid didn't watch the podcast. So you'd be like, you know, they said absolutely no way we can do it until you're 21. So I'll get you that phone. Yeah, I will say that I.

Dino Mauro (50:23.735)

have never ever in the history of being on this planet heard a parent say, I waited too long. I really should have given my child access to XYZ earlier. Flip side, heard way too many parents and I shared the same feeling say, I did it too early. I did it too early. So trust your gut and just wait even a little bit longer. And even if you do roll it out the right way. And I think that's really the important thing too. But let's talk about screen time.

What is a good gauge for the amount of screen time? I mean, you've got kids that do online school too. So that's, you can't limit them from that screen time naturally. But you can't, but if your child is involved in online schooling where they have to be literally sedentary for more than two hours at a time with no breaks, that's a problem. Call the administrator, the principal or whomever and say, my kid needs to move. My kid needs a brain break.

And I really try to stick to that rule of if your child is in front of a screen for more than two hours at a time, break it up, take a break. You can come back to a screen in the same day later, but you need to break it up. And less is more. One hour, 30 minutes, even better. Easier said than done, I know. And I, know, when my son gets home from school, I'm sure he'll be gaming for more than that amount of time, but he knows how I feel. And I do not hesitate to...

knock on the door and remind him, hey, you need to move. You need to move. Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. So the integration of physical activity, and not necessarily like, even if your child does online school, it's not like you pretend to have a gym class in your house. no. It's about getting up, going for a walk, walking around the house, doing something, get on the treadmill, get on the bike, do something, play a game, play a sport, know, go outside, do something, right?

Go get the mail out of the mailbox. Yeah, exactly. Right. Which is like asking for lights, like pulling teeth sometimes. Right. Like you're like, can you can you it's like 15 feet. Can you do it? It's just something it's it's it's a piece. Yeah, that's really good. That's really good. So as we wrap up, are there any other best practices or suggestions that you have?

Dino Mauro (52:42.485)

I would say don't fall into that camp of not my kid. So many parents think not my kid. My kid would never, or I will know if there's something wrong with my kid or something's going on. And not, that's not true. No, it's absolutely your kid. It's your kid. Every one of our kids can fall trap into all of this. Yep. Good kids make bad choices. They're kids. Again, why they don't live alone. So just

proactively have the tough candid conversations, let your children know that you are a safe, calm place that loves them unconditionally, and you will help them navigate the rocks in the road instead of just moving every rock out of their path. And that even if you don't understand what it's like to be a kid today, you want to. And you're there for them and y 'all will navigate this thing together, whether it's real life or online. That's excellent.

Well, Tatiana Jordan, thank you so much. And thank you, everybody, for asking questions. This was really, really insightful. We really appreciate your time. Awesome. Thank you so much, David. I can't wait to watch the next episode. All right. Thank you so much. We'll talk soon, for sure. Bye -bye. Thank you.

Dino Mauro (53:59.597)

Well that wraps this up. Thank you for joining us. We hope you enjoyed our episode. The next one is coming right up. We appreciate you making this an award -winning podcast and downloading on Apple and Spotify and subscribing to our YouTube channel. This is Cybercrime Junkies and we thank you for watching.