human trafficking

Drug Dealers Use Social Media to Hook Teen Girl on Fentanyl

September 3, 2022 by GetKidsInternetSafe

Drug addiction is on the rise with many drug dealers finding teen customers on social media.[1] Once engaged with the dealer, teens are vulnerable to drug use, solicitation for nude photos and videos, coercion, extortion, and even violence. Once hooked, dealers may also use their victims to recruit other teens. Improving their methods one teen at a time, dealers become experts at persuading kids to try that first pill, often lying about what it is and how it may affect them. Most parents would deny that their kids are at risk, insisting that they’ve spoken to them and know their kids would never be so foolish. But if you’re not tracking content on your kids’ devices because you believe they deserve digital privacy, can you be so sure? To help close risk gaps and set appropriate expectations, check out our Screen Safety Essentials Course. With weekly family and parenting videos, you can be confident that you are doing all you can to protect your kids from risks like these. Today’s GKIS article shares a true story about a 16-year-old girl who got caught up in this shocking series of tragic events driven by social media use. Learn about how she got started, the workarounds she used, and what her parents would recommend to help keep your teens safe.

Morgan’s Story

Tom recently shared a tragic story with us about his 16-year-old stepdaughter, Morgan. Morgan is like any high school sophomore. She loves fashion, her friends, and her 17-year-old boyfriend, Parker. She earns straight As and loves to ride horses. Tom and his wife Julie frequently have Morgan’s friends and boyfriend over to the house to hang out and occasionally Morgan and Parker would go out too. Parker seemed like a good kid, and they insisted on meeting his parents right from the beginning. They didn’t think twice when, over time, Morgan started mouthing off, rolling her eyes, and pushing back against the rules. They figured it was normal adolescent boundary-pushing. Besides, Julie and Morgan moved to this new community only a year ago before Tom and Julie got married. They figured there would be some growing pains as she figured out her new school and friend situation.

Over time, however, Morgan’s defiance escalated. She was constantly on her phone, isolating herself in her room, coming home past curfew, and eventually started sneaking out at odd times “to go for a walk.” Grounding her and taking her phone didn’t seem to help, and Julie was reticent to repeatedly punish her due to the screaming fights that would ensue when she tried to implement consequences. Julie felt like maintaining a cooperative alliance with Morgan was more effective than punishment. So, she worked hard to spend time with her daughter and felt that she’d grow out of the teen attitude.

More Than Teen Rebellion

Tom realized it was more than teen rebellion when his neighbor, who worked in law enforcement, came by and reported that he’d seen Morgan buying drugs from different men that would drive up to her during her walks. Julie and Tom were shocked and terrified. They put Morgan into therapy and drug-tested her. When she came up positive for multiple drugs, they put her in intensive outpatient therapy for teens who abuse drugs. They tightened up on their rules and hoped that everything would sort out now that Morgan was getting professional help.

Over time, Morgan’s attitude got better, and she said she liked her therapists. Until one day Julie discovered fentanyl tablets in Morgan’s room and realized they needed to investigate further. Although Julie was still reticent to invade Morgan’s privacy, Tom insisted they confiscate Morgan’s phone and restrict social media and socializing privileges until they could better understand and control the situation.

Phone Content Reveals the “Real” Story

When they accessed Morgan’s phone, they discovered she was swept up in many dealings with multiple drug dealers, most of them adults and some in gangs. They also saw text exchanges that demonstrated that she and her boyfriend were offering nude photos and videos of them having sex in exchange for drugs. It was also clear that Morgan had sex with some of the dealers in exchange for drugs. Julie and Tom were heartbroken and reached out to law enforcement.

From the phone content, several arrests ensued and Morgan filed a restraining order against Parker. The videos revealed that both teens were under the influence during the sexual encounters and Parker may even be charged with a crime since Morgan is heard saying “no” in some of the videos.

