This Isn't a Parenting Problem (with Glen Pounder of Scouting America)

Summary

Podcast Summary: Scrolling 2 Death

Episode: This Isn't a Parenting Problem (with Glen Pounder of Scouting America)
Host: Nicki Petrossi
Guest: Glen Pounder
Date: May 4, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode challenges the common—and misleading—narrative that when children are harmed online, parents are always to blame. Host Nicki Petrossi is joined by Glen Pounder, Chief Safeguarding Officer at Scouting America, to dig into the realities behind child online harm, the real roles of parents, platforms, and systems, and why blaming parents often prevents real solutions. Together, they discuss devastating cases of online harm, the hidden costs of parent-blaming, corporate and legislative responsibility, and actionable advice for families facing these pervasive challenges.

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Main Theme

Thesis: Child harm online is not the result of negligent parenting, but rather a systemic failure—one created and perpetuated by technology companies’ design choices, hidden criminal networks, regulatory gaps, and societal reluctance to hold the right entities accountable.

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Key Topics & Takeaways

1. The Comfort (and Danger) of Parent Blame

[00:07 – 03:01]

• Society finds it easier and more comforting to blame parents when children are harmed online.
  • “It’s just rather too easy to blame parents… If there was a certain model of car where the brakes always failed, we wouldn’t be blaming the parents for putting the kids in those cars.” – Glen Pounder [02:18]
• Parent-blaming diverts attention from the root problems: unsafe platforms and lack of regulation.
• Participation in online spaces is often non-optional for kids due to school, sports, and social integration.

2. The Limits of "Good Parenting"

[03:01 – 06:22]

• Many victimized families were doing “everything right” by current parenting standards.
• Fear-based parental messaging (“Don’t do this”) leaves kids feeling unable to talk to their parents if they make mistakes.
  • “We always told him, don’t send images. But we never told him, hey, but if you do do that, we’re going to figure it out. And that shame and the fear is what criminal organizations play on.” – Glen Pounder [05:24]
• Sextortion, grooming, and exploitation can happen even in closely monitored homes.

3. The Scale and Complexity of Online Threats

[06:22 – 09:10]

• Technology evolves faster than parents can keep up; new threats like AI-powered bots now mimic online predators.
• Criminal networks share detailed guides on targeting children—parents cannot fight this alone.
• There remains a broad lack of public awareness about the true scale and sophistication of online predation.

4. "Not My Child" Fallacy

[09:10 – 12:27]

• Many parents believe, “My kid would never do that,” or “Not my kid”—a false and dangerous assumption.
  • “The training is designed for… families at large, not just your particular family.” – Glen Pounder [10:48]
• Even kids in “protected” homes can bypass controls (e.g., using burner phones, friends’ devices, or unsupervised school-issued devices).

5. The Role (and Blame) of Institutions & Companies

[12:27 – 19:33]

• Schools rapidly adopted online devices during COVID—without full awareness or capacity to safeguard them. Still, blaming schools (like blaming parents) misses the point.
• Device and platform manufacturers (like Apple and social media giants) often put profits and privacy before safety, enabling ongoing harm.
• In litigation, even children themselves are blamed by platforms (e.g., “she lied,” “she was seeking payout”).
  • “Children should not carry guilt for exploitation they did not cause.” – Glen Pounder [14:29]

6. Who Should Be Held Accountable?

[15:59 – 22:24]

• True accountability lies with adults, organizational structures, and especially tech companies.
• Laws and regulations are needed to compel companies toward “safety by design,” as voluntary actions rarely suffice.
  • “Safety by design—the parent doesn’t have to worry too much… because this is safe by design.” – Glen Pounder [19:34]
• Platforms’ refusal to implement safety features (e.g., Apple’s lack of CSAM detection in iCloud) demonstrates voluntary inaction.

