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ScreenStrong Families
ENCORE: What Parents Need to Know About Roblox, Sleepovers, and Snapchat with Officer Gomez (#168)
01:10:45
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Hi, everyone, and welcome to the Screenstrong Families Podcast, bringing you the best solutions for parents who are serious about finally eliminating screen problems in their home. This is Melanie Hempe, and if you are one of our regular listeners, welcome back. And if you are a new friend, we are so glad you found us. And especially today, we have such a fabulous show and guest for you today. But before we get started, something has been sort of nagging me a little bit, and so I thought I would bring it up on this podcast today because something else just happened a few days ago regarding this. So about a year ago, or actually it's probably been a little bit longer, I was asked to speak speak for a parent group and it was great. And you know, I do this all the time. And so the person who was in charge of it called me and I could tell they were like, really nervous and I was like, all right, well, tell me what the stress is. What are you stressed over? And they were just kind of having a hard time explaining why they were so stressed that I was coming. And I'm like, oh no. Usually people are really excited. And this gentleman said to me, I am just really scared that you are going to tell the audience to throw all their laptops in the lake. And I was trying not to laugh, but I calmed him down. I'm like, it's fine. We are not a screen free organization. I'm not going to tell you to jump off a cliff or throw your laptops in the lake or even your smartphones. And so he got this real big sigh of relief and I'm like, oh my goodness, why do people think this? Why do people think that? Because you're skipping social media for your kids or you're skipping video games during high school. Why do they think that this is so backwards and weird and strange? And so I started thinking about that again. And over this past year, I have seen just little comments like this, not in our social media, but in different social media platforms that are saying things like, you know, you can't restrict your kids, you can't ban them. You know, banning is bad. Saying no is not allowing them to grow up to be adults. And, you know, the wording around it is really bothering me because what I want to just remind everybody this morning is that being screen strong is not about limits and banning and locking your kids up in the room and, you know, telling them they can't go out into the real world. And it's not restricting, it is freedom. And we are very positive over here. You know, we can't overlook the fact that being free from the trap of social media and gaming as a teenager, this is not a punishment, this is a good thing. So I believe that every kid wants out of screen jail. In fact, I have heard from a number of teenagers when I'm out and about, they tell me we wish nobody had social media. We wish we weren't all stuck in this. And what they're describing is this jail. That's the only way I can know how to say it. It's like they're trapped. They want to be productive, they want to spend undivided time with their family and their friends and they want to be picked by the real humans in their lives. And you know what? They, they want somebody to stand up for them. So those basic desires of belonging and autonomy and being competent, you know, those are just really basic human needs. And you, you've got to look at what is happening on your kids screen. Is that meeting those needs or are they really not getting those needs met? Because we think, oh well, they have to be social so they have to be on their social media. That's not really the thing that's making them the most social. What they really want is to camp with you in the backyard this weekend. They want dad to say, hey, let's spend some one on one time together. They want to learn something new. That's fun to learn new things. Even learning how to replace the insides of a toilet is fun when you're a teenager just learning something new. How about riding your bike to a friend's house that's like five miles away? That is really fun. That is stretching your ability to use your brain. How about playing sandlot with all your friends on that short field so you can hit home runs all day? That's really fun. You know, just being stuck in your room on Fortnite is really not that fun. You think it is because that's all you got to compare it to. Maybe, but it's really not that fun. How about that feeling of beating your personal best on your mile time? I mean that takes a lot of grit and perseverance and you have to practice. And then all of a sudden the day comes when you beat your own time. That that's the kind of dopamine that we're looking for over here at Screen Strong and, and then for older teens, what about date actually in person instead of on hinge? Isn't that more fun to be in a group of kids your age and just kind of finding people to talk to and just have Things in common with all those things are way more fun than any screen or phone or video game could ever be, whether you're six or 16. So we are all about taking this kind of negative talk out of this conversation. We are, you know, not taking things away. We are being more positive over here, and we're giving back, and we're giving kids this gift in this few months and, you know, 48 months of high school, how short is that? But how rich it is when you don't have to spend all that time on social media. We've got to start giving our kids alternatives to being stuck in screen jail. And we have to help them understand the freedom and the fun, and we have to show them the freedom and fun. And I always say, Mars is a miserable place to live. You know, we don't want them living on another planet. They really, really do want to hang out with us. They want to spend time with us. Even your older teenagers, they will maybe not admit it, but they want you to pick them. They want you to pick them over giving them more screen time. So our guest today, I am so thrilled to have Officer Gomez back because every time we have him on our numbers go out the roof here on our podcast, he's one of our most popular guests, and he is going to be talking about all the hot things that he's seeing today as he's is working. And he's going to describe what he does, but offers a great mess. I want to welcome you back. Thank you so much for coming.
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Well, thanks so much for having me, and great to be here again. That's a good intro. And I. I live up in the mountains, and I have a family that lives out in the sticks with no running water, no electricity, and everybody feels like, you know, hey, those kids are neglected. This, that, and the other. Yet every time I stop to visit, the kids have adventure stories. They have dirty fingernails. They have scrapes, they have bumps, they have bruises. And I actually get jealous for all the other kids who might not have even ever had dirty fingernails. It's like, you know, what kind of a childhood do you have if you don't have dirty fingernails? But these kids have. They go on Sasquatch adventures, and they know how to fish, and they know how to get food from the mountains, and it's just amazing. And I. It's like, I wish all the, the. The screen kids just had a portion of this. It doesn't have to go all out, but let's get our fingernails dirty. Let's have some adventures that we can talk about. Let's have some bruises and some scrapes we're proud of. I love your. Your intro there.
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Thank you. It was. It's just been something. I don't know if you've seen it in your. You know, when you're out looking on all the social media and the stuff that you do. I. I just feel like there's this negative kind of criticism around. Less screen time. It's like you don't. You know, y' all are Luddites. You just don't want your kid. You know, you put them in a bubble, and it's not true. I mean, the kids that you're DEs are not in a bubble. They're out running around, getting their skin, knees, and maybe a broken bone every now and then, you know, even. And we have to realize that this is just what we're missing, and it is such a gift. So I want everybody listening to you today. And just as you're trying to figure out what to do with the screen time in your house, remember that it's okay to give your kids this freedom. I mean. I mean, Officer Comas, do you remember growing up sometime, it was like the best thing ever when your mom said you couldn't do something right. You know, you want. You want them to. To be that leader and that coach and that guide. You know, you. You maybe didn't want to go spend the night over at somebody's house. Your mom said you couldn't. You were like, yes. You know, like, they were just more involved in some of those things. But our parents were not involved in our play. And they opened the door, we ran out, we played, we came home before dinner. And that's what I'm trying to reiterate to people. Yeah. You know, technology is great. There's a lot of great things about it. And we are very happy to use screens in our house for all kinds of things, but we are not using them to replace childhood. And all the things that I just talked about a minute ago, and we can't think that it's being negative if we just tell our kids, you know, we're not doing this right now. This is not being negative, and we're not getting behind. So I'm so glad that you understand that. You're such a sweet friend to understand that we have to stop using this language about banning and restricting and saying no. We're saying yes to a lot of other things that our kids are really striving for.