Morgan was immediately enrolled in an online charter school and has been admitted to several inpatient drug rehabilitation programs. She takes the prescription drug, Suboxone, to help her avoid opioid withdrawal and stay off fentanyl. Tom and Julie deleted her social media profiles and don’t allow her any screen use except when she borrows her mom’s phone for browsing here and there. Despite these measures, she has found alternative ways to communicate with old friends by using and sneaking other people’s devices and using the computers at school. As she “unlearns” the manipulative, unhealthy behaviors typical of addiction, she has been kicked out of various schools, friend groups, extracurricular activities, treatment centers, and therapy groups. It will be a long road to healing for Morgan. Although Julie and Tom did the best they could, they wish they would have done more and sooner.

Tom’s Take-Away Advice

When we asked Tom what he wish he’d have done, he shared the following suggestions:

If I had known how rampant drug sales are among middle and high school students on social media platforms like Snapchat and Instagram, I would not have allowed any social media until the age of 16 minimum

I would have set up more stringent monitoring on all devices and computers, and I would have provided a talk-and-text-only phone with no way to add apps and no way to access the Internet until the age of 16.

I would have volunteered to be the pickup parent instead of the drop-off. Kids are smart. They knew I would catch them if they were under the influence when I picked them up.

I would have shut off our Wi-Fi network every night and checked which devices were using our Wifi. Morgan was able to sneak a “burner phone” at night until he realized that he could monitor WiFi use.

Finally, I would have set up random drug testing as a general policy. Parents who assume that they have no reason to drug test their kids because they’re athletes, straight-A students, or generally good kids still can’t be confident their kids are not being influenced by dangerous others. Drug testing is an insurance policy to help keep your kids alive.

If you want to get into smart parenting habits before your kids run into trouble:

Use our free Connected Family Screen Agreement (and weekly GKIS Blog articles) to set rules and expectations when your kids first get ownership over digital devices and social media platforms. The first rule is that nothing on your device is private, and parents get anytime access.

Purchase our Screen Safety Essentials Course to support the whole family and parenting team for better screen safety and a more honest and cooperative home life.

Check out Social Media Readiness Course for tweens and teens. This course offers 10 modules that teach screen safety issues and psychological wellness tools to optimize mental health in both real-life and digital landscapes. Each module offers a quiz to demonstrate mastery of content.

Finally, talk to your kids, be consistent with monitoring and screen use rules, and don’t assume they won’t experiment with dangerous situations. To learn more about which social media platforms are popular for drug deals and the emoticons they use, check out our article A Teen’s Addicts Confessions About Online Workarounds.

I’m the mom psychologist who will help you GetKidsInternetSafe.

Onward to More Awesome Parenting,

Tracy S. Bennett, Ph.D.
Mom, Clinical Psychologist, CSUCI Adjunct Faculty
GetKidsInternetSafe.com

Photo Credits

Photo by Myriam Zilles on Unsplash

Photo by sebastiaan stam on Unsplash

Photo by MART PRODUCTION, https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-man-and-a-woman-leaning-on-a-vandalized-wall-7231496/

Photo by Aphiwat Chuangchoem,

Photo by John Schnobrich on Unsplash

The GKIS Sensible Parent’s Guide to Omegle

April 29, 2021 by Dakota Byrne

During the age of lockdowns and quarantines, many children have discovered a new way of finding someone new to talk to. A website known as Omegle, and other websites like it, have filled this social gap in many people’s lives. Omegle is considered a ‘roulette’ style website, where users may set interests and get matched with people with the same interest. This can be only a text chat, or it can be a video chat. If you find screen safety issues overwhelming in your family, you’ll benefit from Dr. Bennett’s weekly parenting and coaching videos on our Screen Safety Essentials Course. The most important thing that parents can do is be aware of the potential risks and promote an environment of open communication with your children. In this program, Dr. B offers a comprehensive family program for fostering this kind of communication in her Screen Safety Essentials Course. With this course, your family will learn tons of information about how to create a safer screen home environment while also connecting and having fun as a family. Armed with the right tools, you and your family can learn how to better thrive in today’s digital era. In this GKIS Sensible Guide, we will explain what you should know before letting your child chat away with complete strangers.

How long has Omegle been around, and how popular is it?