7. Legislative Imperatives and Progress

[22:24 – 29:20]

• Real progress will come from legislation forcing companies to implement safety as a baseline, not an option.
  • “Companies have the opportunities to make it safe by design… and they have not chosen that.” – Nicki Petrossi [23:11]
• Ongoing lawsuits and activist pressure are yielding change, but more is needed; parent blame only slows systemic improvement.

8. Empowering Parents & Kids—What Families Can Actually Do

[23:47 – 26:27]

• Parents shouldn’t blame themselves; no one can guarantee safety within the current, unsafe system.
  • “Parents need to… give themselves a break in terms of how challenging… this topic is.” – Glen Pounder [23:47]
• Open, non-shaming conversations with children are critical; children are often the real device experts.
• Encourage kids to seek help if something happens—removing shame as a barrier.
• Share and use resources designed for youth, like the “My Friend Too Us” campaign for peer-to-peer support.

9. Why Parent-Blaming Persists—and How To Counter It

[26:27 – 29:20]

• Parent-blaming benefits both criminals and tech companies by keeping the conversation away from systemic solutions.
• When confronted with “Where were the parents?”—offer real-world examples where families did everything right and harm still occurred.
  • “It’s about educating people that parents are at a disadvantage when the system is currently not safe by design.” – Glen Pounder [27:59]
• Changing the narrative is key to changing the system and preventing future tragedy.

10. The Path Forward: Regulation, Awareness, and Empowerment

[29:20 – End]

• Lawmakers, survivors, and advocates are working hard to push for meaningful legislation supporting safety by design.
• As technology advances (e.g., AI-generated “nudification”), new threats continue to emerge.
• Empowering both parents and kids remains vital—without putting responsibility on children.

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• “If there was a certain model of car where the brakes always failed, we wouldn’t be blaming the parents for putting the kids in those cars… Cars would be going to the manufacturers and saying regulations state you must have safe brakes.” — Glen Pounder [02:18]
• “Shame and the fear is what criminal organizations play on.” — Glen Pounder [05:24]
• “Criminals have their version of [safeguarding]… they have guides and hundred plus pages on how to target kids online.” — Glen Pounder [08:08]
• “Children should not carry guilt for exploitation they did not cause.” — Glen Pounder [14:29]
• “Safety by design… The parent doesn’t have to worry too much… because this is safe by design.” — Glen Pounder [19:34]
• “Good parenting isn’t about being perfect, right? It’s just about doing the best we can.” — Glen Pounder [26:17]
• “Blaming parents is convenient. It lets the predators and predatory companies off the hook and it really avoids the deeper conversations that we need to be having about accountability and how to fix all of this.” — Nicki Petrossi [31:39]

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Resources & Practical Advice

• For Parents:

  • Don’t blame yourself—focus on open, shame-free communication.
  • Inform yourself, but understand you (and your child) are not solely responsible.
  • Use existing safer device options (e.g., Bark Phone) as needed.
  • Explore prevention resources (e.g., My Friend Too Us).

• For Communities:

  • Advocate for legislative change—contact representatives, support survivor advocacy.
  • Support and join peer networks to share information and support.

• For Lawmakers:

  • Pass and enforce regulations compelling platforms to make safety a built-in, not optional, feature.

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Timestamps: Key Segments

• 00:07 – Introduction; why parent blame persists.
• 02:18 – Glen on car safety analogy; why blame should shift to manufacturers.
• 04:45 – The importance of “you can come to me if something happens.”
• 08:08 – Organized criminal networks and their sophistication.
• 10:48 – The “not my child” myth and its dangers.
• 14:29 – Why blaming children for their own abuse is wrong.
• 19:34 – The concept of “safety by design.”
• 23:47 – Glen’s advice to overwhelmed parents.
• 26:27 – The true cost of parent blame; what to say to parent-blamers.
• 27:59 – Systemic disadvantage parents face without safety by design.
• 31:30 – Empowering kids to support each other; real-world success stories.
• 31:39 – Final word on accountability and blame.

