Safety Online

Featured in Time Magazine as one of the best inventions of 2023. The Bark phone continues to expand and deliver upon the reliability and safety needs for kids as they explore their online life. Today, listen to Bark's Chief Parenting Officer, Titania Jordan, to learn more about the Bark phone, the Bark for Schools app, and so much more.

With a mission to create a safer internet for everyone and huge celebrity endorsements in Hollywood, Aura has taken the digital safety sphere by storm. Dr. Scott Kollins joined Aura @aura_protects as its Chief Medical Officer. Wielding a robust background in clinical psychology and digital health, his career includes significant contributions to the development of digital therapeutics and mental health solutions. Kollins role at Aura is critical in shaping the company's approach and parent understanding of youth safety and mental wellness in the digital era. Listen today to see what you think - will you be interested in trying out Aura?

Pam Tudin is very familiar with the struggles and triumphs of the human condition as a clinical and forensic psychologist. She's an international speaker on all matters teen and tween and the co-founder of KLIKD, an organization committed to providing, can-do solutions for families to use social media happily, safely, and responsibly. In this episode we talk about the importance of being the soft place for your child to land when they make an online mistake and so much more. Listen today!

Just as you wouldn't let a new driver take the wheel of a car without proper training, using smartphones requires instruction. Healthy Screen Habits now has a workbook designed for tweens and teens to help them navigate the rules of the road for smartphone use. Healthy Screen Habits Workbook for Tweens and Teens is what we, the founding members of Healthy Screen Habits, wish we had when our oldest kids were getting their first devices. Learn all about it when you listen to this week’s podcast with the authors: Amy Adams and Jeannie Ondelacy Sprague.

Wendy Waddel is the program manager of Safety Net Smart Cyber Choices, a collaborative program of the San Diego Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force and the San Diego Police Foundation. @sandiegopolicefoundation She has all the details about laws and legal ramifications surrounding online predators, nude selfies, and more. I learned so much about what to do about online scams & hacks and a great tip to employ when telling your kids you legally need to check their phone! This episode is a must listen!

When I get questions about how today's youth is being affected by pornography, I have a few resources I like to recommend. At the very top of this list is Culture Reframed. Formed in 2015, Culture Reframed is the premier science-based global organization of scholars, professionals, and activists addressing the harms of pornography to youth. Today we get to learn about the latest free resource in their curriculum: Porn Critical Sex Education. Listen today!

Healthy Screen Habits had an amazing summer filled with family adventures, shared memories and - most exciting of all - the publication of our first workbook! Healthy Screen Habits for Tweens and Teens - A training workbook to help you use your phone wisely is now available. Whether your child is new to owning a phone or even if they've had one for a while, chances are they're still figuring out the DOs and DON’Ts of using a smartphone wisely. This workbook is here to help you and your child navigate life in the digital world! We’ve put together all the information, tips, hacks, and rules to ensure that their phone is a useful tool that THEY CONTROL, not the other way around.

The FBI is warning parents, caregivers, and teens about increased sextortion crimes across the country. Sextortion is a kind of scam where the suspect gets children to share some sexually explicit material usually by coercing them, making them think that they're also someone that age and they're going to be exchanging nude images. Once the suspect has that image, then they extort the child/minor for money or more images of sexually explicit content. The primary target is boys ages 14-17 and sadly, suicide rates due to sextortion are on the rise. Listen to this episode to find out the best ways to educate your family about sextortion.

Tessa Stuckey, AKA:The Mom Therapist, works with families navigating the digital, tech-filled world that our kids are growing up in. Tessa takes on today’s negative cultural effects on our kids’ mental health from the perspective of a therapist but with the heart of a caring mother. In this episode we talk about creating a healthier and positive lifestyle for the whole family through anxiety management, understanding online harms, necessary limits of screen use, and the need for healthy connection. Listen now!

Dr. John S. Hutton is a pioneer in the realm of brain development. His JAMA published MRI research showed the results of screen overuse in the brains of young children: disorganized white matter. This is concerning for a variety of reasons. Today we discuss the best ways to start healthy brain growth and development with babies and toddlers….hint….it’s easier than you think ..and it doesn’t involve screens!!

Since 2013, the Children and Screens Institute @childrenandscreens has been a leading curator of experts in the field of digital media and children's health. This week, I got to talk to the executive director: Kris Perry. I asked Kris questions like: - Is digital media enhancing or impairing children's abilities to live happy, healthy, productive lives? -What does research show regarding the effects of screen use on children's cognitive development or social emotional development? -What can parents do to help enact legislation enforcing guardrails on tech platforms? She had insightful, amazing answers. If you use technology, if you have any interaction with children, if you are interested in the effects of digital media, you need to hear this episode!

As the current National Advisor for Health Education and Media Literacy at Media Literacy Now @medialiteracynow, Tamara Sobel is deeply committed to helping parents and schools gain healthy screen habits. The founder of the Girls Women and Media Project, she led one of the first organizations focused on activism and education to raise awareness and improve images of girls and women in the media. She's a certified sexuality educator and a regular columnist for Psychology Today. ( Maybe you've already read some of her work!) Our conversation covers a variety of topics surrounding Media Literacy and a great healthy screen habit.

When you install an app on your phone - you know the “permissions” setting? The one that says you don’t want this app to track your movements across all platforms? Meet the guy who brought that to you: Javier Aguera. He's currently working on something new, a method and set of highly practical tools that will create a journey toward a child's ownership of their first smartphone. It is is rooted in giving kids agency and trust paired with skill and habit built in. It’s fascinating - and so is he….you want to hear everything this guy has to say! Listen now!

Alex Basche is a psychotherapist (LMFT) based in the SF Bay Area (ie: the heart of Silicon Valley). He works mainly with adolescents and young adults, specializing in the treatment of tech-related behavioral addictions such as gaming, social media, pornography, online gambling & shopping in addition to substance use disorders. In this episode we discuss how to bridge online gaming with offline tabletop games as a way to ease kids into in person socializing, the concept of Game Transfer Phenomena (a condition in which gamers can experience auditory and visual hallucinations) and much more.

The use of screens and exposure to what is on them seems to be synonymous with growing up today. And we know that what kids see on screens or the content they consume can have effects on offline living. And this is where my guest today comes in as an Associate Professor at the Rutgers School of Public Health. And at Rutgers, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, he is also a core member of the Institute for Nicotine and Tobacco Studies. His research shows the different ways that corporations influence adolescent health with current projects focused on identifying sources of exposure to tobacco marketing among adolescents and young adults.

Jessica Spear is the author of The Phone Book. Stay Safe, Be Smart, and Make the World Better With the Powerful Device in Your Hand. It is just the latest of books she has written that help tweens and teens become their best selves. In this episode we talk about all of the fun things included in her book (think puzzles, code breaking, trivia and more!) as well as why tweens and teens make amazing teachers. If you have kids, you’re going to want to listen to this episode…and probably buy the book…you can find a link in the shownotes ;) Listen today!

Those baby days can be rough - everything we see in the media tells you “these are the moments you live for” yet…it’s so lonely. If you have enjoyed other pursuits or had a fast paced career you might find yourself wondering what comes next?Typically - we reach to our device to reconnect with our friends and look for help with the millionth question you have that day. This can get tricky… we can find ourselves spending way more time online than we intended and spiraling down the hole of social media. Alex Fales, found herself struggling with all of the new mom things and was unsatisfied with her relationship with tech so she founded Mindful With Media @mindfulwithmedia. In this episode we talk about screen habit pitfalls and some relatively easy practices you can put in place to design the relationship with tech that you want to have. You are going to want to listen to this one!!