Omegle was created in March 2009. Omegle has recently seen over 54 million daily visits.[2] According to Google, searches for the site began to increase during March 2020, with the number of searches quadrupling the week before Christmas.[1] This surge in users isn’t much of a surprise. People were stuck inside their homes for almost a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Much of that time was spent on the computer, so why wouldn’t a website that allows someone to meet a new person be appealing? Teenagers have also created a ritual of hanging out together in person and going on Omegle as a group.

Omegle does state that to use the website, one must be over the age of 13. This is done with a simple pop-up box that can be clicked away. No date verification is required, so this is easy for children to bypass. As explained in the book Screen Time in the Mean Time, parents should use their best judgment to determine whether or not their child is ready to use a website like this. This GKIS Sensible Guide aims to help inform the parents so they are able to make the best decision possible.

Features of Omegle

Text-Chat

Individuals are prompted to enter optional interests to help match them. There are two options for the text chat: Text or Spy Mode
- Text: Users are randomly matched in pairs, either based on their interests or completely at random if no interests were entered. Users are completely anonymous so there is no way to get someone’s information unless they offer it. Even if they offer it, they can (and likely will) lie. Either user may end the chat at any time.
- Spy: Three users are matched together, two regular chatters and a spy. The spy prompts the other two with a previously entered question. The spy is unable to contribute to the conversation at all, they may only watch. The chatters focus on answering the question presented. Any user can end the conversation at any time.
There is no option for a ‘filtered’ text option. The website warns against profanity, sexual harassment, or violent threats, but there is no way to filter those statements out. If the user gets matched with someone who does any of these, the website simply says to ‘end the chat’.
The website itself warns that predators have been known to use text/video chat to groom or lure victims. It claims that it cannot control human behavior, and only the person committing these actions should be held accountable.

Video-Chat

Similar to text chat, users are randomly matched based on interests if possible. This can be in pairs or in groups. All user’s webcams will turn on while searching for a match.
This section has an option to report nudity, violent threats, and sexual content in addition to numerous other things one might encounter during chatting. This section does not allow any of these.
This section is aimed at users under the age of 18.
These filters to protect users don’t always work. Even the website itself warns that some things of inappropriate nature might be encountered.

“Unmonitored” Video-Chat

This is a carbon copy of the video-chat section with one crucial difference. No filter is used to prevent users from showing nudity or sexual imagery on their webcam chat.
This section is aimed at users who want a more ‘mature’ chatting experience, as long as they are over the age of 18.

Benefits of Omegle

When used correctly, and age-appropriately, it allows for individuals to talk with someone who has similar interests.
It can help an individual feel less alone and more connected in a quarantined world.

Risks of Omegle

The filters in place for the monitored section have inconsistent results. Some users still report encountering things that they shouldn’t several times in a row.
Children are more susceptible to believing an individual who may be lying. This may result in them giving information they shouldn’t to a complete stranger.
This website has the potential to expose children to sexual imagery, violent threats, phishing scams, and numerous other dangers.
None of the age checks are secure. Your child can easily access a section of the website that they shouldn’t with one simple click, no verification needed. This poses both a giant risk for the child and a giant temptation for them.

Throughout its lifetime Omegle has proven to be a constant source of controversy. This led GKIS to consider Omegle to be a red-light app, meaning that it is not recommended for anyone under the age of 18. The possible exposure to explicit material is too hard to control, and the fact that the website itself warns that predators do use this website to target victims were two of many factors that led us to this decision. If you think that your child may be using Omegle or other social media apps, consider our Social Media Readiness Course to help them stay safe.

Thanks to CSUCI intern, Dakota Byrne for researching Omegle and co-authoring this article.

I’m the mom psychologist who will help you GetKidsInternetSafe.

Onward to More Awesome Parenting,

Tracy S. Bennett, Ph.D.
Mom, Clinical Psychologist, CSUCI Adjunct Faculty
GetKidsInternetSafe.com

Works Cited

[1] https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&geo=US&q=omegle

[2]https://www.similarweb.com/website/omegle.com/

Photo Credits

Photo by John Schnobrich (https://unsplash.com/photos/2FPjlAyMQTA)
Photo by Annie Spratt (https://unsplash.com/photos/4A1pj4_vClA)

The Digital Age of Human Trafficking

December 2, 2020 by Kaylen Sanchez

According to the International Labor Organization, there are an estimated 40.3 million victims of human trafficking globally, with 25% of those victims being children.[1] All youth are vulnerable to human trafficking. However, youth that are in foster care, identify as LGBTQ+, have run away, and are from abusive households are at the highest risk.[2] With online recruitment on the rise, grooming can take place right under our noses. This GKIS article covers what you need to know about human trafficking to keep your family safe from online predators.