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Conclusion

This episode calls for a paradigm shift—ending the reflexive blame of parents and children, and demanding accountability from the systems and companies responsible for online safety. Supportive communities, legislative reform, and empowered, shame-free conversations are essential for changing outcomes and protecting kids now and in the future.

Transcript

[A]

Welcome to scrolling to death. Today's conversation takes on one of the most common and most misleading responses we hear when kids are harmed online. Blaming parents. It's a narrative that sounds practical. Parents should monitor more. Parents should know better. Parents should do more. But what if that framing isn't just incomplete? What if it's actively getting in the way of protecting kids? My guest today is Glenn Pounder, who currently serves as the Executive Vice President and Chief Safeguarding Officer at Scouting America. Glenn has a 30 year international career working on some of the most difficult and complex crimes impacting children. And what he's seen directly challenges the idea that better parenting can prevent harm online. Glenn recently posted an article on LinkedIn that really struck me. He shares the stories of families who were present and engaged and doing everything parents are supposed to do, and still their children were targeted or groomed or exploited online. So today we are digging into what's really going on beneath the surface. Why parent blame persists, the hidden cost it creates for families and children, and why this isn't a parenting problem. It's a systems problem and it's a problem with predatory companies. So let's get into my conversation with Glenn Pounder. I wanted to talk to you because a mutual friend of ours sent me your article on LinkedIn and it's titled the Comfort of Blame and the Limits of Even the Best Parenting. And I thought, I have to talk to this guy because this is exactly what we need to be talking about right now. Coming off of the huge verdicts against Meta and YouTube, proving that the companies are addicting and children and enabling child exploitation. In the New Mexico case, I go back to my normal life and the first thing parents say to me is, well, where were the parents? Where were the parents? As a society, I feel like we are averse to even sharing responsibility with entities outside of the home. And I wonder what got you digging into this and speaking out on this parent blame phenomenon.

[B]

I work for Scouting and we often talk about parents being a very important part of a strong triangle. So empowered and knowledgeable parents helping to protect their kids in all environments, online and offline. I think it's just rather too easy to blame parents, you know, in the most tragic cases that lost their child to suicide. What, you want to blame them for that? So, you know, I think it's an easy win to just try and blame the parents. But you know what, Nikki? If there was a certain model of car where the brakes always failed, we wouldn't be blaming the parents for putting the kids in those cars. Cars would be going to the manufacturers and saying regulations state you must have safe breaks.

[A]

Right, Right. Because it doesn't seem optional to most families to keep our kids off of these things, given that everyone they know is on there and they're super left out. And it's often a requirement of a sports team to communicate on there or some other group that they're a part of. And you're right that hundreds, if no thousands of families have lost their children to some kind of online harm or social media har. And I've met a lot of them and these are really good parents and they're great humans and they would do anything to protect their children. And so I know you have a lot of similar relationships and seen a lot of that type of deadly harm. Can you tell me what struck you about some of those experiences?

[B]

We know these are really the tragic outcomes. And I'm not by any stretch saying that everything online is bad, to your point. Certainly adults, but kids as well often need that online environment. But understandably, parents have felt overwhelmed in this topic. So some of the messaging that parents have given to their kids has been based on the parents fear for what might happen online. Because kids are certainly at risk online in a way that didn't even exist, frankly, when I was a kid, but certainly has with my boys. And it's much easier for a parent to say, don't do this, don't do this, don't do this. And it's from a position of fear. And of course, what that means is children knowing that they've been told all these things they shouldn't do, when they do make that mistake, they feel like they can't go to their parent. We were fortunate enough to get permission from Brandon Guffey. You probably know Brandon.

[A]

Yes, I've interviewed representative Guffey.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, what a great guy. For our training in scouting, we actually use Brandon's story where Brandon explains to camera, you know, the things that he hadn't said to Gavin. And I say this all the time. I was at an event this weekend talking about this and just saying, look, one message to tell your kids, like if they make a mistake, they can still come to you. There's an easy assumption that some kids, certainly 13, 14, 15, even younger than that, they actually understand they've done the wrong thing and they need the message to say, look, if you make a mistake online, we'll figure it out. We'll figure it out. Somebody had heard me talking about this for a couple of years and they sent me a video just a Few months ago of a mom who, she lost her son, 15 year old. And she said that same thing. She said, we always told him, don't send images. But we never told him, hey, but if you do do that, we're going to figure it out. And that shame and the fear is what criminal organizations play on.