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Yeah. And many adults with kids, you know, if they're the same as me. We could go into any neighborhood in any state in the United States and get a baseball game going with all the kids in the neighborhoods. Boys and girls would all know how to throw baseball, would know. Know the rules, could all play some form of football. And nowadays that's just not the case anymore. Right. I mean, if you want to get Fortnite team going, yes, you'll. You'll have that. But it's not the same as being outside, getting some personal contact and getting a little dirt under your fingernails.
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Yeah, love the dirt on the fingernails. I remember when we decided to go game free when my twins, my younger boys, were in third grade. And you know what that you said that one of the first things that I remember happening, because, you know, I had a gamer, you know, if y' all are new listening, you know, I raised a gamer, and that was a really bad idea. And one thing I noticed was in their bedroom, the. The younger boys who were outside a lot more, of course, and they weren't gaming. They had dirt in their bedroom. It was always dirty. Like, there was mud everywhere. And, you know, when they went to bed at night, they were so tired, they just fell into the bed. And they did take showers in the morning, but they didn't take showers at night. And so their sheets were filthy. And I didn't know what this was. I'm like, what's happening? Because Adam sheets were perfectly clean when he was growing up. And it just. When you said dirt under their fingernails, that just reminded me of that moment. I remember it so well. And that's the day where I stopped using white sheets and I got some navy blue sheets for their bed because I thought, this is what it's supposed to be. They're supposed to be dirty. They're boys. They're supposed to be dirty. So we love the dirt under the fingernails. So let's dive in and talk about why kids don't have dirt under their fingernails anymore. One of the things that you and I were hoping to bring up here is the issue of let's start with Chromebooks. Okay, let's just start. You've got a couple things you want to talk about. Some new apps. We definitely are going to talk about the sleepover issue and just some of the AI stuff. And. Oh, we got to talk about roadblocks while you're here. But let's. Let's see how quick we can get through some of this stuff. So first of all, explain to the audience your background, please, and what you do for your job, please.
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All Right. So I have a bachelor degree in electronics engineering, which I used in the semiconductor field for 15 years before I became a regular street police officer in the Boise area. Boise, Idaho. I've been a police officer now for 14 years, almost 15 years of those years. I've been a school resource officer for over 10 years at multiple schools. And when I got into that, I just kind of gravitated towards the education of social media. And also I'm one of the pioneers in our area of going after Internet predators who are preying on kids. So I see a lot of what the predators use to entice the kids and then how they do it and how easily kids fall for some of the adults tricks that they use.
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Yeah. Yes. And if y' all want to listen to any of the other podcasts we've done with Officer Goodman, you can go back on our list and find him a couple different times where we're talking more about that. But that's why we love having you on and there's just. And which value and what you bring to kind of be our eyes and ears of what's happening in the school system with kids and just the day to day. And I love your, your day to day knowledge because we as parents, you know, we just don't have an opportunity like that. So thank you so much for all the things that you're doing. So let's jump into to Chromebooks, because we were just mentioning, you mentioned to me that this has become a bigger issue these days. Talk about that and why you think that's become a bigger, you know, what you're seeing, why it's better or why it's a bigger issue.
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A
So right before the pandemic and during the pandemic, schools just kind of switched to sending everybody home with Chromebooks. And you know, I could see there was a need at that point for those kind of things if people didn't want to come to school but still wanted their education. So understandable. But we don't have that anymore. Yet we've kept the Chromebooks that go home with kids. And I've talked to a lot of parents who feel kind of, they feel trapped and they feel like the Chromebooks are holding them hostage because whatever screen time rules, whatever they try and do at home, the kid says, well, I have homework and I have to work on my Chromebook. And the parents feel like the school's kind of underhanded, has set this Chromebook in their house, which parents have no control over, even though they do, but they kind of Feel that way. Well, the Chromebooks, the kids have figured out very quickly, they can get around every protection there is on a Chromebook and use it just for regular things. They can log into Snapchat, they can log into TikTok, they can play their video games on the Chromebook, and they use, you know, some kind of devious language to get around their parental controls that parents have in their house. And so now they can spend a couple hours a day on their Chromebooks saying they're doing homework when they're really doing other things. And I ask schools, everywhere I go, I said, you know, are Chromebooks making kids smarter? Are they helping in the education? And there's no studies, there's no anything that shows that's true. Yet they are a big problem at the school and at home. At school, kids are using them to text each other all day, right? They open up a Google document, they add a couple of their friends, and everybody can edit the Google Doc and they use it to chat. They can also get around all the. I mean, we have goguardian at our school, which is, is a very good program. Nothing, nothing bad on them, but kids have a hundred ways around that, and if I block those hundred ways, they get 100 new ways around that. So they're Snapchatting on their Chromebooks at home and at school when, you know, this is supposed to be a tool to help them get educated, and it's not. And I talk to everybody, hey, who thinks this is a good idea still, even teachers are hard pressed to give me that. And along with that comes AI, which means they can use artificial intelligence to help them write their papers, to help them with math homework, to help them with every facet of their education. But they're learning how to cheat their way through an education, which, I mean, in these years, the education is one of the most important things you can give your kid. Why would you cheat them by letting them, you know, skip out on that education?
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Yeah, I think that, I think kids think that if they can find it on Google, that they're not cheating. They don't understand that that defeats the, the whole purpose. Talk back. Let's go back a second. You're exactly right, okay. With the Chromebooks, and I hadn't really thought about it in the sense that they were getting them, you know, because Covid, which they did, we know they started bringing them home then because I think the Chromebooks before COVID were at school, but they were just using them on a case by case. Need. Need base. Is that what it was before it was.
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And they were discussing giving everybody their own Chromebooks or iPads. And then the pandemic just, you know, quickened that up very quickly.
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Yeah.
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And now even elementary kids are taking home Chromebooks, which is ridiculous.