Human Trafficking and Grooming

Human trafficking is “the acquisition of people by improper means such as force, fraud, or deception, with the aim of exploiting them.”[3] Often traffickers groom their victims online for days and even months before asking to meet in real life. Grooming is the act of building a relationship and trust, with the intent to manipulate and exploit the other person.[4]

As devices become more accessible to younger generations, their chances of encountering an online predator increases as well. With this in mind, we must take proper precautions when granting children screen-time. Let us help you with our free Connected Family Screen Agreement, a step-by-step digital contract that will help you clarify expectations, implement an expert action plan, and create a connection for safety and resilience. You can find the opt-in box in the right-hand corner of the GetKidsInternetSafe home page.

Recent Findings

According to the U.S National Human Trafficking Hotline, the number of trafficking crisis cases increased by more than 40% following shelter-in-place orders.[5] Crisis cases are defined as cases that require assistance with transportation, shelter, and law enforcement involvement within twenty-four hours of the report. Because of stay-at-home orders and mandated quarantines, the captivity of victims is being reinforced. The pandemic has also cut off economic opportunities, leaving people to become vulnerable to exploitation in exchange for basic needs.

A 2019 data report from the Polaris Project found that the three most common trafficking situations include sex trafficking (escort services, illicit massage businesses, pornography), labor trafficking (domestic work, agriculture, traveling sales crews), and a combination of the two.[6] In addition, this report indicated the average age of victims of sex trafficking as seventeen and labor trafficking as twenty-two.

In a 2016 survey conducted by Thorn, 260 survivors of domestic minor sex trafficking reported that technology is increasingly being used as a means of making contact for recruitment. 55% of those survivors reported meeting their trafficker via text, websites, and apps.[7] Further, findings show that traffickers weaponize virtual communication to contact and groom multiple victims at a time.

Grooming Tactics and Testimony

Online recruitment comes in different forms, including boyfriending through dating apps, fake job listings, and online marketplaces.[8] Boyfriending is defined as feigned romantic interests in order to form a trusting relationship with the victim. Trafficking recruiters use this tactic to lure their victims with intimacy, security, and sweet nothings.

Rebecca Bender shared her experience with boyfriending and human trafficking in her 2020 YouTube video with Anthony Padilla. A single mother at 18, all she wanted was to get herself and her daughter to a better place. She met a man online that promised her security. After six months of dating, she took a leap of faith to be with him.

One night when they went out, the man turned the car around to a strip of buildings without lights. He told her that she needed to pay him back (for moving expenses to Las Vegas), by participating in escort services. He used fear and physical abuse to get Rebecca to comply. Little did she know that she would become enslaved for the next six years with three different traffickers.

Since her escape, she has become an advocate in the fight against human trafficking. She offers the advice, “If anyone is forcing you to do something you are not comfortable with, it doesn’t just have to feel like this big, giant word of human trafficking.”[9] She elaborated that secretive jobs, frequent traveling, and hypersexuality (beyond your boundaries) within a relationship could be signs of exploitation. If you or someone you know is a victim of human trafficking, the National Human Trafficking Hotline is fully operational at 1-888-373-7888.

Psychological Manipulation

According to Psychology Today, three psychological staples behind grooming include instilling fear, manipulation, and coercion.[10]

Fear

Fear, aggression, and anger are emotions that trigger the amygdala within our brains.[11] The amygdala is like our smoke detector, in that it helps us determine how to respond to a threat.

Because the amygdala develops before our prefrontal cortex (our calm reasoning center), teens often make decisions based on an emotional response rather than experience-informed logical reasoning.

