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It’s quantifiable and documented. It was on the front page of Time.

It’s specifically affecting young males. They’re reaching the ages of 18, 19, or 20 years old and they’re unable to have a functioning sex life with a partner, because starting at ages 12, 13, or 14 they had unfettered access to graphic and brutal imagery.

Unfettered access.

They can just pull their phones out and look at whatever they want whenever they want.

This is not the porn of the 1980s and 1990s. It’s far different than what you remember growing up. It is graphic and brutal, and every year of the porn companies are ratcheting it up.

They are in competition for dollars, and they’re getting the attention of our children.

That means when our children are reaching these critical pre-teen ages, they’re the most at risk.

Watching these videos and looking at these images, over time, physically rewires the neural pathways in the brain. That’s why they’re unable to have a normal functioning sex life with a partner later on.

This is real. It is happening. And we’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg right now.

Don’t Make This About You

I was reminded the other day when I was in Texas of how uncomfortable this conversation can be for some parents. They don’t want to talk to their kids about porn or they may not get it. It’s icky.

I get it. It is uncomfortable. But it might just be the second most uncomfortable conversation you have with your child.

And for a lot of parents, there’s this level of shame for them too. I’ve heard this from a lot of folks. They’re uncomfortable with their own sexuality or what they look at online. Or maybe porn has been an issue in their lives or their marriages.

Tough.

Parents have to compartmentalize that and handle this issue for their kids.

Set that aside. Whatever it is. Remember, we are talking about children. We are not talking about what adults do behind closed doors. That is none of my business.

The Solution

So, how are they going to talk to your children about porn? Easy. You need to follow Dr. Megan Maas.

Megan is a Sacramento State grad, who is currently a professor at Michigan State University.

She is the leading source of information on this topic.

Please follow her. Watch her videos. Read her blog. Engage with her social media.

Her tools can help you have the conversation. She can help you understand what’s going on with your kids and she can help you make sense of it. She can help you start the dialogue. She can help you parent.

Begin by visiting www.MeganMaas.com.

Use the research that she has done as a guide. Talk to your children about this issue so they don’t get swept up in this epidemic, so they can have a normal, healthy sex life later in life.

The post How To Talk To Your Child About The Online Porn Epidemic That May Be Affecting Them appeared first on Above The Fray.

We’ve talked about this before. Your child’s phone is not a diary.

Before Smartphones

Remember that time back before all of this technology we carry around with us? Before smartphones and the interwebs?

Our parents knew where we were. They knew who we were with. And they knew what we were doing. Especially as little children.

My mom knew where I was all the time and who I was with. It was an obligation of a parent to know that information.

Why isn’t that carrying over into the digital world? Why aren’t we feeling that same compulsion as parents to know who and what our children are texting?

I have heard from so many parents, principals and, teachers horror story after horror story. You see it in the news all the time. The cyberbullying incidents, the sexting incidents that lead to arrests and suicides.

It’s a nasty, gnarly world out there and it’s one that we’ve created and tossed our children into.

We have an obligation to parent online just like we do offline.

But My Child Would Never!

And for many parents, they are so unaware. They say things like, ‘My child wouldn’t do that.’ Or, ‘My child wouldn’t send anything.’ Or, ‘My child’s great.’

Okay, wonderful. That’s fantastic. But do you know what people are sending your child?

Do you know what their friends are sending? Do you know what others are sending them?

ALSO: No One, Not Parents, Not Kids; No One Wants To Hear This

Maybe they haven’t done anything wrong and that’s great. Wonderful. I’m sure you have the perfect child, right?

I’m talking about all the other kids out there. What are they sending to your child and how are you helping your child makes sense of it and understand it?

Isn’t that one of the roles and the main roles as a parent? We’re supposed to help our children interpret the world, make sense of it, and understand the things that are going on around them.

Even if your child is perfect, remember is a two-way street with this communication. This is not one-way communication. This is not a diary. This is a portal to the world.

So, as a parent, I ask you to look at your child’s phone with empathy and an open heart. If they didn’t do anything wrong, great.

What To Do

And don’t punish them for the actions of others. Talk to them and help them understand these things.

Many of these incidents that we see on the news, you know, these tragic stories, could have been staved off had parents been looking at their child’s phone, had they been active in their child’s digital life, helping them understand these things, helping them make sense of these things.

What we’ve given them is a huge responsibility without much oversight or involvement.

So, I ask you, mom and dad, make a decision. Talk, talk to your children, talk to each other, and look at their phones together with empathy and love.

