Trent Ray (00:01)
They're certainly the digital generation, but we sort of, I've heard someone refer to it before is that they're digital orphans. So they're almost being thrown into these platforms. They're on their own and they're having to navigate these challenges by themselves. And so if we can
build their skills and give them access to a few different apps and platforms in a safe way. Just like when we introduce kids to swimming in a pool, we introduce it in a safe way and then we start to put floaties, know, have floaties and all sorts of things and we're watching them while they swim and as they get older and older they start to show their skills and independence and it's the same with technology I believe.
Kristi McVee - Intro (00:33)
Welcome to Conversations with Kristi I'm Kristi McVee a former WA police officer, specialist child interviewer and child abuse detective. For years I worked on the front lines investigating child sexual abuse, where I saw the risks, the patterns and most importantly, the ways that we can protect our kids. Now I'm here to share that knowledge with you. This podcast is all about real conversations, giving parents, carers and educators the tools to keep their kids safe, both in person and online.
Through survivor stories, expert insights and practical advice, we'll navigate these tough topics together so you feel informed, confident and empowered. Because when we know better, we can do better and our kids deserve nothing less. CONTENT WARNING Some topics and conversations can be triggering for some listeners. Listener discretion is advised as your mental health is important. Please refer to my website and the show notes for available support services.
Kristi McVee (01:32)
Hello and welcome back. I'm so excited to be talking to the amazing Trent Ray from the Cyber Safety Project. Trent and I have worked on a few projects together and I couldn't think of anyone better to talk to about cyber safety and just making it simple for families and parents on how to keep their kids safe online. I know that the feedback I get is that cyber safety, there's so much to be aware of and it's so tricky and we don't know what to do.
we tend to do is get overwhelmed, then we do nothing, or we think we've done it and we haven't probably looked into it enough. So I thought we'd try and break it down a little bit. And Trent was the best person I could think of to come and talk about simplifying this for us. So thank you so much for being here, Trent.
Trent Ray (02:15)
Very excited and glad to have another conversation with you, Kristy. We always have good chats and sometimes I think we should say, we should have recorded this. So now we are.
Kristi McVee (02:22)
Yeah we are, yeah we're so
lucky. okay so I have, like I said we're just going to keep this quite simple. So the first question I have for you is what are the like some of the top three dangers that kids are sharing with you when you go out to schools and talk and present to them? Because the thing about, I don't think parents realize that when we go to schools and we're talking to kids they are just, because we're talking to them about stuff that's really important to them.
They just tell us everything, right? So what are kids telling you guys and your team about what they're seeing on?
Trent Ray (02:53)
Yep.
The biggest one for us, particularly with the junior kids that we work with, is the alarming amount of young people that are actually playing public games, like Roblox, for example. So we do an activity in our sessions where we ask them, do you play personal, private or public? We go through what those three levels of kind of openness mean. And the large majority of kids would say that they play public games, which as you know, Kristi opens up a window for perpetrators to easily and quickly access them. But not only them getting access to perpetrators
and people that are there to groom or extort, we're also seeing them exposed to harmful content in those platforms as well because a platform like Roblox, which isn't a game, it's a platform full of games and lots of different types of experiences for kids, they are user-generated games that someone else has created. So if you've got a bit of technology skill, you can upload a game onto Roblox. we've seen some pretty heinous kind of environments that kids are playing with and then kids aren't too aware of what's going on with them.
Kristi McVee (03:51)
Yeah and you know we'll stick with the theme of Roblox because that is a like that can be quite it's very prevalent in young kids isn't it they're playing a lot of Roblox but like you pointed out it's user generated so like it's not like some computer company or some gaming company has gone okay let's create this this is people sitting in their lounge rooms or their offices or their studies creating games for kids or for people
and they can put whatever they want in there. there's no real restrictions or guidelines or anything. They just put whatever they want and it's gamified. So our kids are going there. If it looks fun, they're gonna go and try it.
Trent Ray (04:28)
Yeah, absolutely. think another theme within this, and if we're going to just stick to Roblox as one simple example, access to gambling sort of tendencies as well is really a concern. I was watching one of my young nephews actually playing Roblox the other day and they were in a gym where it was all about pumping weights and building muscle and they were earning coins and it was then using chance style games to win more and those Robux go into the Robux store that they can then spend. And so, you know, it is expo-
Kristi McVee (04:56)
Yeah.