Predators are adept at identifying vulnerable targets who demonstrate immaturity, blind obedience, or those who have a social and economic vulnerability (e.g. youth living in unstable households, living in poverty, or participating in early drug/alcohol use).[12]

Manipulation and Coercion

Coercion and manipulation in the context of human trafficking typically come in the form of ultimatums and threats to maintain control over their victims. Because kids do not have the cognitive development or experience to reason through complex situations, they often fall back on obeying authority when faced with conflict. Predators exploit this vulnerability to reinforce control.

Everyday Real-Time Accessibility

According to a report from January 2015 to December 2017, data from the Polaris Project shows that common internet platforms used for recruitment include Facebook, dating sites, Instagram, and websites like Craigslist and online chatrooms.[13] Increasing, child screen access offers accessibility and opportunity.

Earlier this year, a video of a 37-year-old mother going undercover as an 11-year-old girl on social media went viral.[14] Within hours of creating the Instagram account and being clear that she was underage, an influx of explicit messages from strangers flooded the inbox. From there, the undercover team arranged to meet the predator and he was arrested. Videos like this one demonstrate that kids can be easy targets online. For more information on accessibility and sensible tips, check out Dr. Bennett’s GKIS article on sex trafficking.

Oversharing on Social Media

Victims are often identified as targets based on their willingness to overshare online. Different platforms provide opportunities for oversharing, including locations identified with geotagged photos, the Snap Map on Snapchat, and the Check-In feature on Facebook. Some platforms even require your location on your phone to be turned on to gain access to specific filters. To learn more about the dangers of these location features, check out this GKIS article about oversharing.

Online Gaming

Kids can also be readily groomed by predators on gaming platforms. A relative of mine told a story of how she received a message when she was fifteen years old from another gamer she met in the game’s online public lobby. He sent her a message asking for pictures, demographic details, and her home address (even after clarifying that she was only fifteen). He told her, “It’s okay that you’re fifteen, I’m eighteen, it doesn’t matter.” After being denied, he confessed he was twenty-two years old.

With the help of information and insight she’d gained from open, informative family conversations, she knew that his behavior was dangerous. She instantly blocked him and has not heard from him since. What might have happened if her parents hadn’t been proactive in offering education and support?

Among Us is a game that is currently popular among youth. I recently investigated this game for risk. Sure enough, in the public lobby of the game, it was common to see minors exchanging ages and Snapchat handles. I have even seen children as young as nine playing this game (one being my cousin), and streamers as old as thirty playing as well.

Although your message may be directed towards one person in that online lobby, the chat feature is open for 5+ other strangers to see. There is an option to censor the chat for inappropriate comments, but the unmoderated chat cannot be turned off completely. The game does provide the opportunity to play in a private lobby that requires a code. If your child plays this game, I suggest this option for friends and family. For more information about the dangers of games containing chat features, check out this GKIS article about the dangers of online multiplayer games.

Social Media Readiness Course

With all of this in mind, our children must understand the bigger picture of screen safety and online accounts. It is our responsibility as parents to do everything in our power to protect our children, but you don’t have to do it alone. GKIS offers our Social Media Readiness Course. Tailored for kids, our Social Media Readiness Course helps tweens & teens get educated about the risks of digital injury as well as Dr. B’s tested psychological wellness techniques. Using modules and mastery quizzes, this online course offers expertise to parents and kids, so they can maintain a healthy alliance against digital injuries and online predators.

Thanks to CSUCI intern Kaylen Sanchez for researching the digital age of human trafficking for this GKIS article.

I’m the mom psychologist who will help you GetKidsInternetSafe.

Onward to More Awesome Parenting,

Tracy S. Bennett, Ph.D.
Mom, Clinical Psychologist, CSUCI Adjunct Faculty
GetKidsInternetSafe.com

Photo Credit

Photo by Soumil Kumar from Pexels

Photo by Alok Sharma from Pexels

Photo by Cristian Dina from Pexels

Image by StockSnap from Pixabay

Work Cited

[1] https://love146.org/child-trafficking-some-facts-stats/

[2] https://love146.org/child-trafficking-some-facts-stats/

[3] UNODC – Human Trafficking. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/human-trafficking/index.html?ref=menuside