They didn’t do anything wrong. Great. Even if they did help him make sense of that, help them understand why it’s wrong.

Lay a foundation of compassion, love, and empathy.

Parent online. Just like you do offline.

And one great way to do that is by using the Bark app. Visit www.BeAboveTheFray.org/bark for a free trial.

The post This One Simple Thing Can Keep Your Child Safe Online appeared first on Above The Fray.

And with the school year already most of the way over (it is!), schools and parents are already thinking about their kids being left alone with their digital devices all summer!

So, I just wanted to take a quick minute and kind of explain what the Above The Fray approach is all about, what our goals are, and what we cover in the presentation.

We have two presentations. We have a parent presentation, which is what we built first and what we’ve been offering for a couple of years now.

We’ve also recently developed a youth presentation. The core topics we cover are similar, but they’re definitely targeted to their specific audiences.

ALSO: Parents, Are You Leading By Example?

Ideally, we are able to share our message with students during the day and then do a parent presentation that evening. Our goal is to give students and parents information, and then to create meaningful and ongoing conversations at home.

So, what did we talk about?

The first portion of the presentation establishes the issues and challenges. We talk about the pitfalls, the common mistakes, and their consequences.

The second part of the presentation is about solutions. We dive into the heads of parents and young people to establish context and perspective. Then we help solve the issues, offering specific solutions.

And, yes, we talk about cyberbullying, social media, sexting, online pornography, gaming, and more. It’s a lot to go through an hour. And it’s all important.

We look at the big picture and we focus on communication.

ALSO: Social Media and Body Dissatisfaction

My fear is that oftentimes we get myopic with these conversations. Schools, churches, and community groups bring in someone from law enforcement or from the DA’s office, and they end up doing a ‘scared straight’ kind of program, or it’s just a bunch of ‘don’t do this’ and ‘don’t do that.’

Or maybe they just talk about sexting or cyberbullying. That’s great. Those are fantastic conversations we need to be having. But what the way I look at those is it’s almost like a seatbelt safety awareness campaign or a drunk driving awareness campaign. Those are lifesaving messages, but those are just two aspects of operating a vehicle safely. What we really need to be doing is stepping back and looking at this as a whole. Here’s what’s going on in the digital universe and here’s how you – student – you mom – you dad – you guardian – you teacher – you coach – you grandparents can help.

If it’s something you’re interested in a little more information about, just let us know. We’ll talk about the different opportunities via in person or the virtual presentations that we’re offering as well.

The post What Is An Above The Fray Presentation All About? appeared first on Above The Fray.

It’s one of the key pieces of our new youth presentation that we’re talking to our sons and daughters about.

I used to have this philosophy and this belief that technology was neither good nor bad. It’s simply is, and I talk about this quite a bit in some of our presentations, but, in light of the 60 Minutes story on brain hacking, I’m starting to think it might be shifted a little bit.

The gist is that originally these games, these apps that we’re all using were designed by engineers because they had a purpose. They wanted to get you from point a to point b, fixed the thing, play the game.

Well, what’s happened over the past few years in Silicon Valley is that it’s not just engineers and designers behind this tech now. It’s also psychologists. The reason why? You guessed it. To keep us coming back.

They want us coming back and using the apps, using the games.

ALSO: Social Media and Body Dissatisfaction

A specific example is a Snapchat streak (that’s how many days you use Snapchat in a row). A lot of young people take great pride in having the longest streak among their friends. I’ve met kids with hundreds of days of streaks. I even met one girl who has a current record of 410 days.

What is that compulsion that brings us back? Every time we go to just mindlessly pick up our device because that’s just what we’re doing. Our hands are moving, and we don’t think about it anymore. It’s just, it’s just there, it’s just a subconscious action to go and pick up my phone.

We look at it. We scroll, Facebook, scroll, Instagram, whatever it is you’re looking at, but you didn’t really plan on doing that, did you? You didn’t really want to do that.

You’re doing it because you’ve been trained to do it. We’re being conditioned.

What do we do?

I’m certainly not advocating that everyone put down their devices. That’s not going to happen. We’re here now.

It’s more about making smart and informed decisions, right? Just being conscious of it, being aware of it, that the cards are stacked against you, that the reason why you feel this need just because it was designed to make you feel this way.

You know if you’re not the consumer, you’re the product. Think about that for a second. If you’re not the consumer, you’re the product.

So, who are Facebook’s consumers? Not us.