Trent Ray (04:58)
exposure
to a range of things. We've got strange danger skills that we need to develop in our young people. We've got the ability to be able to navigate safe and unsafe games that they might experience and tapping into their social emotional intelligence around where am I in the right space for myself right now. Plus then they're being exposed to advertising and gambling as well.
Kristi McVee (05:17)
Okay, so yeah, so there's a lot to be considering and I mean for some parents it's really difficult because like the your kids are coming home and I had this struggle as well with my daughter, know, your kids are coming home. Everyone else is doing it. Well, everyone else is on it. Why can't I play it? You know and so
The thing I found difficult was saying no, of course, but I knew that there was such a risk of some of these games and some of these platforms that were, and we're not just picking on Roblox today, there's platforms like TikTok and there's platforms like Instagram and things like that that expose your children to things that they wouldn't generally see if they generally see if unless they were on them.
Trent Ray (05:58)
Absolutely. I think that, you we it's hard to specifically give, you know, the right guidance around how long we should be playing or what applications are safe or unsafe, because we've got such a variety of ages of young people as well. And it can be really important to also just know your child and their maturity level and their understanding and how much skill they already bring to a new platform. So when we're deciding whether we say yes or no to a game, for example, we also have to take into consideration what safety features does the actual application have like parental
Kristi McVee (06:18)
Hmm.
Trent Ray (06:27)
controls. example, Roblox has some really fantastic, highly functional controls that you can set up to support your child if they do play Roblox. But we've got to take age into consideration, maturity and their prior experience with navigating safely as well. So it's not just an assessment of yes or no, we have to look at it from a different perspective. One of the things around saying no as well and one of the tips I would give is also, you know, we don't want to create more bricks in the barrier between you and your young person around
around
game decision making and opening themselves up to feeling confident to talk to about challenges that they might be experiencing. So we often suggest that you use the term not yet, because not yet actually still creates this idea with your young person that actually, my parents are open to talking about this, maybe it's not yet because I haven't decided yet whether or not it's safe for you or not, and we need to have a few conversations and teach you some skills before we start using any platform, and we need to do that together as a family.
Kristi McVee (07:03)
Mmm.
Yeah I love that, that's a really good tip actually and that's what that was my next question you know what are some of the conversations we can have with our young people before we actually give them access to some of this stuff because I know for me I had those conversations with my young person and I said to her you know let me these are the reasons why you might not be able to use something so let me have
do my homework, let me do, let me check it out for you to make sure it's safe and that not yet, I didn't use that language but I sure wish I had have known to use it.
Trent Ray (07:50)
Hmm.
Yeah, look, there's lots of different things that are really important around that kind of introduction of any technology and slow and steady wins the race in this in this world. Young people are very quick to learn as they start to play and they adapt quickly and they're never afraid to click on things. But we have to remember they walk into these gaming platforms with all of the positive ideas about what the game is going to be for them. And they don't necessarily know why it is not unsafe. So, Chrissy, when you said, you you talk to your daughter about why that's the number one conversation to have around the not yet
experience because not yet because and giving them the the reason behind why is so important and that when we do any learning experiences with our young people in our schools or in through our programs we always start with why it's not always safe in these spaces and some spaces have got different unsafe reasons.
Kristi McVee (08:35)
Hmm.
Yeah, and what I found when I worked in schools with kids is that kids are so open to hearing about it. they want to have these conversations and they understand when you bring something up like, hey, it's not so dangerous. They're like, yeah, I get it. Like I've seen it. Like, yeah, or my friend has done this, you know? So they're really open to those conversations. They want to, especially in primary school.
They so want to have these conversations with people. And you brought up the point of like the reason why we use that not yet terminology is because we don't want to close the door on a conversation that could be them coming to us with something that's happened.
Trent Ray (09:14)
Yeah, and we can just accidentally have that rhetoric. So it's a nice reminder, I think. Yeah, and I also believe that it's really important to empower our young people. So when they are ready to start using the games, using the game and app settings together and setting it up with them rather than just for them, because it actually teaches them a 21st century skill, right? A digital literacy around that whenever you do decide to start using a new game, you really consider what your username is. And are we giving away any personal details like my first or my last name in the username?
is a simple thing. And when we go through the sign up process, like is it asking, it's asking me for my date of birth. Well, do you think Roblox needs to know my date of birth? And now it's asking us to turn this off or turn that on. What do you think? And it's actually teaching them the skill that before you get a game or you jump into playing one or even social media, that they're part of the setup as well. Cause you can have those really good teachable moments at that point in time and they'd be eager to listen to you because they want to get into the platform. So, you know, it's a good timely opportunity to have those chats.