[4] https://www.nspcc.org.uk/what-is-child-abuse/types-of-abuse/grooming/

[5] https://polarisproject.org/press-releases/human-trafficking-during-the-covid-19-pandemic/

[6] https://polarisproject.org/2019-us-national-human-trafficking-hotline-statistics/

[7] https://www.thorn.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Thorn_Survivor_Insights_DMST_Executive_Summary.pdf

[8] https://polarisproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/A-Roadmap-for-Systems-and-Industries-to-Prevent-and-Disrupt-Human-Trafficking-Social-Media.pdf

[9] Padilla, A. [AnthonyPadilla]. (2020, Nov 10). I spent a day with HUMAN TRAFFICKING SURVIVORS. [Video File]. Retrieved from: https://youtu.be/KGE_CUj0f1s

[10] Psychological Tactics Used by Human Traffickers. (2016, October 19). Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/modern-day-slavery/201610/psychological-tactics-used-human-traffickers

[11] Griggs, R. A. (2014). Psychology: A concise introduction. Worth Publishers

[12] https://polarisproject.org/blog/2020/08/what-we-know-about-how-child-sex-trafficking-happens/

[13] https://polarisproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/A-Roadmap-for-Systems-and-Industries-to-Prevent-and-Disrupt-Human-Trafficking-Social-Media.pdf

[14] Social Media Dangers Exposed by Mom Posing as 11-Year-Old. (2020, February 20). Retrieved from https://youtu.be/dbg4hNHsc_8

GetKidsInternetSafe Sheds Light on the Dark Net: Drug Traffickers, Child Pornographers, and Nude Selfies

March 17, 2016 by Dr. Tracy Bennett

Along with being a mother of three and clinical psychologist in private practice for twenty years, I’m adjunct faculty at California State University Channel Islands. This semester I’m teaching the courses Addiction Studies and Parenting. Over the summer I read an incredibly interesting book, The Dark Net by Jamie Bartlett. I was so fascinated by what he had to say, I assigned the book to my class along with a reaction paper. I asked them to identify with and support one extremist position or the other, the techno-optimists or the techno-pessimists. Who would you side with?

What is the dark net and how does it relate to GKIS?

The dark net is a hidden, encrypted overlay Internet network with over 50,000 websites that can only be accessed by the Tor Hidden Services browser. It’s the online underground. To get on the dark net, anybody with Internet can download the free Tor browser. From the Tor browser, your search request gets bounced around via several computers encrypting and decrypting your request as it goes, ultimately making your search untraceable. That means anonymous users can browse and interact with websites that cannot be regulated or censored.

Interestingly, the Tor browser was originally invented in the 1970s by the United States Department of Defense (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network – ARPANET) so they could browse the net without being recognized. The same technology used for national security is the very software being utilized by users of the dark net, the criminals and those using it for social benefit.

As you may suspect, the dark net is populated largely by those who have something to hide. In his book, Jamie Bartlett interviews dark net frequenters, including trolls, pornographers, child pornographers, self harm chatters, political and social movement extremists, and those who participate in black market drug sales (referred to as the Silk Road).

The Silk Road

The Silk Road is an ecommerce site that specializes in the sale of illegal drugs. To shop on the Silk Road, one simply needs to browse for products (marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamine, hallucinogens, heroin, you name it) that are displayed like any ecommerce site, such as Ebay or Amazon, with thousands of products offered by hundreds of vendors. One can see a photo and description of the product, read customer reviews to assure quality, contact the vendor, place an order with your delivery address, and pay with bitcoin, which is cryptocurrency designed to keep your identity secret. Once ordered, your money is held in a secure account until the product is on its way, then it is released to the seller and you’re left to wait for your product to be delivered to your nonvirtual mailbox.

Of course, there is not full safety, privacy, and anonymity on the dark net. The clever encryption makes it very difficult to locate the server for the website…and thus the creator. But there are arrests made from dark net activity. For example, the founder of the first Silk Road website, 31 year-old Ross Ulbricht, was sentenced to life in federal prison in May, 2015. The federal judge was quoted to say, “What you did with Silk Road was terribly destructive to our social fabric.” Silk Road cashed in over a billion dollars in sales between 2011 and 2013. Destructive indeed. However, even in the high profile case of Silk Road 1 being taken down by the FBI; within a month, the Silk Road 2 site popped up on its place. And the illicit online drug trade was reborn.