[A]

Mm, absolutely. Gavin Guffey lost his life to suicide after being sextorted online. And sextortion is one of the many threats that our kids can face. Lots of, lots of kids are facing when they go on specifically social media platforms is where they're being targeted. And so you're right that we can tell them, don't do it, it's not safe. But why? And if they do go on there, which is hard to keep them off, what to do in these type of situations. I mean, it feels like a lot of work for, for parents, you know, to educate yourself and then find out how to talk to kids about all of this.

[B]

Right, because it's, it's that, it's that awkward conversation with a kid. Right. You know, I tell people sometimes it's best to have that conversation when you're in the car. Like you're not looking at each other and it doesn't feel so awkward for the kid. They're like, oh, mom or dad, like, leave me alone. I got it. It doesn't matter how many times they hear it again. I've got boys and they're now adults, but they heard it more times than they probably wanted to. Back to the point of that article. I'd seen someone blaming parents in an article and it was a weekend and I was like, no, no, no, that's all wrong. But to frame this as if it's a purely a parental responsibility is just not right. And I've seen it many times over the years. The tech has exploded in ways that we didn't even contemplate just a few years ago. I moderated a panel a few years ago about AI, and at that point we hadn't really fully considered the mirroring effect of the bots and effectively bots that were grooming kids themselves and using that same mirroring technique that an actual online predator would use. So we hadn't even contemplated that at that point. You said something earlier, Nikki, which I think is quite on point with regards to the addictive nature of the platforms. I think there's good evidence to say that the platforms are addictive. I think plenty of us adults, I'm looking around now. Where's my device? I haven't picked it up for like three minutes to check vacations. You know what I mean? We're all in this together. Frankly, I don't think we really fully understand yet how bad the problem is with regards to online devices, but also the ways in which the online environment, and I certainly saw it in my law enforcement career, allowed dangerous criminals to connect in ways that were impossible when I started out in investigation, to support each other, to network, to share tips on how to abuse kids. Sometimes people don't understand how bad this thing is and how far the rabbit hole goes. And you don't want to scare people. Right. You want them to be empowered with the information they need to. As an example, I was at a safeguarding training event just a couple of weeks ago with. With one of my teams, and I was explaining, hey, this is safeguarding for prevention and everything else, but be clear that the criminals have their version of it. They have guides and hundred plus pages on how to target kids online. And, you know, people. People look like. Really? Yeah, really? Yeah, really. So I think, Nikki, you know, for people like us who know, okay, we think, oh, yeah, people know this stuff now. I really don't think they do at the scale they need to.

[A]

Oh, there's a huge spectrum of what people know. The mom of Kaylee, who was the plaintiff in the case in California who ended up winning, the mom said in her deposition early on, I wasn't monitoring the home phone, so why would I monitor her cell phone? And this was 10 years ago. But she didn't understand that the phone was giving her child access to predators and predatory platforms and harm. And so there's a. Yeah, I've learned there's a huge spectrum of what parents know. And a lot of parents are getting their information from social media platforms who don't benefit if they push online safety information into the feeds of parents. A lot of parents who blame the parent, that's the first thing they go to. I feel like there's also a through line there with. They think it could never happen to their kid. Like, not my kid. They don't even want to think about it. Or my kid's smarter than that. I was wondering if you could explain why it's so dangerous for parents to reject that idea that it could be their child.

[B]

Yeah. And I have a very recent example of that with regards a parent who'd seen some of our online prevention training, and I think her boy's 12. Well, he would never do that. And he shouldn't be exposed to that kind of thing. He's not allowed to have A device. And I was like, look, we're talking here about serving a million children and we know that the average age for a kid to have a device is lower than 12 generally, right?