Facebook’s consumers are the advertisers. We are the products.

We’re paying with our information and the longer the app designers and game developers can keep us playing, the longer they can keep us on our phone, in our app, the more information they get and the more they’re able to sell and target market.

It really is eye-opening, and I hope that adults reading this can talk to the young people in their lives. I hope that the message resonates with the young people that I speak with.

Now that you have this information, what are you going to do with it?

The post If You Aren’t The Consumer, You’re The Product appeared first on Above The Fray.

Listen as Natasha describes the incident.

And you can read her entire story here.

The post A Mother’s Terror appeared first on Above The Fray.

But last night we did a little bit deeper dive into one specific area. You may have seen some of the things I’ve been posting about it over the last couple of days, but this is something that really needs our attention right now as parents, as adults, and as a society – and that his body dissatisfaction because of social media. Not body image. Body dissatisfaction specifically.

And one of the things that I shared with parents last night is that you might not ‘get it.’ You might not quite understand what I’m talking about and why this is such a big deal. If you were a child of the sixties, seventies, eighties, or even the nineties our exposure to the supermodels, our exposure to this glamorous lifestyle was extremely finite. We would see things in a magazine. We would see things on the cover of a magazine. We’d see Lifestyles Of The Rich And Famous with Robin Leach, right? These were things that were small, finite moments of our lives where we were exposed to the glamorous people, the beautiful people. You and I growing up had very limited exposure to things that could potentially warp our sense of reality.

Kids today don’t have that reality. Their reality today is completely different. It’s a constant barrage of imagery in their face. Instagram. Snapchat. All day long. And what are they seeing?

What are they seeing?

They’re seeing the influencers. They’re seeing the people that are purporting to be someone who they might not be, and that’s one of the biggest lessons that we need to teach our kids. A lot of times this stuff people are sharing on social media, Instagram specifically, it’s not real. It’s as produced. It’s as curated as a television show, as a movie.

When you go into a movie theater, when you sit down to watch tv, you buy into the premise. You say, ‘Oh, I know this is a fictional story.’ There are actors, there are cameramen, there are directors, producers behind this, and I am going to buy into this fictitious world for a little while. We know it’s not real. We know it’s CGI. We know that’s made up.

The same thing is happening right now on Instagram, but our kids don’t realize it. Not a lot of adults don’t either. What I’m talking about is the highly curated lifestyle and imagery that you’re seeing on Instagram. For a lot of the influencers, that’s not their life. It’s an ad just like a TV show, just like a movie. It’s staged, it’s curated, but when you’re a child and you’re developing that gray matter and you’re seeing the constant images in your phone of these people with this glamorous lifestyle, of these people that have these cars, that take these trips, that have these clothes, that are super skinny or super fit, it starts to warp your psyche a little bit. It starts to have an impact on how you view the world and more importantly, how you view yourself.

ALSO: How To Start Talking To Your Child About Their Digital Life

I want to share with you a couple of things really quickly with regards to what I shared last night at the presentation. Let’s just talk about Instagram for a minute. According to the latest data from the Pew Research Center, 72% of American teens are active on Instagram right now. Let that sink in for a second. 72% of American teens are active on Instagram right now. How crazy is that? Nearly three-quarters of kids are seeing this stuff.

Study after study is showing the toll it’s taking on our kids. I want to share a couple of quotes to you from the Royal Society of Public Health. “Instagram draws young women to compare themselves against unrealistic, largely curated, filtered and Photoshopped versions of reality.”

“Instagram makes girls and women feel as if their bodies aren’t good enough as people add filters and edit their pictures in order to look perfect.”

That’s it, right? That’s what we’re talking about. It’s the insecurity.

What Can We Do?

Here are the top five things that I want to stress.

#1 is the insecurity. We see the people on Instagram and we want that lifestyle and it makes us feel unworthy. We’re not as skinny. We’re not as popular. We’re not as pretty. We’re not as rich. We’re not going to all of these great places, or having these beautiful experiences. That makes us feel insecure, insecure, insecure.

#2 is obsessing over likes. Have you ever deleted a photo because it didn’t get enough likes? Be honest. Have you ever deleted a photo because it didn’t get enough likes? That’s a real thing. There is a direct tie between how great we feel about ourselves when we post a picture and it gets a lot of likes. Inversely, there is a tie to how bad we feel about ourselves when we post a photo and it doesn’t get a lot of likes.

