Interview with Instagram on Safety Measures for Our Kids & Teens We cannot cocoon our kids from social media and online platforms forever. Eventually most of our kids will enter the online world. So what can we do as parents to keep our kids safe? What are platforms like Instagram doing to stay on top of the wave of younger and younger children on their […]
It seems like more and more these days we are having to cope with some horrific things. Mass shootings, school shootings, bombings, hate crimes, environmental disasters and devastating weather are things that we and our children have to contend with all too often. How do we talk to kids when something bad happened?
What is Momo and How Much Should I Worry About Online Safety? It seems like where ever you look, there are new threats and warning about the dangers that lurk in the online world. This week you might be asking yourself, “what is Momo?!” But in a new world where Youtube has replaced the TV and Snapchat, Instagram and Xbox live have replaced the phone […]
I wake up and reach for my phone. Breaking news headlines scream for my attention. Not again, I think. How many tragedies do we need to witness? How many mass shootings and bombings do my children need to live through? It doesn’t help that I have three anxious kids. Anxiety feeds off these headlines. Thrives off these dark moments of time. It has the power to ruin any progress a child has made crushing their anxiety .So how do we handle the situation? Do we tell our anxious kids what has happened? How do we minimize the impact it has on their already fragile view of life’s dangers?
We can’t ignore these life events, but we can frame it in a way that minimizes the long-term impact. Here’s how…
The hair on the back of her neck is standing up. Her stomach feels weird. She doesn’t like how he is staring at her. She has a weird gut feeling, but she doesn’t know what it is. “Go hug your Uncle Victor,” her mom says. She nervously shakes her head no. “Don’t be rude! Go hug him!” her mom demands.
You think you’ve got it covered. You check your kid’s phone occasionally. You’ve had the “talk” about using technology. You even look at their text messages once in a while. You are good, right? Wrong. Kids are flooding into my office with secrets. Secrets that you don’t know about. Secrets that would give you a mini-heart attack. Secrets you need to know.
Ask most kids nowadays what their favorite TV show is and most will tell you their favorite YouTube channel. Kids aren’t watching TV like we did growing up, they are watching YouTube. Now I am not going to be an old fuddy-duddy and tell you how back in my day we swung from trees and didn’t have our head down staring at a screen. But what I am going to tell you is why I am talking about YouTube in my therapy practice way more often than I would like and why it is a conversation I need to have with all of you. I am also going to tell you why you need to discover Kid YouTube and you need to discover it fast!
This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Wearsafe for IZEA. All opinions are 100% mine. I often like to cover child safety topics on Anxious Toddlers. We recently talked about teaching our kids safety tips beyond stranger danger. This was a hugely popular article because as parents, we all strive to keep our kids safe. I am often approached to do […]
Sexual Abuse You have concerns. You have suspicions. But, how can you be sure? You want that definitive list. Those definitive signs and behaviors to confirm or disconfirm your worst beliefs about sexual abuse. Unfortunately, no one can do that for you – not even this article. Sexual abuse isn’t like a disease, with its obvious checklist of symptoms. Kids respond and react differently to […]
Recently I wrote an article on teaching kids concepts beyond stranger danger. Several people left comments about this great book called The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker which talks about gut instinct. I remember vaguely seeing the author on Oprah Winfrey a long time ago. I love absorbing new information, so I quickly got the audio version and listened to it on my […]
If you have tweens or teens in the house, there’s a good chance that they are using smart devices and social media. In fact, about three-fourths of all teens have or had access to a smartphone. Do you talk about Internet safety? Do you know what apps your teens have on their phone? Do you know who their online friends are – or who they […]
Should Parents Be Worried About Burn Note?Today’s teens are becoming more and more tech-savvy, which means that they’re finding new ways to hide their digital footprints from their parents. In fact, over 70% of teens make an effort to conceal their online behavior. How do they pull it off? One way is by using disappearing messaging apps such as Burn Note. What is Burn Note? […]
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