[A]

That's right.

[B]

So the training is designed for, you know, families at large, not just your particular family. I said, look, I said, I know you're angry because she was yelling at me. I get yelled at a lot.

[A]

Oh, my.

[B]

I said, please understand this because again, we know this happened. I know some of the parents it's happened to, some parents think they've done everything with regards putting the guardrails around their kid. Right. Almost bringing their kid back to 1985 when there was no mobile phones and, you know, criminals couldn't worm their way into the bedroom via the device. And I said to her, but, hey, you know, we've got, we've got kids who've then accessed, you know, what I would call in my law enforcement days? A burner phone. It seems like everyone knows what a burner phone is now, maybe some on TV somewhere, so many times, but where the kid gets a burnophone and they know their parent has done everything to protect them. So the problem then is even more exacerbated because if a kid on a burn phone hits a problem and we know they're going to be even more big trouble challenged to go to a parent. Right. And of course, she did calm down enough to listen to that aspect of it. It was like, look, we're just trying to help. We're just trying to be in the prevention business. You know, prevention is clearly not about blame. It's not about fear. It's about structure. Right. And then maybe eventually it's about regulation. Right. When it comes to the government space, the same way, you know, I flew on an aircraft back into DFW yesterday, all kinds of regulations. Right. For a reason.

[A]

Right. And when it comes to access, it's burner phones, but it's also their friends phones and it's also the devices that they're their child. Our children are given at school, are issued by the school and required to use for school. Are you. Do you have any experience seeing harm through those devices?

[B]

Yeah. And. And again, generally there was an explosion of this because of COVID Right. Because school needed to carry out their core business, educating kids.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

We're all at home. What do we do? Let's get them online. Again, much like I'm, I don't parent blame. I don't blame schools in connection with that. You know what I mean? Schools were just trying to do their core business and protect and educate kids and then may well not have realized all the protocols and the things that they needed to do to ensure the devices they were issuing were protected from strangers. Not just from strangers as well. Again, I always stress like it isn't only the stranger danger either. Right. It's could still be somebody in that child's circle of trust at school, at scouts, anywhere else. And so it's both. And I just don't know if it was fair to say to schools, well, you should have known exactly what that device would do.

[A]

Absolutely right, Right. I think predatory companies came in and sold a lie devices entered schools around 2010.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And a lot of access and harm has come through them. But I will say, you know, kids did need them during COVID and that makes sense. But we kind of didn't come off of that. We didn't take a step back to get kids back in face to face learning environments once they were back in school. And that was a miss for sure. But you know, I think when you talk about like access to predators, I think that I always think also the companies are predatory as well. I want to talk about sharing the blame and who else could be at play here, but sometimes I notice the child will get blamed as well. And this mostly comes up in the lawsuits that I've been tracking in that social media addiction trial in Los Angeles that I mentioned. Meta and YouTube. The defendants blamed Kaylee. They said she lied. They said she was trying to get a payout. And you wrote in your article, children should not carry guilt for exploitation they did not cause. And I wonder if you can expand on that.

[B]

Yeah. So, you know, we talk a lot about empowerment and about helping kids protect themselves all the time because kids are smart. Right. But we then stress, hey, but this is empowering material for youth to keep themselves and their friends safe. We launched a website here in the US in collaboration with Protect Children Finland, called My Friend Too us. It's designed for friends whose friends have been abused or at risk of abuse. It's not about putting responsibility on the youth. They are still minors. So it's like, hey, we want them to have the best information. Actually, we want their voice to be heard. But that doesn't flip the responsibility onto them. The responsibility still has to be with adults, adult structures. Clearly adults are the ones who set regulation and legislation. That's not generally kids. Right. Maybe it should be. But you know, it has to be adult and organizational responsibility. Not on the youth. Right.