Kristi McVee (09:44)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, and I guess like what you're pointing out there is like being as a team, including them in the decision making, including them in the setting up. And whilst you're doing that, you could be planting seeds of like, if this, you know, we're setting this up so this doesn't happen. So if you ever see any of this, you know, what do you do next kind of thing? What would you do?
Trent Ray (10:28)
That's right, giving
them the help seeking steps. So if this happens to you or when maybe even saying when this happens, when a stranger asked to be your friend, what are the three things that you're going to do to protect yourself from this person? And why might it not be safe to talk to that person online?
Kristi McVee (10:38)
Mm.
Yeah and not I find that I know even my daughter's nearly an adult now but even just if I talk to her like that much better conversation than if I'm like don't do this don't do that and I mean who wants to be dictated to and lectured and told told what to do and not to do.
Trent Ray (10:59)
Yes.
No.
That's right. And it's good to kind of almost bring a third person into, well, what would happen if that happened to one of your friends? What do you think your friend would do if that happened to them as well? And it can just break down those barriers a little bit.
Kristi McVee (11:13)
Yeah, especially I know, I look, I know that parents really struggle with this because it seems like.
they're losing a battle against safety online or they're losing a battle. mean, you know, we're not even talking about the fact that they're increasing the, you know, the restrictions to 16 and all of this other stuff that's going to happen in the next 12, 18 months, two years. But, you know, as an adult parent, as someone who loves their children, you know, I guess we just have to take that little bit of time out to spend time with our kids and like help them. Like you said, you've given some amazing tips. You know, the first one was, you know,
let's have a conversation, not yet, if it's not ready, if it's, don't deem it appropriate. So you don't close that door from that conversation, know, including them in the decision making of how it's set up and having some guidelines there, you know, we're going to only use it in this area of the house or supervise here, you know, and also, you know, explain and giving them some solutions on how to get.
help if something happens and they're really good guidelines. in your opinion and I know that this is a controversial question in some ways but in your opinion and what you're seeing in schools and I mean your history and experiences in teaching, what age should we start talking about our kids about cyber safety?
Trent Ray (12:24)
Yeah, well, if your child is using a device, you should have already had the conversations about cyber safety is our method, right? So if they are five and they already have an iPad and they are on YouTube, then we need to be having conversations about safety and exposure to harmful content. Because if we haven't had that conversation, we are putting them into a deep pool of content that could have been generated by somebody that has malintent and therefore they might be exposed to something and not have the skills or strategies to know how this is made
Kristi McVee (12:31)
Yeah.
Trent Ray (12:53)
me feel and if I feel a heavy feeling like worried or scared if I I if I see those things they might not know that when they see those things that they do need to come and talk to you about that so straight away we need to so we always say before they start using technology they need to have those conversations
Kristi McVee (13:09)
I know and some of the research and statistics are looking pretty grim when it comes to technology use in children, young children especially. I think it's like one in three young children have their own device and are using the internet before four. I think the latest stats are, I think it is. So it's not, it's grim from our perspective is how do you have a conversation with a four year old about, you know, if they see something that scares them, but it's naturally, well, if they're having those.
If they're using that technology, we have to have those conversations.
Trent Ray (13:37)
Yeah,
because they may be having those feelings and be exposed to those concepts at an age that's too early for them to be seeing those things. But if they are seeing it, we need to give them the strategies. you always talk about body safety and starting with those conversations around just building up their literacy to explain how they're feeling and what they're seeing and giving them the help seeking language that they can use with you as well. So you can start building that trust.
Kristi McVee (13:49)
Mm.
Yeah.
Yeah, and don't, I find that sometimes, and we just assume that kids will know what to do or we assume that they're gonna come and seek us out. But I'm sure you can add to this. What I found was young kids, especially kids in primary school and et cetera, they're scared of getting in trouble and losing it.
Trent Ray (14:21)
you
Kristi McVee (14:22)
you know, losing that device or they're being in trouble and so they will try to fix things or sort it out themselves or like problem solve for themselves without getting outside help or they'll go and seek a peer's help before they'll come and see a parent.
Trent Ray (14:36)
That's right.