Perhaps what is most concerning for GetKidsInternetSafe (GKIS) is the large number of child pornography images available on the dark net. GKIS prefers the term online child sexual abuse to child pornography. However, one of the big problems identified by Jamie Bartlett is that up to one-third of child pornography images are self-produced. This means that children and teens, sometimes coerced, take and share their own partially nude and nude photos. As a result, eradication of these images becomes nearly impossible.

Why in the world would a child or teen publish their own photos and interact online with strangers?

In order to understand a child’s motives, one must consider what tweens and teens are trying to accomplish socially at this developmental stage. They are trying to form their self identity independent from their family of origin. They are trying to create their “brand.” And what models do they have for branding? Nude selfies experts like Kim Kardassian. No only are they mimicking their favorite Internet celebrities, but they’re also trying to build their confidence and street cred among their peers.

Just like trolls on the Internet, teens practice thickening their skin by boldly brushing up against risk. What is too scary to do in real life is more possible in virtual life. The harmless end of the spectrum for online skin thickening is talking smack to same-age friends (e.g., cyberbullying on Twitter) and the dangerous end of the spectrum is engaging with an adult stranger on the Internet (e.g., opening oneself up to grooming by an online predator).

Scary right? Yes! The truth is, telling your tween a scary story isn’t enough to stop them from experimenting with their social power and sexuality online. They will engage in conversation with an online “creeper” as a kind of dare. The kids think they’re in control and enjoy the banter . . . until they get titillated or start to trust the guy and ultimately lose control. That’s when it gets dangerous. Because in the chess game of pedophilia, creepers are well practiced and use extremely sophisticated grooming methods to manipulate children. Overly confident teens with immature prefrontal brain regions (the seat of problem solving and judgment) are easy pickings for sinister adults.

I recently saw a disturbing playing out of this very dynamic when I was investigating the new video streaming social media app, Periscope. A very popular stream with lots of floating hearts revealed what looked like a 12 year-old girl playing truth or dare with a hoard of flirting anonymous strangers. She had the demeanor of a hardened flirt, but her vulnerability was dangerously evident. Talking to men who were daring her to take off her clothes soon revealed she was in way over her head. But not only did she not realize she was in peril, she was becoming more and more determined to demonstrate she could handle it. As a mother and psychologist, it was distressing in the least. And yet it is playing out everyday, all the time. Parents are the last to know.

What can parents do to keep their kids off the dark net and from self-promoting sexualized images?

I’m sorry to say there is no magic shortcut to this question. The GKIS short answer is, you have to parent.

Not only must you stage your home appropriately with a good monitoring and filtering techkit and techniques like I offer in the GKIS Connected Family Online Course, but you also must teach your kids good judgment and digital skills. One scary story won’t get the job done. Skill building is a gradual process that takes root from a strong parent-child alliance. That powerful connection can only occur with quality, fun family time and engaging, informed conversation.

Start your digital parenting with deliberate restriction of content (e.g., no social media apps in elementary school). As your child gains experience and judgment, slowly loosen up and allow more digital freedoms, with tech monitoring and frequent check-in discussions. Avoid dishonest spying that can lead to a hurtful ambush that will blow your credibility. If you’re straight with them that you will check their online content, they’ll post with better judgment and accountability from the beginning. Ongoing digital conversations not only offer bi-directional teaching opportunities between kids and parents, but it also builds a cooperative relationship and teaches family values.

Consistent with my article last year Hey Dad, Your Twelve Year-Old Daughter Has a Nude Out, Jim McDonnell the Sherriff of Los Angeles County recently penned an open letter to parents cautioning them about the perils of self-published nude selfies and human trafficking. Check out my NBCLA interview for details.

I’m the mom psychologist who will help you GetYourKidsInternetSafe.

Onward to More Awesome Parenting,

Tracy S. Bennett, Ph.D.
Mom, Clinical Psychologist, CSUCI Adjunct Faculty
GetKidsInternetSafe.com