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Yeah. Yeah. Well, we know the smaller the screen, the bigger the problems. And this is what's wrong with iPads for toddlers. And it all. It all goes in as the screens get smaller, it gets harder to manage, of course. And then you have a smartphone in their pocket, and it's impossible to manage. So I remember when my oldest son, we were really struggling with gaming when he was in middle school, and I was setting the kitchen timer, and we were constantly arguing about how much time he had, and he was negotiating constantly, and I hated that job. And I called myself the gaming cop mom, and I hated it. And. And when he went to high school, I will never forget, in ninth grade, they issued a laptop. And when that happened, that's when we lost the battle. And I can't imagine. I mean, this was in ninth grade. I can't imagine dealing with this for, you know, third, fourth, fifth, sixth graders. I mean, I just can't even imagine. Parents are so exhausted. But we lost the battle because he was no longer, like, on a desktop. He was. He had that laptop, and it was portable, and he got around. Just like you were saying. He got around everything. We had router passwords, we had everything. And. And it was just the most fascinating, terrible thing that he got around everything. I just will never forget how frustrating that was. And so for parents now, I can't imagine, but can you enlighten them a little bit? Because most of the things that we get frustrated about, it's the things that we don't know. And so we need to educate always. Over here is Greenstrong. So can you touch just a few minutes on what they're doing on the Chromebooks? Like when they bring their Chromebooks home? First of all, parent, you should collect it, and it should just go away till the next morning, because I don't even know why they. They're bringing them home, because I can guarantee you, if they're doing homework, it's for about five minutes and that's it. And you can sit and Kobe with them while they do their homework and then take it away. That's the solution. But tell us what they're doing, because parents, I don't think understand. I mean, we're getting more savvy. Officer Gomez. We really are getting more savvy with all of these workarounds but just give us maybe the, the top three or four. You said one of them was even getting on a Google Doc. And, and I have seen this. And that's probably the most simple thing, right? You share a Google Doc and then you can put all kind of links in there, you can put videos in there. You set up like a chat. It's like a little mini group chat. Right. And anybody can put videos in and pictures. That's one thing. Give us a few other ideas around how they're getting around the parental controls. Because schools are telling parents that they have them locked down. And I know they're not locked down.
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Yes. And I've talked to some IT guys at the schools who say they're locked down. I'm like, okay, well, no, they're not. So the Google Docs is the easiest. Another way they can get around the controls is going to Google Maps and they could go to specific locations that have lots of videos, YouTube videos in the reviews. For example, if you type in Milk island, go there, look in the reviews, you'll see all kinds of videos. TikToks, lots of inappropriate stuff for kids. And those laptops don't filter that out at all because it's a Google powered map system and those Chromebooks are Google powered. The next way is to reboot in a safe mode. We actually caught a kid selling flash drives at our school for $10. You plug it in, it reboots the computer in. You know, it modifies its bios for the next boot up. And so you're getting around the GoGuardian system that's on there. The next thing is a VPN. They can VPN into different websites or VPN accounts and get past all the monitoring there is on Chromebooks. These kids become geniuses and they're beyond parents and apparently they're beyond most of the IT guys at the schools where they don't think this is happening.
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B
Yeah, I remember one IT guy told me that every morning he would go into work and collect all of the, all the kids who were on all the different VPNs, because evidently there's a new one every day, probably a million new ones every day. And so then he would block those certain sites, but then the next morning there'd be a whole bunch more. And you know, he saw, you just can't keep doing it like they're gonna. Can you explain a VPN though, real quick?
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To our audience, a VPN is basically a different network you get on. It's not as simple to explain, but here's an easier one. You can just go to a website that basically logs you into Snapchat through their account so that it doesn't look like your computer's on that website from your own monitoring system. So you're basically using like a third party. The other way to, to kind of explain it is, you know, we get a lot of kids who will log into the Internet through their parents hotspot on their phones, and they can do the same thing on their Chromebooks. They can log in, hey, you, you get a hold of mom's flip phone, you. You enable it as a hotspot. Now you can log in as a third party. And basically what the system sees is mom's flip phone. It doesn't see your Chromebook or your iPad or anything that you're using.
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Well, it would have to be a smartphone, right? I mean, a flip phone is typically a basic phone without Internet. But if you're in that. Correct. You're.
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Nope. The flip phones actually have data plans. They can.
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Oh, if it has a data plan.
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Yes, if it has a data plan of any kind, which a lot of times, you know, for texting or whatever, they have their data collection, they can hotspot with a flip phone onto the Internet.
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Okay.
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While it's sitting on mom's, you know, table.
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Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, that's. That's right. I know that Verizon now has a flip phone that doesn't have the Internet on it. So that's something to look out for. You know, the old, old timey one that, that doesn't. But yeah, I guess just with a regular flip phone, it could do that. Vpn, by the way, stands for virtual private network. If. If anyone didn't know that, and it is, it's kind of like a, if you vision sort of a pond with lily pads. It's kind of like going from one lily pad to another lily pad. So once you leave where you were, it just doesn't. Nobody knows where you are. And that's how that's done. And then as far as the hotspots, even kids that, you know, this was a big thing here. I know a lot of schools were taking phones, you know, out of schools, but I mean, a lot of schools were just saying, you know, no more smartphones, but they would still have them in their, their backpack and they would just put their hotspot on and their computer could get out that way. That was a big problem. That's been a big problem for a long time is the hotspots.
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Yes. And the Logging in with a different login is also a big problem because the school has them all set up for the students and their logins. Well, if you log in with a different account or even the guest account on some different, you know, depending on what's monitoring them, then all the monitoring systems don't apply any longer. So there's. There's thousands of ways past the school monitoring.
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B
Yeah. And then when they get home, you know, they may be home for a couple hours even by themselves, before mom and dad get home or whatever is happening. That's the. That's another big problem, is just that monitored access. That's why even through high school, our kids, because of everything that I've been through, our younger kids, when they did their homework, they had to sit at the kitchen table. I wanted to see the back of their heads in the front of their screens while I was there and, you know, making dinner, cleaning up, or just being present with them while they're on their screens. And what we found out is their homework really didn't take that long. Their screen homework, you know, if they had to read or book or do whatever, that they didn't need their screen for that. But their screen homework really didn't take that long. So I could invest that time and just, you know, help them move along and get their homework done. And then I would just collect the screens. And then as they got a little bit older, they just kind of got used to that accountability. And I think it's super important for kids to have accountability, because I think parents may think, oh, that's over protecting or over controlling. And it is not. I think in our culture, for some strange reason, it feels like children are the ones with the least accountability, you know, and as you graduate from college and get a job, you've got to be accountable to your boss and to people and to a spouse. But when they're young, when you're in high school, it's like, no, you know, forget it. I don't have to be accountable to anybody. And parents are not helping that along. We have to understand that it is not over protecting. It is not over controlling. It is just simply being smart and teaching them how to have accountability and giving them regulations around this. And it's okay if you. If you feel weird about watching what your kids are doing on their screen. You've got to rethink that. Someone was talking to me the other day about this, and he said, well, I think it's. I think it's really bad not to give kids, you know, privacy on their screen. And I'm like, think about what you're saying, you know, and I knew this gentleman and I'm thinking you, you don't really think that. You think you do, but you don't. Because what you're saying is that everybody in the world gets to see what your kid is doing but you, he's like, oh, yeah, you're right, you're right, you're right, that's a terrible idea. So Chromebooks have not made it easier, it's making our job harder. Any other tips that you can give for parents? Because they've got to do something about it. So what can they do about Chromebooks?