Yeah. And so if a parent has already been having safety conversations with that young person and they've seen that there hasn't been an overreaction on things, that we've been having sensible conversations about these concepts, that maybe when it does come time for that to happen, they won't see a wall. They won't actually be perceiving that their parent's going to remove them from the device or that that device is going to get banned for a week.
The only reason why they would not come to talk to you is if they've already experienced that kind of reaction in the past. And so they're making that assumption that if I tell my mum and dad about this or tell a trusted adult about this, then I'm going to get into trouble. So we have to really be explicitly explaining to our young people that it is safe to come and talk to me about things and maybe even setting up some some promises of things that you won't do if something happens and that what your role is as their parent is to help them if they make a mistake or if they they do stumble
Kristi McVee (15:10)
Mm.
Trent Ray (15:25)
on something that they've got the ability to be able to you know sort of come to a parent without fear of having that device taken away from them.
Kristi McVee (15:34)
Yeah, definitely. I think that's actually good tip is to come up with some promises or some guidelines of like, if something happens, because ultimately that one thing that happens and they come to you or that you find out about it.
It's not going to stop there. They're still going to be using technology. They're still going to be on that device. They're still going to be using online gaming, public gaming. They're still going to be doing things. So why would we want to close that door of conversation and learning and education? Because all of this is, like you said, this is a life skill that we have to teach them because it's not going away.
Trent Ray (16:08)
That's right. And not blaming them if something goes wrong, know, explaining to them that, you know, sometimes people, tricky people set up traps online and we all can sometimes get fooled by them or, you know, sometimes a stranger will want to try to be your friend. And if you say no to that person, that it's, you know, that's actually safe for you to do so. And so giving them the agency and the, and allowing.
to understand that, or have you been talking to a stranger and if you do don't blame them for talking to a stranger because you might want to say something like well I understand that you want to make connections and talk to friendly people I like to do that too but this is why it's not safe to do it online.
Kristi McVee (16:42)
Yeah, and that's a good point because the thing is that as adults and parents we do this stuff every day and you know, we don't get down on ourselves if we make a mistake. We might be upset if something big happened like we were scammed or you know something massive happened but you know we interact with strangers every day on the internet as well so it's a fact of what the internet is right? It opens the world up to billions of people and
they're in the places that kids are.
Trent Ray (17:09)
Yeah, and we want to set ourselves up as trusted adults that we're good problem solvers and that we know how to help when something does go wrong. So one of the methodologies we talk about with parents through our parent education is show them you know. So make sure that you're having not just the why conversations about why it's not unsafe, but when you show them, know, you show them, know about app settings, you know how to block strangers that you've heard of this website called the eSafety Commissioner who can help us if something's going wrong. So you're sort of promoting that you have a toolkit as a parent to be a help seeker for them.
And I think that's really important because young people tell us today two things. They want to be safe when they're online. They just want to go and play and enjoy themselves. They don't want to be unsafe while they do that. And the second thing is that they want their trusted adults to be able to be supportive of them and help them if something goes wrong and know what to do.
Kristi McVee (17:55)
Yeah, totally. kids do like they literally do want to be safe online. They do want they don't want to deal with all of this stuff. This this adult content and all of this nefarious content and all of this stuff. They don't want to see that. But unfortunately, the current environment online doesn't protect them from it. So they're going to see it regardless of whether you think they are or they aren't. And I know from some of the presentations and talks I've done with kids is I've had young people come up to me and say,
I've seen something that's made me really scared and I don't know how to not see it anymore. And you know, that's something that...
As a parent, I would want to know that my child had seen something so that I could help them, guide them through it, provide support. But if they don't feel safe to come to us when they see something that's scary online or makes them feel sick And the actual explanation, was a year four, like a nine-year-old, eight-year-old, was like, it makes me feel funny in my tummy and it makes me... I can't stop seeing it when I close my eyes. And, you know, and you think about that...
Trent Ray (18:48)
Mm.
Kristi McVee (18:51)
poor little person and if it's your own little person who's going through that, you wouldn't want them to be going through that. So it's really important that we do what's the best for them in this space and we have these conversations, we join together as a team with them. And if you're not willing to do that, and this is probably a bit controversial for most parents, I'm not the one to really blame or shame, but if you're not willing to sit down and have a conversation with your kids about this stuff, then.
don't please take their phone away from them or their device away from them, because they need you to. But on the flip side of that, they're still gonna see it anyway with their friends, their friends' devices. So it's just something we can't shy away from.
