Recent Discussions
What’s Keeping Me Up: Sextortion
The Scoop: Sextortion is a disturbing phenomenon that has escalated in the digital age, impacting countless young lives. It involves coercing individuals, often children, into providing explicit images or engaging in other sexual activities online, and then threatening exposure. Predators prey on the vulnerabilities of young people, using their fears and insecurities to manipulate them into compliance. According to the FBI, reports of financially motivated sextortion involving minors increased at least 20% from October 2022 to March 2023. The Big Picture: It’s not always a creepy online stranger upfront—often, these predators pose as friendly peers who just want to chat. As both a clinician and a father, the growing prevalence of this form of exploitation deeply troubles me. The science behind sextortion reveals a complex interplay of psychological manipulation and digital threats. Studies show that victims often experience severe emotional and psychological distress, which can have lasting effects on their mental health. Unfortunately, there are no foolproof ways to completely avoid becoming a target. Even if a teen refuses to send explicit images, predators can steal photos from social media and create fake explicit content with new technologies, like deepfakes, to use as leverage. My Advice: Have open and frequent conversations with your children about online safety from the moment they start using the internet. This should include age-appropriate discussions about sextortion. It's important to approach these talks without shame or judgment, focusing instead on educating your child about the risks of online interactions and image-sharing. ‘The Talk’ once centered around physical health, consent and relationships. Today, it also encompasses issues related to digital interactions, like sexting, online privacy, and the risks of exploitation and manipulation. Don’t wait to have it. If you or someone you know is being sexually exploited online, report it to the CyberTipline operated by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, or contact them directly at contactgethelp@ncmec.org or 1-800-THE-LOST. For international assistance, use the InHope hotline directory to find your local hotline.DrScott19 days agoCMO at Aura
Stay safe when chatting online: a guide for parents and families
These situations almost always involved a hypothetical stranger approaching us in person, which definitely makes it easier to identify if you know someone or not. Today, though, parents and kids have to navigate a different stranger danger: online strangers. It's a lot harder to tell if the person your kids are talking to online is who they say they are—and what their motivations might be. Luckily, many of the people your kids meet online through games and chats will be perfectly harmless. But it's still a good idea to talk to your kids about online safety—and when it is or isn't okay to chat with someone they don't know. Is it bad to chat with strangers online? Online communication with strangers isn’t an inherently bad thing. When kids play or chat together online, they can improve their communication skills, get to know people who differ from them, and have new experiences together. But this is only the case if your kids are chatting online with other young people—and doing so in an age-appropriate manner, too. Playing an online game with a real-world friend and chatting withtheir other friends as a result is a potentially safe experience—kind of like going to a classmate’s sleepover and meeting their friends from church or summer camp. Meeting strangers in an open forum and exchanging direct messages, though, carries more risk. What’s the safest way to talk to a stranger online? There’s no 100% safe way to talk to a stranger online. Even if your kids feel like they know the person they’re chatting with thanks to social media platforms and YouTube videos, things may not go as expected. Sometimes, it turns out that other people may not be who they say they are. They could even be an adult predator posing as a child—though this isn’t the most common issue kids encounter online. The biggest issue is actually cyberbullying, which affects an average of31.2% of kidsin middle and high school. But whether your concern is cyberbullies, scam artists, or potential predators, there are a few steps you and your kids can take to stay safe online. 8 Tips for staying safe when chatting with strangers online. Have your kids agree to use accounts set up by a parent, using approved gaming, social, and chat apps. Stress that your kids shouldn’t change their app or device privacy settings without talking to a parent first. Help your kids choose a username that doesn’t include their real name, email address, phone number, birthday, town, or age. Instruct your kids not to accept private chat invitations from people they don’t know—or switch from public social media comments to direct messages. Your kids should keep their interactions limited to public areas or group chats where multiple people are talking. Request that your kids stick to text chats, or voice chats when gaming. Tell them not to accept video chat invites and to keep their webcam turned off or covered. Have kids keep their online chats limited to the app you’re using or the game you’re playing. If the person they’re chatting with asks them to download another instant messaging app like Telegram or WhatsApp, your kids should say no. Encourage kids to keep conversations focused on the game they’re playing, or a specific shared interest that they’ve connected with the other person over. It’s best not to talk about personal experiences, school, family, or friends. When kids do this, they can unintentionally reveal private information that scammers and predators can use to learn more about them. Stress that your kids should talk to an adult if they have a conversation that makes them uncomfortable. If the chat room or forum they’re in has moderators, they can flag messages for a mod’s review, too. How can the whole family chat more safely online? Practicing good security habits can also help the whole family be safe when socializing, working, or learning online. A mix of parental control apps, VPNs, device encryption, and strong passwords can all help. The biggest thing you can do, though, is to talk to each other about what’s happening online. Whether it’s sharing a funny video you saw on Instagram or listening as your child talks through a tricky conversation they had with a friend while playing Fortnite, creating a safe space for family check-ins and questions is key.jessa2 months agoCommunity Manager