- [27:12]
A
So talk to your superintendents, talk to your school, get them out of the schools. And you know, the two arguments are, you have my kids are going to be computer stupid when they graduate. No, they're not. They're going to be plenty smart. I say go back to the tech labs where you have the computer screens around the room where the teacher can see every screen from where they're sitting. And that works just fine. There's some parents that would make the argument that, hey, well, there's some kids who can't afford laptops. So we want to get laptops in their hands so they're equal to the other kids. And I say that's fine, but wait till they're like juniors and seniors and then just provide them with a laptop that they take home and let their parents monitor it and control that laptop. That way the parents are not held captive by the school issued Chromebooks.
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B
Yeah, that's a great idea to put it back in the parents hands because it's obviously not working. And there's really no way that a teacher in a classroom can monitor 30 kids. It's ridiculous. Like she can't, he can't do that. It, it's impossible. So I love that suggestion. I think it's a great solution. And I love that you said juniors or seniors because is it really going to take your kids 16,000 hours to learn how to use a laptop? We got to do the math. You know, if we're so worried that they're not going to be tech savvy, you know, you and I both agree that of course they're tech savvy. It's going to take them five minutes to figure it out. But it doesn't take them 16,000 hours, which is all the hours that they have between middle school and in high school. So we've kind of got that all wrong. What is this new thing that you were mentioning Telegram. What is that? Is this a new app? Talk about that a minute.
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A
Okay, so Telegram is an application and the moniker for it is basically like a little paper airplane on a blue circle.
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B
Okay.
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A
It's free to sign up, it's free to download you, you can make any kind of username you like. But then what happens is when you sign up for that and you say find friends near me, you get a whole lot of drugs and sex activity that's happening right near where you're at. So when you say find friends, it'll say, hey, this group or this person is within three miles of you, within two miles of you, within your nine miles of you. And when you click on it, there's a whole lot of drugs for sale and there's a whole lot of sex for sale. So you, I mean, it's actually helped me know what kind of drugs are in my area, but it also educated me on the names of the drugs and what some of the drugs do as well as some of the scams that are going around.
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B
Wow.
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A
But they, it's like the old back page used to be, you know, they used to have back page that was kind of like, you know, just a underground selling application which got shut down by the government somehow. Now we have Telegram, which took over where that is. But it's GEO based, so you can see what's in your neighborhood, what's in your city, and you can see a lot of it. And so within minutes somebody can be looking at straight pornography or looking at the different kind of drugs that can be available at the park at their fingertips within seconds of downloading it.
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B
Wow. And this is something that is getting popular in your opinion, with, with what age kids.
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A
So this is, this is with the older teenagers, young adult crew. Right. So, and I've been, I go teach all around the United States. I always bring up, you know, I show the people there at the school, let me show you what's happening in your neighborhood. And I click on it. And they're just, you know, aghast about, you know, the different things that are available. But you know, the different education that's going to be on there is crazy. And the different things available, it just normalizes it for kids. And that's what parents don't understand is that a kid's normal is going to be so far out of touch of what's real life. Or maybe it's not because as soon as everybody normalizes, I guess it would be normal. But that's not the normal. I want for kids.
- [31:20]
B
No. And the desensitization, even for adults and for parents, I hate to say in my workshops from. You probably seen this too, from even like five or seven years ago, people were. They were just so much more shocked over stuff, which was not really my goal. But, yeah, it is shocking. So let's not get desensitized to it. But now it's. It's different. It's almost like we've lowered the bar so low, you know, well, if our kids are seeing, you know, this and this and that, you know, I guess it's okay. Well, no, it's not okay. We have to really stop and focus on what we're doing. These apps like you just described are not okay. They're not okay for anybody, you know, much less a high school kid. So I think we've got to just stop with this excuse that this is the world we live in and, you know, we just throw our hands up and throw the towel in, this is not parenting. So what else, you know, since the last time we talked, I know we talked a lot about Snapchat. You know what, right now you need this, this new telegram thing. And right now, what are you seeing for, like, middle school kids and high school kids? What. Where are they living right now? Online. Which apps are you think the most? Like three or four? Most used?
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A
They're living on Snapchat, TikTok, and be real Bereal. I expect to go out at some point. I think it's just a temporary as some of the other apps take over. But Snapchat, you know, up their game quite a bit by adding their AI Buddy article.
- [33:08]
B
Yeah, talk about that. Talk about that. A lot of parents don't know about that yet.
- [33:12]
A
Yeah, so a couple months ago, Snapchat added an artificial intelligence friend to everybody's account. It started off with the pay accounts, but then they added it to everybody's account. So when you open up your phone, you all of a sudden have an extra friend, which is your AI friend. You can dress them up, you know, he or she, you can name them whatever you want. And what's happening is kids are using this to be their psychologist, their psychiatrist, their. Their counselor, their dating friend, their, you know, their homework buddy, their math buddy. But it's this fake world that hasn't been tested yet. And now we're testing it on millions of kids around the world, and they're becoming very reliant on this artificial intelligence friends. Like, you know, there's a couple of movies out about it, but this is not good for Kids in any way, shape or form.
- [34:03]
B
Wow, that is so staggering. I can't Even imagine being 13 years old and every day having my little friend that in their mind, they, they can't be as abstract. They don't understand what this is. It does feel very real to them. So it feels like a friend when it is not. It's just a robot. And Lord only knows how it's programmed. How else are they using Snapchat? Of course, that's the AI Buddy is like the bad news. And continue that minute to talk about that a minute just about Snapchat and like middle school kids and high school kids.
- [34:44]
A
So Snapchat is, you know, after telegram now Snapchat is the next one where they buy a lot of drugs because everything disappears on Snapchat, right? And I've talked before. Even with a subpoena or court order, I cannot get the information from Snapchat. So, you know, I always tease parents and I say, hey, you know, five out of five child sex predators recommend parents give their kids Snapchat. And unfortunately, most parents cave to it sooner or later. The other thing I always joke about is, you know, parents always ask me, they say, hey, my fifth grader says they are the only child in fifth grade without Snapchat. And I'm like, probably right. And you think the peer pressure is bad for kids. Just know that adults are falling to the peer pressure all the time. They don't want their child to be the only one without Snapchat and fifth grade. But I tell them, you know, four, four parents of fifth graders, you know, out of 10, four parents are on the luck survival plan. That means Snapchat is their co parent because they're working. They, they have busy lives. They don't have time to parent correctly. So Snapchat is what keeps your kids busy. You know, three parents think that their family values are going to overcome whatever Snapchat throws at them, which is completely wrong. Two parents think that, you know, their kids don't have Snapchat and they actually do have Snapchat. They just delete it before they come home. And one parent out of 10, one kid out of 10 does not have Snapchat. And I tell every parent that that's their kid. But it's not.