Trent Ray (19:27)
Yeah, it's really, there's no silver bullet. There's no one answer and we have to understand our own context. It's the age, maturity, skill and understanding of a young person. You know, I spoke to a parent not that long ago at the end of a parent evening and they said, Trent, I'm doing everything right. I'm not letting my teens or my children have access to anything until they are 16 years of age. And I said, well, you're certainly protecting them from harms and challenges. But at the same time, you may actually be, you know, neglecting the opportunity that they have
to learn alongside you while they're still young to do so and for you to actually be a guide on the side as they learn through their technology journey to be safe citizens. Because at the moment, you know, we talk, there's a rhetoric around this idea that kids are digital natives. They're certainly the digital generation, but we sort of, I've heard someone refer to it before is that they're digital orphans. So they're almost being thrown into these platforms. They're on their own and they're having to navigate these challenges by themselves. And so if we can
Kristi McVee (20:11)
Mm.
Trent Ray (20:23)
build their skills and give them access to a few different apps and platforms in a safe way. Just like when we introduce kids to swimming in a pool, we introduce it in a safe way and then we start to put floaties, know, have floaties and all sorts of things and we're watching them while they swim and as they get older and older they start to show their skills and independence and it's the same with technology I believe.
Kristi McVee (20:43)
Yeah, I'm just picturing that what you're explaining. It's like, yeah, they go in with their little vest on their floaties, everything like they're basically unable to sink. And then slowly you take the pieces away because they start to learn to swim. It's exact same with the internet. And I love how you explain that. I guess with how fast everything's moving and even we are I'll admit hand on heart, admit that it's even tough for me to keep up with what's happening, you know, and I work in this space.
you know, with how fast it's moving, what kind of resources and what kind of places can parents go to to sort of keep up to date or, you know, if they're researching something or if they're looking into something their child wants to do, where can they go?
Trent Ray (21:23)
Yeah, well, shameless plug here, I have a safety project. We have a whole resource bank and some family resources on from starting the technology conversation all the way to managing social media, sign up for the first time. So if they're looking for support resources around not just the information, but also how to guide those conversations, please come to our free resources section on our website. That will hopefully be helpful. I'll also suggest that the Office of the eSafety Commissioner has a great resource bank. They have an apps guide with over 100 games and apps that they have reviewed and give you the good insights that
Kristi McVee (21:26)
Yeah
Perfect.
Trent Ray (21:53)
you
need as a parent and through the eSafety Commissioner you can also report cyber harms, illegal and harmful content. And so you know as a community we're very lucky here in Australia to have Julian and Grant lead the eSafety Commissioner, lead a huge team as part of our strategy as a country to protect people. The third place that I'd recommend is common sense media. So I'm sure you've seen a lot of common sense media resources, they're fantastic and you know Kristi you mentioned it's hard to keep up, you know it's a global resource which is great and it's a crowd sourced research tool.
So there's actually other parents of reviewed apps that you know, we might not have even heard of at the Cyber Safety Project You know, there are millions of apps and platforms that do exist out there and it's important to have a resource that we can go to So Common Sense Media is another go-to place that we use here at Cyber Safety Project when we're hearing about an emerging tool or technology We'll usually be able to find some information about it there
Kristi McVee (22:39)
Mm.
Yeah, what I like about, so those two first ones, yeah, they're definitely you guys and the eSafety Commissioner definitely use those tools. But Common Sense Media, I was using that 10 years ago with my daughter when it was probably a little bit more newer. But the cool thing about Common Sense Media is that it's not just games, it's movies, it's TV shows, etc. It's anything. But also I love and I don't know if you've ever gone, you can see parent reviews, but you can see child reviews as well. And the children are brutal.
Trent Ray (23:11)
Mm-hmm. Crucially honest,
that's right. This is not a safe app. I've been talking to strangers. Yeah, that's right. Yes, absolutely.
Kristi McVee (23:14)
This is not for children. Yeah. This is for someone over the age of 16. They're like so brutal
and I love it.
Trent Ray (23:24)
Yeah, they're the honest reviews and you know, parents have experienced if another parents has experienced this and they've listed their challenge with that, at least that you can see what that is. And if you're still willing to allow your young person to use that technology, even after reading that, maybe you've actually got an insight from that parent about a skill that you need to teach your child about before they continue using that platform as well. So it gives you really good perspective, I believe.