[A]

100%. I wonder who we should be Blaming or who's not currently getting the blame that they deserve. When it comes to kids getting harmed

[B]

online, the organization I work for during the day is full of volunteers, bless them. But my volunteer role is for Raven and I'm on the board of Raven and where most of us are former law enforcement, begging, pleading and educating our lawmakers to support law enforcement in protecting the most vulnerable, but also to help with legislation that I think Nikki, ultimately will help the companies. The companies obviously range from one doing as much as they can, they would argue, some doing a little bit, some doing nothing. Because the ones who are doing nothing, for example, to look for child sexual abuse material, they're not breaking any laws. They don't have to look. Good regulation, good legislation can help the companies say, hey, it's not about Big Brother, we're not spying on anyone. It's not about taking away anyone's privacy. It's about reasonable expectations for parents or users of devices and for that duty of care.

[A]

Right.

[B]

So the company can then point to the legislation and say, look, we're trying to help. One of my issues around this is I had the pleasure several years ago now of meeting an organization called the Phoenix 11. I don't know if you know the Phoenix 11.

[A]

I've heard of him, Yeah.

[B]

A group of CSAM survivors who are now, many of them young adults. And in the discussion around privacy versus safety, their privacy often seems to get forgotten. And so the most horrific moments of their lives are being shared and reshared by criminals where clearly some of that CSAM is being stored online, some of it is being hidden from investigation. Those young adults, they just blow me away in terms of their bravery. And frankly, getting out of bed each morning, they blow me away. How brave they are. And it isn't only really their own privacy they're worried about. They're worried about the next generation and they just don't want the same thing to happen to other kids. The regulation and the legislation, I think for well meaning companies will help them in the long run in any event.

[A]

Right, yeah. And you jumped to legislation. And I wonder if that's because the companies haven't done it on their own when it comes to preventing the harms.

[B]

Right, and they haven't. And of course, I know you're younger than me, Nikki, but even I don't remember the cigarette adverts. But you can still look them up on YouTube, the cigarette companies. A doctor who's had a long day. When you've had a long day, what you need is a nice churro to relax with. And he didn't take those adverts off voluntarily. Right. You know, I mentioned cars earlier, car regulation and safety wasn't voluntary. But then you get the odd example. The one that always brings to mind for me is Volvo that went further than they needed to. That's where cultural organizations, where safe is part of the culture, will always aim to get beyond what the regulation is.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Make it as safe as it can possibly be. And I'm sure you, you come across this phrase all the time is something we use often with regards to the online safety aspect, which is safety by design.

[A]

Right.

[B]

The parent doesn't have to worry too much about, well, what settings do I need to do as a parent? Like, you don't have to worry too much because this is safe by design, whether that's an online game, a piece of technology, or a platform.

[A]

Right. And parents are desperate for options that are safe by design and that we can trust. We would go to companies, allow our kids to go to platforms that we're safe by design, and that's just not what we're having access to or being given options around yet. And I want to just quickly jump back to the CSAM issue and call out, you know, Apple when it comes to that, because I'm aware that child sexual abuse material is being housed in Apple's icloud. And Apple has refused for years to detect and remove known child sexual abuse material. And now with AI, it being so easy to take a child's clothed photo and make them look realistically nude and spread that around through icloud when that's something that they could easily detect and remove using technology available to them.

[B]

For me, if Apple was enforcing its own terms of use, then we'd be like, okay, you're enforcing your own terms of use. But when at least it seems that everything is privacy first and everything else can be forgotten about, that doesn't feel or seem quite right to me. I would love to sit down. Maybe you can get. Maybe as he transitions out, you can get Tim Cook on your podcast.

[A]

Great. Sure.

[B]

Again, I have to believe, Nikki, that the employees, certainly shareholders and others at Apple believe the same thing we do. It should be both and it shouldn't be privacy only, should be privacy and safety to a reasonable extent. It was a few years ago now, I don't know if you remember when Apple announced the much fabled blocking of effectively naked images on the device. And it was like, this is phenomenal. It was like one of the best days ever. I think in the child Protection space.