- [36:07]
B
Yeah, but it's not. Oh my goodness. So this. Okay, just back up a second. You have me reeling here a minute. So. Because I know, I know, I know, this is all what I hear too, but you just said it very nicely. So the kids that are. That you don't think your kid has Snapchat, but they do during the day and then they just delete it when they come home. How does that work? They just delete the app. So they get home.
- [36:28]
A
So they, so they download it when they get to school, they log in and then they use it all day. Then they delete it when they get home. So when parents check or look, there's no Snapchat, there's no, you know, notifications, there's no anything.
- [36:41]
B
Yeah. Wow.
- [36:43]
A
Essentially, when you give a kid Snapchat, when you give them any kind of social media, you are giving them a drug and as soon as you give them the drug to take it away, it's a very tough thing to do. So the longer you wait before you give them that drug, the better it is. But yeah, they can download any application on the way to school, delete it on the way home, and then use it again the next day at school.
- [37:04]
B
Can they delete, can they download these apps through a VPN or. What I'm saying is even if they don't download the app, they can go on a vpn, get on Snapchat. You can get on Snapchat just on your computer. Do you have to have an app?
- [37:19]
A
They don't even need a phone to get on Snapchat. You can get it on your Chromebook, on your school issued Chromebook. You can be on Snapchat and then
- [37:26]
B
mom and dad don't really know because they don't know what's happening on that Chromebook.
- [37:29]
A
They have no idea. So they think that, oh, you know, my kid would never have Snapchat. They do, because the peer pressure is tough. It's tough for parents, it's extra tough for teenagers.
- [37:40]
B
Yeah. And that's with Screenstrong. What we do is we have these parent groups that you can find people in your area and if you can't find anything, create some, encourage some Screenstrong families to just say, hey, we're, we're going to wait, we're not going to do all this and then just have your kids play with them. And that's what works. That's the only thing that works. You have to be educated though. First you have to know about this, that we're the stuff that we're talking about today. Because if you don't know about this, then you're just not able to be motivated to really do anything about it. But once you are educated about all this and it's really easier to stick to your guns and stand your ground and find some other People that can also get educated and then you can, you know, stand together. And that in my work and what I see in my experience on the front lines, that's the only thing that that's going to work. Because you can't do this by yourself. Kids can't do it by themselves, and parents can't do it by themselves. We all have peer pressure, but all you need, you don't need a hundred people, you just need a few. And if you have just two or three other parents that are getting educated the way you're getting educated around all this and have a very strong priority to make this, make a change and make things different for your kids, it can be done. I love what you said about family values, that parents think that their kids are going to be able to withstand the temptations and all the stuff that's coming at them because their family values and I, in my talk, I say that, you know, parents feel like their family values are genetic and they are not. Just because you birthed this child doesn't mean that they have your values. And that's kind of a sobering thought. And I think that's one of the reasons, you know, parents mean well and they want to think the best and they don't want to think their kids are going to do things that they shouldn't do, but they are. And we can't just by willing it. It just isn't going to happen. You have to take, you know, the action that you need to take. And I know that you agree that if your child was addicted to drugs or alcohol or gambling or whatever, all the things are that you can't just allow, you know, the moderation. And this is where the, this is where it gets so frustrating for parents because they think, well, I just, what if they just have, you know, Snapchat for an hour a day, you know, instead of all day. It's, it's not. That doesn't work. I mean, in my opinion, it doesn't work. And from what I see from the medical research, it doesn't work. So that's why we are just about skipping this for now, not forever there. We're not saying that your kid lives, you know, off of this stuff forever, but just during these critical times of development. So you said, be real. You said Snapchat. What was the third thing that you said that they were on Tick Tock. Talk about that. Oh my gosh, I can't stand Tick Tock. I can't stand it.
- [40:37]
A
So Tick Tock is the granddaddy of sexual Grooming and setting kids up to be sexually trafficked later on in life. And the way it does this is it makes these little challenges that basically teach your kids that they are worth their body parts. And once we have kids that are worth their body parts, the predators can come in and take over. Because if you're worth your body parts, you're not strong enough to stand on your own against anything that comes at you. And what I'm seeing now is it's so bad that I get junior and senior girls that say, tell me, hey, diplomas are for ugly kids. Because if you're pretty, you can sell your body pictures and videos for money. And you absolutely can. And TikTok shows you this daily. You have regular, regular young people that show they have, you know, 11,000 subscribers because they show some kind of a naked image or video weekly. And they're making twenty and thirty thousand dollars a month, and they're showing you receipts of how much they're making. And so that's easy money. And once a kid makes easy money like that, if they take, you know, three or four pictures and they make $10,000 off those pictures, they're not going to go and work at McDonald's for, you know, 18 bucks an hour, whatever ridiculous McDonald's is paying them.
- [41:53]
B
I can guarantee you that parents do not understand this. They do not understand. And again, no offense to parents, and I know I got to quit saying that, but I don't think we can understand the depth of the problem. It. Kids are craving low effort, high reward activity. That's the definition of a teenage brain. Low effort, high reward. They're looking for the lowest effort for the highest reward. And what you just described is what. Fitting that bill perfectly.
- [42:20]
A
Yes. And what I tell them, you know, let's just talk about the very first challenge that TikTok had. And TikTok used to be musically and, you know, lip syncing and dancing around. There's nothing wrong with that. But once it became so popular, you have millions of men around the world who are watching your young girls or young boys do videos. Now the, the plank challenge was the very first one where you start in push up position facing the camera on the floor, you go down to plank position, up to push up position. There's nothing wrong with that. But if you did that to the beat of the music, you would get 50 or 60 likes. Now, young girls learned very quickly that if they wore a loose fitting shirt, that camera is looking right down their shirt. And as soon as they showed breasts, you know, even, even you know, with a bra and stuff underneath, they would jump up to 50,000, 100,000 likes. And then if they did that without a bra on, now we're up at a million views for, for a 10 second video. This is almost viral, right? And now they're getting paid money. And it was so simple. And these million men who are liking and give them compliments should be telling them, hey, how about some modesty? How about you have some value in yourself? Yeah, but they're not, they are grooming them to be sex trafficked.
- [43:34]
B
Right? Right. And then when that happens at this age, at this stage of their brain development, when everything is so moldable and they're so affected by it, you know, as an adult, you may think, oh well, whatever, that's no big deal. Well, it's a very big deal to a child. Think about back when we were, you know, all in sixth, seventh, eighth grade and even ninth grade. I mean, you know, the things that we saw that were very traumatic and we know that even just the addiction part of it, the dopamine part of it, that 90% of all adult addictions start in this teenage years. I mean, it starts in the teenage years. And when your child is being exposed to this and even if you're the parent who thinks that their child is never doing this, they're watching it, right? They're watching all this. So it's affecting them is maybe not quite as much, but probably just as much as it is the kids that are actually doing it, the ones that are just the bystanders watching it, their self esteem is going down because the measure of their social status is going way down. This, you know, diplomas are for ugly kids. Oh my goodness, how horrible is that? How, I mean, but that's really what they're being groomed to think. So what, what else about TikTok? Is there anything? Is there anything, you know, so many parents tell me, well, it's just fun, cute little dances. I don't understand what the problem is. I don't understand. I think if they were on it, right, if they were watching what their kids were watching, would they understand it then?