Kristi McVee (23:46)
Yeah, they're three great ones. I think just having those like places to go when you're like, so personally, when I was talking to my daughter, we had some family rules about social media, online safety, et cetera. And these started from, you know, seven, eight onwards until she was in her teen years. And then, you know, as you said, you take off the floaties, you're...
you start sitting outside the pool and you watch from the sidelines and then you basically let them swim on their own. But you know, she, we would sit down, she'd say, I would like this game and I'd say, okay, give me 10 minutes, I'll have a look into it. And then, you know, some of the rules were they couldn't have, especially when she was in primary school, it couldn't be a, like a...
a game or an app that had contact, like someone could directly message her. So that was a rule, that hard and fast rule up until high school. You know, you can't directly message people on a game, it's just not yet.
Not yet. And you know, and then there was no social media until 13. Although, you know, some social media, YouTube is a social media app in which, you know, we don't realize because you can message and stuff in there. So, you know, like we had some rules, there was some mistakes along the way we learned from them, there was some teachable moments. And I think that, you know, as a family, you should and as parents, you know, with all of the information that we can access now, like come up with some tips for your own family or some little
rules and talk about it like what do you think should be safe you know I used to ask my daughter okay well what do you think is a safe what is safe and what does it look like online you know is it being able to talk to people is it being able to you know do you think that's safe and I would question her if she was you know pushing back I'd say well tell me why you think that that's safe and usually she'd be go okay it's not safe I'm just want the game
Trent Ray (25:27)
Yes, I do know deep down, don't they? Yeah, yeah. And I think, you
you've empowered your young person to help make the decision together and they've actually come to the conclusion that it might not be safe instead of you telling them that it's not safe, that they've used critical thinking to evaluate themselves. And it's a really important life skill to whenever you have an Apple application, even as adults, think sometimes we don't realise how unsafe they can be for ourselves, let alone for for young people as well. Can I just mention one more other great resource that's recently just come out? The Australian classification
Kristi McVee (25:43)
It is.
Sure.
Trent Ray (25:56)
guidelines so you know when you think about if a movie's rated G, PG, MA or R18 they've just come out with a new expectation on any app that has gambling in it is now classified automatically as R18.
Kristi McVee (26:01)
Yeah.
Wow, okay.
Trent Ray (26:11)
And the other thing on that website now is you can type in any game that your young person is currently playing and check out the classification guide on that as well. So games don't often themselves produce and tell you what the game is actually rated. And in the store that you might download it from, like the Apple Google Play Store, Apple App Store, sometimes it does give you the age recommendation, but that's actually just being developed by the person who's published the game, or it might be related to some things like potentially
Kristi McVee (26:19)
Wow, okay.
Mmm.
Trent Ray (26:40)
the privacy laws, which is 13 and under, for example. So using the actual classification guidelines that Australia sets are a great reference point for that.
Kristi McVee (26:49)
Mmm.
Yeah and it's it's handy to and these are the tools that we can say hey like the Australian classification guidelines says that this is actually not for children under like they've they've you know similar to movies we don't let you see MA 15 plus movies because you're 12 so you know they're saying this is an R18 plus game and maybe that will help you with those conversations. yeah.
Trent Ray (27:05)
That's right.
And here, yeah. You need anything in your arsenal, right, to be able to try to
get those conversations through, yeah.
Kristi McVee (27:20)
Yeah, and I mean, like my own young person has said to me, she came to me at 15 and said, mom, thank you so much for keeping me off social media for as long as you didn't know. I was like gobsmacked and nearly drowned in the pool whilst she, cause she told me whilst I was in a pool in Thailand. I did need my floaties cause I was like, whoa, where did, and she said, no, I just realized that, that because you kept me off social media, it actually let me have a longer childhood because my friends were too busy worrying about TikTok.
Trent Ray (27:34)
You needed your floaties on.
Kristi McVee (27:48)
trends and Instagram and looking, know, whilst I was in primary school they had all of these apps and you didn't allow me to so I was still playing with my little ponies and my Barbies until I was in high school and I was like, well, that's nice. Like I felt, I was completely gobsmacked because obviously, you know, at the time it was a battle. Not always because she was quite understanding when I sat down with her and explained why.
but at the same time she felt like she missed out, but she actually looks back and goes, was actually a good thing.