[A]

Wow. Yeah.

[B]

And in fact, more than that, several of my female friends, I'm like, hmm. So let me ask you this. If you had that option on your device, would you use it? We're like, hell yeah. Because of course, you know, women are getting dick pics that if they were blocking them at the device level, they wouldn't be getting them. The device would say, are you sure you want to see this? No, I don't think I do. So, of course, $1200 device, whatever it is, now that the parent is buying, truly, that should be the parent's choice whether or not their 10, 11, 12, 13 year old kid can receive or send naked images. That just seems like common sense to me.

[A]

It truly does.

[B]

But instead, we roll the dice, it seems. Right.

[A]

Yeah. And luckily these days parents have safer options like the bark phone and different companies that are making phones that have all that functionality and give parents 100% control over what our kids have access to.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Okay. Well, I want to officially invite Tim Cook on the podcast. We put that out in the universe.

[B]

Wouldn't that be a cough?

[A]

Oh, yeah. I don't know that he'll love me. I mean, I'm very close with Sarah Gardner at Heat Initiative and we've done some direct actions over there at Apple headquarters, but it's all just to get to him so that he can see actual children and people are being harmed by his choices. And is that the legacy that he's leaving? So I would love to have that conversation with Tim.

[B]

Come on. Like, can't we get there together rather than it being adversarial?

[A]

The companies have the opportunities to make it safe by design to make these safer choices for kids, and they have not chosen that. And so we do need laws to force these companies to do better. We need continual lawsuits with injunctive relief forcing the companies to do better once they lose these lawsuits. And we have great progress in that area and I think we're making some changes. But right now, parents are sitting at home wondering what I can do. Let's like, end with some advice for parents who are unsure on how to tackle this whole thing. Let's start there.

[B]

First of all, parents need to, like, first of all take a breath and give themselves a break in terms of how challenging and frankly, can seem scary this topic is. You know, it's perhaps easier for people who know people like us, people in law enforcement, people in the, you know, who spend their lives thinking about this stuff. I think parents need to give themselves a break because it is difficult and Then parents need to also know, I think that they generally have an expert in their home and that's their kid. The kid knows how their devices they're on works. The kid knows how the games that they're on works. The kid knows whether or not Johnny 21 9, who they play in a game with on, on any given Sunday is somebody they know in real life or somebody they've met online. And I think parents having that conversation with their kid to figure out when the kid thinks, hey Nana, I know him. Yeah, you, you met them online, you don't actually know them. Because if they just say, do you know everyone that you play with online? They're going to say yes. Because Johnny 219 could be a 15 year old boy or it could be a 42 year old man making sure that the parents don't look at the TV shows they watch with law enforcement in them and think they need to bang the table and have a yelling match. It needs to be very light touch, very, you know, you can come to me if anything at all happens online, anything at all. And I've certainly had things happen with my sons where they've come to me because they've been known as an open door. Let me just say this as well. And again, we need to end on a positive with those open conversations. But these guys are out there. These guys are out there. We've had every type of victim here in the last few years. Sextortion. There's a community called the 764 pond. I don't know if you've spoken about that on your podcasts, but we've had one of those victims as well. She was 13 and you know, thankfully for me, her dad had taken our training just two months before. So he kind of kept calm, he knew what to do. FBI actually got involved in that case. So these guys are out there and it is a scary subject. But with the right empowering information for parents and youth, the only people you should be afraid are the criminals who would abuse our kids online or offline. Good parenting isn't about being perfect, right? It's just about doing the best we can.

[A]

And blaming the parents just benefits the criminals. It just keeps us all in silence, right?

[B]

It benefits the criminals. And frankly, it benefits a framing that this is about either the kid not reporting or the parent not doing enough.

[A]

Right?

[B]

Leaves the third part of that triangle out, right? Which is clearly the platforms, tech companies and everybody else involved in this big ecosystem. If everyone's not playing their part, then obviously it's Going to be a problem for our kids online.