- [45:14]
A
Well, the problem is that when adults go on there, I mean, TikTok has a lot of programming on there. So what kids see and what adults see is completely different. I get lots of adults say, well, I've been on TikTok for three months and I've seen a few things, but it's mostly cat videos and whatever. Well, that's because the algorithms are very smart and they program things in there so that, you know, to, to bring up what people like to see. And so when a parent looks and from their side, it doesn't look anything, but when a, when a kid does it from theirs and from all their friends, now they're going to see the things that shouldn't be seen. You know, some of the gore, some of the, you know, killing videos, some of the very sexualized videos are on there. But here's the other new thing that's happening is full grown adults are also falling prey to this. I'm going to be, where's my body parts? Because I see, I see moms, you know, 30s and 40s, that the latest challenge is the behind the door challenge. And, and this one, a full grown woman could be mom, could be even grandma, you know, at the back of the room there's a, there's a door cracked and she'll walk through with her bare breasts and then come out fully clothed and say hi to the camera. Oh, oh, these are adults. And so then what happens is the girls at my school say, go. I wish that adult women wouldn't do this because now the high school boys want all the high school girls to do the same thing because it's popular.
- [46:38]
B
Oh, my goodness. It's terrible, right?
- [46:42]
A
And when the adult women, well, what, what do they gain? They get money. They get paid for this. And some of them get paid very well to do these sexual challenges. But it's mixed in with all the kids that are watching and all the men that are watching. And this is just, you know, it's, it's, it's a horrible thing.
- [47:01]
B
Yeah, it's just fueling the whole dysfunction and all the depression, anxiety, suicide, all the things we have going on right now in our mental health world. This is where it all starts. Nothing, nothing happens over night. It all starts with a fun little music app. Right. And then it derails into this very dark place. It seems to happen with every single app out there. Is there? You know, I don't even want to ask if there's any good apps because I don't even, I don't think there. I think everything kind of has its dark side. And so, so let's talk about that for a second. Let's talk about, let's switch over a minute and talk like, even, like about fortnight. So what if your kids are not on social media at all? You decided to take our advice over here at Screenstrong and say, hey, we're going to skip all this. And by the way, when we Talk about skipping social media. In high school, middle school and high school, there are a lot of families that say, well, you know, we're just going to have like a family social media account or, you know, family Instagram. And that's fine. You know, if you've got on your phone and you've. You've got your friends from high school on there and you just share a few things and. And it can be kind of a family thing, you know, that's fine. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about when kids have all this stuff privately in their own pockets. But let's decide that. We're not gonna. We're just gonna skip it because from what you're saying, I don't know how you could try to have it and try to fix it and try to say, well, honey, you can't look at that video, but you can look at this video. I mean, it's just not possible. I think it's clear to say that it's not possible to make it all good or to just make sure your daughter's only seeing, you know, good TikTok videos. I mean, that's just not possible. We already know that. So what about some video games? Let's just talk about for a second. We won't spend a whole lot of time on this today, but what do you. What do you have to say about Fortnite? Is that still super popular or is it getting less popular or what's making it stay up with the market?
- [49:05]
A
Fortnite is still super popular. And. And a lot of the kids like to buy skins is what they call it, basically different characters, and they do dance moves with the characters and they make videos with the characters. So it's still super popular. Fortnite is the only connected application where I have received 911 calls at multiple different houses where I have to go in my patrol car and break up a fight between the family because the kid has gone berserk. When parents shut down the game in the middle of their session.
- [49:41]
B
Wait a minute. Wait, back up. I mean, I'm not laughing, okay? I'm just. You have to get in your patrol car. You have to answer a 911 call because of Fortnite?
- [49:51]
A
Yes, because. So Fortnite works. They start. It's usually 100 players start, and you. You drop in on this little, you know, area, and you have to kill all the other people and be the last person standing.
- [50:03]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [50:04]
A
And so every kid, when you tell them to, hey, let's. It's time for dinner. Okay, I'm just in the middle of this. I'm gonna finish this one. I'm gonna finish this one. I'm gonna finish this one. Of course that means, you know, half an hour more of doing a couple more of those sessions. And so when a parent comes in and just pulls the cord, kids get so angry that they start breaking things and yelling and screaming and throwing and hurting and it's generated. I've probably been to 3 or 4911 calls myself, but my fellow patrol officers go to a lot of these as well.
- [50:35]
B
And I totally lived it. I get it. I know, I know. When you have a gamer that is that immersed in their game and you try to pull the plug, it, it's as one mom described it to me when her 14 year old was. She pulled the plug on a Minecraft game that he was in the middle of and she said, melanie, it looked like he was having a seizure on the kitchen floor. She said, I really thought he was having a seizure. And it, it is such a physical reaction. I remember telling my oldest son when we were in the thick of the worst of his gaming problem here in our house, which when I look back on it, I think, what was I thinking? You know, for something that would cause that big of reaction, why didn't I just throw it out the window at that point? I don't know what I was thinking. I'll be honest, I just don't know. I didn't think that. Video games, why would they invent video games if they were bad for kids? That was my thought. But I remember telling him, um, that I was going to call 911 if he ever hauled off and hit his little brothers or his little sister. Because I remember as a mom experiencing that anger that he had his temper, that. And it was really scary. And when it gets to the point when they are taller than you and bigger than you, then you do have to call 91 1. And I recommend to anybody out there listening that if you get to that point where you feel like your son, you know, is getting ready to have a temper fit, you know, I mean I've seen plenty of Sheetrock fists going through the sheetrock and different things. But when you feel like you're going to be in danger, you do need to call and you do need to get help because it's not, they're not rational. It's, it's like dealing with somebody who's on drugs and you just took their drug away. It's the same thing right in their brain, that fight flight kicks in and they're strong. And so anyway, but I guess, I mean, just the fact that you've actually had to go on these calls is just kind of mind boggling. I used it, you know, some as a threat with him, and I did verbalize that to him. And, you know, anyway, that's a whole other story.
- [52:51]
A
Yes. And please do call police. We are happy to come help. We'd rather do that than, hey, you know, somebody choked somebody or hurt somebody really bad. Let us come de escalate. We're happy to do that anytime.
- [53:04]
B
Yeah. Don't ever doubt your instinct. And I don't know if you were telling me at one point, Officer Gomez, or somebody else that said that a mom's instinct is pretty right on. Like, even when you're dealing with predator situations or runaway kids, you know, just sitting and listening to the mom, a lot of times she does know and she doesn't know how she knows, but she has an instinct. So if you know, you're a mom and you have an instinct that your son is escalating and that there will be a temper outburst, don't ignore that call. Just pick it, pick it up, get some help, and then hopefully it won't happen.