Trent Ray (28:17)
Yeah, and I've heard lots of young people have the same, you know, perspective once they mature into an age where they can reflect back on the time that they had as a young person, they can see how it did benefit them. And it can be really hard to say no and not yet with your young person, but actually what you're doing is you're really paying them a favour to set them up for success in life so that they can reflect on this experience with some skills that they've learnt along the way.
Kristi McVee (28:31)
I like the knot yet.
100 % and this is a life skill. All of this is life skills that will help them in adulthood. My last question and I'm sure there's parents on this webinar podcast that are going to like go, okay, I need to implement some of this stuff. Do you have any easy tips or you know, I think we've touched on a lot of them, but do you have anything easy to help?
any potential meltdowns that are coming because you know when we when we might have been not and I've had it so I know exactly what happens when you set in a boundary and you say actually this I've made a mistake here. So do you have any like potential tips for parents?
Trent Ray (29:16)
Hmm
Yeah, so one of the things that young people ask us to tell parents is, for example, when they play games is, you know, games like Fortnite or battle style games is to that you can't really just like pause a game to come and have tea. Or like, you know, when we were playing Super Mario on our consoles, it's very different now the games you are being relied upon by your team to keep playing. So understanding that games have a do have an expiration time, but let them finish that round. So rather than
and
saying, you have to hop off right now. It's okay, one more round or when this round finishes, I need you to hop off. That's one thing that I think is really important to do. I think the other tip that I would give is making sure that they're empowered with all of the decision making around the technology, not only choices of what we use, but also how we set them up safely. And when we're talking about setting things up safely, we're setting the app up itself, the account itself, but also we're creating safe boundaries
in the home about where we're going to play. And it can take a while to shift that back around if it has been, you know, a free horses bolted moment where you realise actually I need to bring it back in. That can take some time, but, you know, empowering them to be part of the decision making and understanding. And if their experience uses with this technology and they've experienced some of the challenges that you're talking about, why it's not safe, that's also an imperative for them to sometimes want to start reining in a little bit. They just don't always know how they don't have that self-restraint.
Kristi McVee (30:22)
Yeah.
Trent Ray (30:42)
regulation skill yet or they don't know how to be safe.
Kristi McVee (30:45)
Yeah, I mean, I have spoken to young people who've said, yeah, I know that I play this game too much. we're expecting young people who haven't had full, their prefrontal cortex isn't fully developed, all of their brain, their full brain development hasn't happened. We're expecting them to behave like they have control over their, over this stuff. And we know, I mean, I'm addicted to my phone.
it's so difficult to get off and unless there's a some sort of guideline or a you know with my daughter i would say something like yep you can finish this game then you've got to turn it off you've got to you're gonna leave or one more round or hey i need your help with something and she'd be like i'm in middle of something okay you got 10 minutes to finish like giving them that like
leeway just to go okay I need to finish this and you know if you start a new one that's a whole new that's a whole another one that that means it's free for all on mum getting it you know cutting it off but you know if I've given most of the time it worked if I gave her time to like come off it.
Trent Ray (31:37)
That's it. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
The other thing as well is to be prepared. you know, just asking them to hop off there, you know, we've got to give their brain some time to actually decompress after that high exposure to something which might've been quite engaging or, you know, our brains fully scrambled because we've just been spending 30 minutes playing a high intensity game or watching fast moving video clips or something might've happened in a chat group or something like that. We have to give them that sort of that zone time between hopping off the game and then moving to that next
activity and as adults when we put our phones down we're usually got a million things that we need to do, to put on load of washing, we've got to finish that email to work, you all those things. We've got things that we have to get off to go and do but if we think about young people if they haven't got them their own list of things potentially that they could refer to to self-regulate into that next activity so I always recommend working with your child as well to think about what are the offline activities that they can do when they stop playing a game or when they put their device down. What are some of the activities that you enjoy doing
in that middle period before it is dinner time maybe so there's that like you might read a chapter of your favorite book or you might go and do some Lego or you might go and jump on the trampoline for a little while and giving them that transition time is really important.
Kristi McVee (32:58)
Yeah.