The importance of identity exploration in adolescence: How parents can support and keep their teens safe
Identity development is a lifelong journey, starting with that first "no" in infancy and moving on to the big life questions: "Who do I want to be? What do I want to do?" While this process never really ends, adolescence is when these questions first start to take shape. It’s a time of social, physical and internal changes, and suddenly, that separation from parent identity can feel much stronger. Letting our kids spread their wings is scary, especially when our instinct is to protect them and we know they’ll make mistakes. That’s why, each week, I’ll be sharing science-backed insights to help you navigate the adolescent years with your family. What does identity exploration have to do with digital safety? Think back to when you were in middle and high school. You probably had a few styles or music choices that now make you groan. Maybe you tried out being the “punk-rock” kid, the “preppy” kid, or the “I-don’t-like-anything-that’s-popular” kid. We often think about risks in terms of illegal activity or danger, but trying out different identities is another form of risk-taking or self-exploration. Risk is how teens explore and figure out where they belong in the world. Today, a lot of that exploration is happening online across social media, group chats, games and more. The difference between then and now is that my “studded belt” and Will Smith dance routine evidence is constrained to a few physical photos. But, every time our kids share, click, like, follow, or post something online, it shapes their digital footprint in ways that our offline identity exploration didn't. The algorithms that power digital spaces curate this data and deliver different experiences based on our actions. It’s why your teen’s TikTok might be full of makeup and dance tutorials, while yours might be parenting and home project content. As parents, it’s important for us to keep a pulse on what our kids are exposed to online, and the bounds of what they can share online, while also allowing them room to create new connections and explore their online identity, too. This means we need to have a level of digital literacy that allows us to support our kids’ exploration and growth, while still knowing when to put the guardrails up. Why is it important to allow our kids to spend time online? If you were anything like me growing up, you couldn't wait to get your driver's license. But that event isn't as attractive to all teens today. Instead, many adolescents are pushing for greater digital independence: more screen time, new apps, fewer restrictions. Even though the type of independence they’re seeking looks different than it did when we were kids, the motivation is still the same. Kids are going through a series of major shifts—mental, physical, dietary, social, hormonal. Their day-to-day life begins to look different once they hit middle school or early high school, and they need to figure out who they want to be. It's healthy and important to encourage this exploration in physical and digital spaces. Allowing our kids to do so while they're living at home means they can access support when things get tough and do so with some parental scaffolding. Despite what some sensational media buzz may tell you, the digital world is not going away. If we strip away all devices and screen time when they are still at home, our kids may not get to do this exploration until they’re older and away from the familial support network. How can parents limit risk while allowing exploration? Teens and internet use isn’t a black-and-white situation. Using the tools at your disposal, and approaching screen time conversations with care, can help you keep your kids safe without being overly restrictive. Stay educated. Even if you’re not much of a social media user or gamer yourself, get to know more about the apps your kids love (you can find resources that break down what you need to know about popular social media platforms right here in our community). Be a sounding board. Create a safe space for your kids to ask questions about what they see online or what their friends are talking about. Balance the good with the bad. If every conversation you have with your child that is about their phone is focused on what you don’t want them doing, it can create tension. Instead, try to have ongoing conversations about both the positives and negatives of their online lives—this can build a foundation of mutual trust and reinforce that you’re looking out for their best interests. Use tools to make the internet safer. Encryption, virtual private networks (VPNs), content alerts and screen time controls can help you guide your kids toward healthy, balanced device use. In next week’s column, we’ll talk more about how we can use communication to help kids as they grow and explore—including what to do when you just can’t seem to see eye-to-eye.DrJessica2 months agoClinical Director at Aura
How to Keep Your Kids Safe While Online Gaming with Ron Kerbs 🎥
Kids spend more of their time than ever online gaming, but how can parents alleviate the potential dangers that come with it? In this week’s episode of the Digital Parenthood Digest, Kidas CEO and FounderRon Kerbs tells you how to keep your kids safe while online gaming.jessa19 days agoA warm welcome to our newest community members!
We’re thrilled to welcome our new members this week! Whether you're here to find support, share experiences, or learn new strategies for navigating the challenges of raising kids in the digital age, you've come to the right place. To get you started, here are a few tips and resources to help you make the most of our community: 📝 Introduce Yourself! We’d love to get to know you better. Share a bit about yourself and your family in the comments of this post: Where are you from? How many kids do you have and what are their ages? *Please make sure you follow our policies around protecting the privacy of minors by not sharing identifying details (full name, address, etc) or full face photos to ensure everyone's safety. Read our Community Guidelines here. What’s one thing you hope to gain from this community? 📚 Explore Our Resources Here are some must-read posts and resources to help you get started: Clinical Office Hours with kids and technology experts Dr. Scott and Dr. Jessica Ask an Expert your questions about navigating all things related to raising a connected generation Find articles related to cyberbullying, cyber crimes, internet safety and more We’re so glad to have you here. If you have any questions or need support, don’t hesitate to reach out. Welcome to the Digital Parenthood community!jessa22 days ago