- [53:49]
A
Yes. And so, you know, you talked about what, what games or things might be safe. Anything that's connected to the Internet is not going to be safe. Two of the, the programs that I've seen where people are exploiting is the Bible app and the Fitbit app.
- [54:06]
B
Oh, no, talk about that. What in the world? All right, talk about that.
- [54:10]
A
So the Fitbit app has its own little forum on there where you can, you know, send pictures of your progress to different people. You can have group discussions. That enables predators to come after your kid. And on an iPhone, it counts as workout time and not social media time. So kids can spend a lot of time on their Fitbit application talking to strangers and you would just think they're working out or they're on a walk or something like that. The Bible app is the same. It's got its own forum for people to discuss Bible stuff. But the predators are using this against children and undercover of parents because they think, hey, the Fitbit app is healthy. The Bible app is healthy. Any program that connects to the Internet is going to be a problem. So the only one that I've really found that you can play completely without being on the Internet is Minecraft. It has a standalone. You download the updates, you can unplug it and play it just fine.
- [55:01]
B
But Kids don't like to do that.
- [55:03]
A
Kids do not like to do that. They like to have, you know, people verify their existence and their value online. And, and that's where we start having problems. And, you know, because they're not getting enough of that from their family, they have to go seek acceptance elsewhere.
- [55:18]
B
Right. And so I just. That you just nailed it. You just nailed it. I mean, if we hung up right now, that would be worth the whole show. It is. They are seeking acceptance. So that's why Minecraft doesn't work anymore. When it's just in offline mode. They. And they'll tell you, yeah, yeah, mom, yeah, that's fine, that's fine. But then before you know it, they're online and because of all these things that you just talked about, all the workarounds and all the hacks that they can get into and get on, you know, hotspots and all that, they're online. So don't be, you know, fooled. With Minecraft, I see it as such a gateway thing. I think your kids just need to be outside building a fort outside and building things, you know, off their, their computer. And the other thing about all these, these cities and villages or whatever it is they call that they build all the things, you know, you can work on your Minecraft thing for five hours and you have nothing to show for it. It's not like if you go to art class and you make something out of clay, you bring it home, you put it on the dining room table and it's really cool. Like you have nothing to show for it. It's really meaningless as far as that goes. But that's a really good tip that anything that's connected to the Internet is not wise. So that's kind of mind boggling, but that is absolutely a wonderful way to put it. So thank you so much. Anything else on games or apps? Because we're going to move into our final topic here on sleepovers. We got to talk about this for a minute, but any other thing that is out there that you want to share with?
- [56:51]
A
Nope. I think we've given people a lot to think about already.
- [56:55]
B
Talk about Roblox real quick. We have to talk about that. I forgot about that one.
- [56:58]
A
Oh, Roblox probably has the most predators per application of anything else. When I arrest adult predators who came to my town to have sex with 12 and 13 year olds, most of them have six or seven Roblox accounts on their phones that they're using to actively pursue kids. And because parents have some idea that you Know, there's some kind of a police keeping adults from making fake kids accounts, which is not true at all.
- [57:24]
B
Right, Right.
- [57:25]
A
And parents are using Roblox as a babysitter, whereas on our day, it used to be Barney tape. We would put the Barney tape in rewind. Barney tape, rewind. Now it's Roblox. You sit a kid in on the couch with Roblox, you can go to the Bahamas and come back, and that kid's still gonna be there playing Roblox.
- [57:42]
B
Oh, my goodness.
- [57:43]
A
But the predators are using this and exploiting it greatly to go after kids and know what they like, know what they do, and very tailor their predatory behavior based on what kids are doing.
- [57:56]
B
Wow. And they have the mo. The most predators are there out of all the other apps that are out there. I mean, there's a lot of bad things going on with all the other apps, but the predator is the thing that is the most scary, I guess. Or the most dangerous, of course. And again, this is something that. That every parent out there thinks that their kid will never fall prey to. This.
- [58:19]
A
Yes. For sure. So let's talk about sleepovers.
- [58:23]
B
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Because you know what? I love when you stand up against sleepovers, because I had been saying this for so long, and. And a lot of people just think that's just really over the top. Melanie, you cannot honestly say that my kid can't go on sleepovers. But we stopped sleepovers when my daughter was in middle school, when there was an incident that scarred her and that I will never forget, it scarred me. And that was it. That was our last sleepover. And, you know, having a girl was hard all the way through the rest of middle school and through high school, but we just. That's just what we did. That. Those were our rules. And then, you know, she got older and went to college, and that was fine. But while she was in middle school, in those early years of high school, we said no. And I hate it that we had to get burned in order to get it. But isn't that usually, I mean, the case and so many things in life, Officer Gomez, it's like you have to experience it, and then you get it, and then you change. And so we're going to give you some tips right now. Officer Gomez is going to tell us about sleepovers. So hopefully you don't have to get burned. But let's talk about what happens and what your recommendation is.
- [59:40]
A
Yeah. So easy. My recommendation is no sleepovers. But I mean, sleepovers have also always been a problem. But when I became a police officer. Man. I can't tell you the amount of sexual deviants that have exacted their weirdness on sleepover. And not just adults on kids, kids on kids right now, especially in this day of Internet pornography, where kids are being shown Internet pornography it by the bucket loads. So then they become normalized, they become desensitized. And now you get two kids alone in a tent all night, or an adult and a kid in a tent all night, and really bad things happen. And it's not just, you know, hey, it's some stranger came into the camp. It's people they know. And what parents don't understand is that some of these predators gravitate towards things where they're going to be around kids because they like kids. They know if they become a camp counselor, if they become, you know, some kind of a coach and some kind of something, they're going to be around kids all the time. And it's going to give them an opportunity to prey on unsuspecting kids who may or may not tell their parents. A lot of times they do not tell their parents because they're very embarrassed. And the predators are counting on the kids being too embarrassed to tell their parents, which a lot of times they are. So I take reports from grown adults, you know, 30 years old, that say, hey, when I was 15, I was, you know, sexually assaulted by the camp counselor. And it continued to happen for the next five years. And I just never told anybody.
- [61:09]
B
Oh, that's horrible. Well, talk about just the neighborhood sleepover thing. I know one thing you mentioned that we talked about before is cameras and the hidden recording devices that happen that record. Yeah, talk about that.