Yeah, and I don't think, I mean, there's so much research in this space coming out now and lots of conflicting and contradictory research. know, some people are saying that online being online for children is like literally doing drugs. Some people are saying it's not, you know, it's completely contradictory at the moment in this space. No one can agree on it. But what I do see in even myself, but with my child and with my family is that there is that like coming off it.
it is kind of like, you know, coming off of, know, being on a pokey machine or, you know, like it is very much about, it's a complete, takes over the brain for that period of time. So to be completely switched on straight after, yeah, we just don't fully understand all of the benefits and, you know, gaming developers and app developers, they're creating them so that we are addicted to them. can't.
Trent Ray (33:33)
Daring.
Mm-hmm.
Kristi McVee (33:58)
deny that, they obey to it. So, you know, we've got to remember that if we're our children are on it and yes, there's some benefits to being on there as well. So let's just come together and work out a plan together and that's such a good way to do it.
Trent Ray (34:12)
And asking your child, how can I help you when it's time to put the device down to the next activity that we're going to do? What kind of support would you like me to do? And I'd like, just don't talk to me for the first five minutes or something like that might be what they need. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. And it was like, okay, well, I'll respect that boundary you're setting with me if you respect that boundary that we're setting together around technology use. But every young person is different. You've got to try lots of different things and never give up. Keep trying until something sticks.
Kristi McVee (34:22)
That's my teenager's response. Just leave me alone.
Yeah and some of the conversations and I'm sure you know in your presentations, in your team's presentations, you're probably talking about some of this stuff with them anyway but when I was talking to my young person when she was littler I would talk about you know it being online can be addictive.
it's not bad or good but we need to be mindful that you know we use it if we use it too much it can make us feel bad if we see things if we what we're you know what we're consuming can can make us feel good or bad you know if we're seeing things and sometimes i would just spend time with her to critically think what she was consuming for instance i would lay next to her in bed while she was you know watching tiktoks or something at 14 15 i'd say why do you follow that person or why what what
do you like about that video? And a lot of the times she'd go, I don't know, it's just on my algorithm. And I'd be like, yeah. And so I have always tried to make her understand that if we don't control it, it controls us. And it's the same with my algorithm. So it's okay to block things, like say you don't wanna see them, and encourage that as well.
Trent Ray (35:26)
Yeah, this has been fed to me.
Yes.
For sure, we have started to take control of the strategy here at Cyber Safety Project, START. So switch off, take a break, rest, do something active, and then time to go again. So it's just helping them have that balanced sort of activity set as well. And understanding that to be healthy and fully charged as a human being, we do need to take time off our screens. But when we do, we need to do something active, we need to rest, and then it might be safe for us to go back online again.
Kristi McVee (36:08)
Yeah, totally cool. And I think that's really where we're at, where if we want to be good, like healthy consumers of this stuff, it's not something we need to live, but you know, it's in our world and we need to be healthy consumers of it. Otherwise it, like you just said, you know, or I just said, it takes over our life instead of us having control of it. So yeah, there's some really good tips there Trent. So where can people find you? So you're at the cybersafetyproject.com.au I'm pretty sure.
Trent Ray (36:33)
That's correct.
Kristi McVee (36:34)
I will make
sure it's put in all of the notes, but also go and check out, I'd highly recommend people to go and check out the resources on your website. You guys put out some beautiful stuff. yeah.
Trent Ray (36:44)
And our podcast, which Kristi, you're a star of as well. So if you want to hear more of our chats,
we have our Did You Know? parent podcast and our Did You Know? kids podcast as well. So use those resources wisely. Yeah.
Kristi McVee (36:52)
Yeah, yeah,
that's amazing. So thank you so much for coming and talking, Trent. I love chatting to you. You're always so full of positive spin on like, know, online safety. And I think that's where we need to come from. We need to be positive about this stuff and help our young people take control. Thank you.
Trent Ray (37:10)
Thanks so much, Kristi.
Kristi McVee (37:13)
Thank you for listening to this episode. Education empowers children, strengthens parents and most importantly, prevents abuse. That's why I do this work and that's why you're here. So truly thank you. If you'd like more support or resources, follow me on social media under Kristi McVee or cape-au where you'll find all the links in the show notes. You can also grab a copy of my book, Operation KidSafe, a detective's guide to child abuse prevention at www.cape-au.com
where you'll find further resources and self-paced courses to help you in this journey of protecting your kids. If you found this episode valuable, please take a moment to leave a review or share it with someone important. Your support helps more parents and caregivers discover this important information and take action to keep kids safe. Check the show notes for extra links and support. And most importantly, thank you for showing up and taking action to protect your kids. See you next time.