[A]

Right, right. Can you help me lastly with what do I say to somebody or what, whoever's listening, if someone says to us, well, it was the parents fault or where were the parents, what do we say?

[B]

Yeah, I think it's a little bit of a case of breaking it down. Breaking it down to real world examples where the parents did everything they could. You know, parents like Brandon and others who did everything they could. And now tragically, some of those parents, I think recently, just, just this month, 60 of them have gone to talk in D.C. and elsewhere about losing their kids. It's like that's how bad it can get. The tragedy, the tragedy of parent blaming just means, hey, think about if it was you and your kid, you'd done everything you could, everything. Had the conversations. You'd even had the conversations where you say, if you make a mistake, you can come to us. You might still, might still not be able to do everything about it.

[A]

Right.

[B]

So I think it's about educating people that parents are at a disadvantage when the system is currently not safe by design. If it was safe by design and then things were going wrong, we're like, okay, you know, this parent maybe should have done more, but we're not there. I don't know how many years we are from being there, Nikki. Hopefully it'll be in my lifetime, but we'll see. And it's easy to throw stones. Right. But when, when everyone realizes we're all in a glass house, then it might be a bit. Take a little breath before you start throwing the stones around.

[A]

Right. I agree with the what, what if it were your child? And what parent doesn't do everything they can to protect their child from any known harm that they can imagine? And I was in D.C. with those parents plus parents last week. Yeah. And that's where we're at. We are having to face the fact that these children have died because of decisions made by companies and there's a way to fix it. And these parents went into the offices on Capitol Hill and met with a bunch of different senators and reps and talked to them about the reality of the situation that we're in and urging them to pass something to force these companies to implement safe by design, safety by design measures.

[B]

There are some really good lawmakers trying to do the right thing. There's some very good legislation that Raven is looking at. And it's just like, hey, let's get some of these difference makers over the line so that kids especially can enjoy all the good that comes from the Internet connected devices. I mean, look at us, being able to speak like this across hundreds of miles without the danger. Obviously, I'm an old fellow now. Some of those things just didn't exist when I was a kid. It was all, of course, stranger danger and man in the white van. But now the vans are all parked up and the kids are forced into those areas where the vans are with the men in them looking to exploit them.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And in the real world environment we'd have gone, no, no, no, we don't let our kids go in that area. Cause that's where all the men in the white van are.

[A]

Nightmare. Yeah.

[B]

And that's how bad it is. Like I said earlier, I'm not sure we fully contemplate yet how bad things are going to get because they seem to be continuing to get worse. You mentioned AI earlier and nudification apps where there may not even be a real picture of that kid naked, but the mental trauma caused by that image being shared around is still the same as it would be as if it was a real nude.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Crazy. I would urge people as much as possible to share that, my friend, to us. A lot of the time we know that kids will tell another kid rather than a trusted adult. And those resources are basically designed to explain to kids this is why it needs to get to a trusted adult and how to have those conversations. I know, we know that empowering kids works. We had a 10 year old recently who safeguarded her friend and she was 10 as well because of the training she got in scouting. She knew what to do, she knew the language she needed to use and she bugged the crap out of her mum until the report was made to the proper authorities. Bless us. So that's like a little hero of ours. And we hold her up as a good example of, you know, kids are smart, we're not putting the responsibility on them, but we can empower them to have to do the right thing. Right?

[A]

Yeah. They're really never too young to talk about these things in age appropriate ways. Look at a 10 year old helping her other 10 year old friend.

[B]

Right, Exactly.

[A]

It's incredible. So Glenn, thank you so much for having this conversation. For all the work that you do to protect kids, to support families and navigating these really, really hard things. I think blaming parents is convenient. It lets the predators and predatory companies off the hook and it really avoids the deeper conversations that we need to be having about accountability and how to fix all of this. Thank you for being part of this change and the momentum in the right direction because I am hopeful for that. So thank you, Glenn, and thanks for

[B]

all that you do, Nikki. You do a great job. Appreciate you.

[A]

Thank you.