- [61:28]
A
So I took a, a report where the adult in the house had a USB speaker. So anytime anybody went in the bathroom, he would activate the speaker. He could activate it from his phone. And, and I picked up the speaker and I could not see the camera in it. It was behind a kind of a tinted lens. But I looked all around it. The only reason I knew there was a camera is because I saw the box that said, hey, you know, hidden camera in it. And I've had multiple devices that are similar. You know, you have clocks on the wall, you have these, these micro hidden cameras that can go anywhere. So even them going to a friend's house and using the restroom is a problem. But in a sleepover environment, now, whatever person, their older brother, predator person can record them anytime. The other thing that happens is, you know, what kind of social media rules do they have in that house? What kind of gun rules do they have at that house? What kind of, you know, dressing rules do they have at that house? We take teens into our house, high risk teens, and they live upstairs and we live downstairs. But we tell them, especially when we're taking girls, hey, when you come down those stairs, you've got to have underwear on, you've got to have a bra and you've got to have some certain dress requirements where some places don't have that. So as soon as nighttime comes, you got kids and PJs that are very inappropriate for who knows what. So there's just so many things going on and the risk is so high that I'm very against sleepovers. I mean, and there's the, the reward is, I do understand that, hey look, let's start introducing them to a different family, an outside world, whatever. But the reward is not worth the risk in this situation.
- [62:59]
B
And I believe that this is where I would say most. I don't have an exact statistic on it, but that first time porn experience, even in, you know, third grade, fourth grade, I mean, it's very typical for me to hear, I don't know if you hear this, but it's very typical for me to hear this when I get calls and people want to meet and talk to me about their kid was just exposed, whatever. It's usually at a sleepover. It's usually at a sleepover because what happens with sleepovers is that you get kids who are all of a sudden more bold. When you are in a group, you do things that you wouldn't normally do by yourself because you have, you know, now we all remember this growing up. You have a sense of, you know, a comp, what's the word? You just have a sense that you can do anything right because your friends are there and it all kind of adds up. The other thing that happens in a sleepover is physiologically your guard is down. Your, the way that you know, you're tired, your brain, the cortisol, all the things are happening to serotonin. You just don't have your guard up as much as you do during the day when you're fresh. Another thing is your impulse control is all messed up at night where you might have better impulse control during the day, but then at night, you know, everything gets worse at night. And remember the old saying that nothing good happens after midnight? Well, I think nothing good happens, happens after around, you know, 11 o' clock or 10:30. And what we recommend over here at Screenstrong is we call them Half overs. Everybody has a different name for them, but your kids can still go to the party, to the birthday party, whatever. But we pick them up around 10 or 10:30, depending on their ages. And when we started doing this with our boys, after I learned the hard way with, you know, with our daughter in the early middle school years, we stopped all sleepovers. But so with our twins, they ended up, you know, not really doing that. I mean, we had one, we have one family friend that we allow them to stay over if we're out of town and they just need somewhere to stay. But we started doing this half over thing and do you know what happened? It was just fabulous. Our community started doing it too. They're like, oh my gosh, that's the best idea ever. Because we all know even if nothing super bad happens at a sleepover, which I agree with you, I don't agree with them at all. You know, the next, the next day and the weekend is just a mess because nobody got any sleep. So all the parents were like, what a great idea. We're going to all pick our kids up at 10:30. So that's how we dealt with it. But all these other reasons that you're talking about are really important for families. Understand. I agree with you 100%. I. I don't think it's being too over controlling. I think it's just barely. I mean, I mean, it's barely enough.
- [65:51]
A
And there's a thousand other things for kids to do. And let me tell you, for me and for my fellow patrol, we take a lot of reports from sleepovers, things that happen when parents weren't there. And sometimes it's from most trusted family. Even so.
- [66:05]
B
Yeah.
- [66:05]
A
How much you trust somebody, you do not know what's going on in their mind or their house. Just keep your kids yours.
- [66:11]
B
Yeah. And then you've got the deal with all the older siblings and the older siblings, friends and you know, if the little sisters having a sleepover with five girls, then, you know, oh my gosh, that's the, that's the whole. Then the whole spiral starts. You know, if there's older kids in the house, it's just nothing good about it. I agree 100%. If, if any of y' all are listening and you have any questions about any of the things that we talked about, please email us@teamreenstrong.com and I will get any of these questions over to Officer Gomez. So we've got to wrap up. I'm looking at the clock and I'm realizing we are just not able to cover everything that there's so many things to talk about. So thank you so much for coming. Can you, Officer Gomez, can you just leave us with some encouragement for families that are feeling quite overwhelmed now at the end of this show? What can you, what can you tell a family who's like, okay, I'm new to Screenstrong. I think I'm, I'm going to make some changes at my house. It's going to be hard, but I think it's time. What kind of encouragement can you give them?
- [67:19]
A
Well, I work at the school and I see hundreds if not thousands of kids who have deliberate parenting going on in their households and they are just fine. You get to hear all these horror stories from me because that's what we're talking about. But there are a lot of kids who are just fine because their parents care about them, spend time with them and are deliberate about them. Are they going to parents going to make mistakes? Yes, they are. But if you do this and consciously make an effort to raise good kids, you're probably going to be just fine. Right? It's the ones who just, hey, you know, I'm going to go to work, I'm too busy for my kids that really end up with the problems. Just be a part of your kids life. They're going to see what you do, they're going to see how you operate and they're going to get to their sooner or later. Right. Let's, kids are going to make mistakes. Let's keep those mistakes small and let's just keep on parenting. And that's going to, that's going to overcome everything if you do it correctly.
- [68:12]
B
Thank you so much. And I believe that it's perfectly fine to say no to social media for now after everything we just listened to today and it's okay to skip it and your kids will be fine and there's, there's no risk in doing that. Officer Gomez, thank you so much for your encouragement and for coming and you're saving kids and you're just saving kids every day and we're so appreciative of you. Thank you so much for coming.
- [68:37]
A
Well, thanks for having me and I'm happy to come on again.
- [68:40]
B
Yeah. When we will, we'll have you back. Remember, we are not here to scare or restrict you out there with your parenting. Being screen strong is not about scaring people. It's not about throwing our screens in the leg, but it's about being really smart in getting educated. And this was a great show to really get educated on some real detailed things around what's happening in our world and our digital world and where our kids are finding themselves. So your homework today is to go look on our site, go look at our student course. We have a parent course and we have a student course just to give you some more education. You have to have education. You cannot be motivated to make changes unless you understand the why. And that's why we do these podcasts. That's why we have these guests coming on to help us all understand our why. And it's not to get depressed, and it's not to just get overwhelmed and throw the towel in, is to get equipped. So that is your homework. Remember that we are not here to scare you. I'm going to say that again. I think that I want that message to go away, that putting the limits and putting restrictions is actually giving our kids more freedom, more freedom to be kids and more freedom to spend time with us. Because remember, that is exactly what they want. And I know this is hard to understand if you're right in the thick of it. And we, we're here to help you, we're going to help you figure it out. But our kids want to spend time with us. Just like Officer Gomez just said, they want to spend time with you before. They want to spend time on their screen. And I know it's seems like that's not true, but it is. Remember, we've got your back and we are here to help. So until next time, stand up for your kids, stand out from the crowd and stay strong.