#3 is stressing over posting. We’re talking about selfies specifically. Hours and hours of time over a lifespan are spent editing, getting these selfies just right. Editing my eyes, my skin, my lips, my face, my hair, whatever it is. Obsessing over the postings, the stress that that causes.

#4, for some teens, they’re saying that social media is more important than the real world. The face that they’re putting out to the world on Instagram and Snapchat is more important than the one that they’re sharing with people in their real life.

#5 the more selfies someone takes and posts, the more negatively they view themselves. And let me repeat that. The more selfies someone takes and posts, the more negatively they view themselves. It’s because they’re constantly looking at themselves. They’re overanalyzing every aspect of their face, their hair, their lips, their eyes, every single thing that they’re posting.

ALSO: Big News! Announcing Our New Youth Program

93 million selfies are taken each day. That’s according to Google. 93 million selfies are taken every single day.

Do you know how many selfies are millennials going to take in his or her lifetime? 25,000. That’s right. Millennials are taking 25,000 selfies in their lifetime.

Do you know how many pictures we took of the first moon landing?

Five. Five pictures we have of the first moon landing. Yet we’re taking 25,000 selfies during our lifetime.

This is a real issue. This is a red flag. The sirens are going off. The impact that social media and digital technology is having on our children’s body image and body dissatisfaction has never been more real and it’s never been more important to address. If you have any questions about this, please reach out to me. We have a new presentation that we’re offering to schools, churches, community groups, helping parents learn the issues and learn how to talk to their children about these issues.

Feel free to contact us at Above The Fray anytime.

The post Social Media and Body Dissatisfaction appeared first on Above The Fray.

I got to spend some time with my mom in South Carolina recently and she opened my eyes to something I want to share with you, parents.

And it’s this… how much time are you spending on your phone in front of your children? Do they see you looking at your phone while you’re driving? Do they see you looking at your phone while you’re eating? When they ask you a question, are you looking at them or at your phone?

My mom’s right. When children see their parents buried in their phones, it sets a terrible example. What children see their moms and dads doing becomes their ‘normal.’ It’s leading by example… and not necessarily a positive one.

It can’t be a double standard for kids. They don’t get it. If a parent is on their phone during dinner because ‘they had to look something up’ but the child at the table isn’t allowed to be on his or her phone, what do you think that does in that child’s head?

They’re going to emulate the behaviors they see, and that is directly related to how much time they’re spending on their devices.

So, just think about it. No one is judging here in any way, shape, or form. It’s simply a topic I want to bring up in case parents aren’t thinking about.

Do your children see you using your phone all the time? If they do, what do you think that means for them? What message are you sending?

Maybe, just maybe, if this resonates with you, you can change some of your behaviors to set a better example.

This is something we cover in our digital media family use agreement located on our blog. Feel free to grab your copy today if you need some help getting started with this issue.

The post Parents, Are You Leading By Example? appeared first on Above The Fray.

One of the reasons why this word is important to us is the way that we use it at Above The Fray and the context in which we share it with parents. We’ve come up with a term we call digital empathy.

Digital empathy means something a little bit different, but digital empathy is the most important part of the conversation that parents can have with their children. It has to be rooted here. It has to come from that place of love and support. It has to come from that place of understanding.

So, what does digital empathy mean exactly? It’s pretty simple. It means we don’t get it. We don’t get what they’re going through. We don’t understand the pressures of current technology being part of a teenage life.

I’m in my 40s. I got online for the first time in 1992, and from there I was able to on-ramp and to grow. My first pager. My first computer at work. The first company I worked for that had a website. Just like you, I grew into this place.

Our children don’t have that luxury. We’ve created this information superhighway. We’ve created the internet and technology, everything out there, and we just give them complete and unsupervised access – and we expect them not to screw up!

They can’t. They’re children. Of course, access to some of this stuff is going to cause problems. But when we start talking with them, when we start communication, an important dialogue with our children, it has to come from this place of understanding, of love, of support. That’s digital empathy.

And the biggest piece of it all is that you get that you don’t get it. You’re not dealing with the emotions that you feel when you see something online that you don’t like. If someone attacks you or attacks me or trolls us, we’re adults. We have the ability to disconnect. We have the ability to look the other way and say, ‘Hmm, I kind of feel sorry for that person.’

That’s not what happens when people are messing with our children online. When people harass and bully our children, they don’t have that ability to disconnect or to say, ‘Oh, it’s just Facebook. It’s just Snapchat. It’s just whatever.’

You and I can do that. They cannot. These devices, the social media profiles, the game profiles, they’re just as much a part of them is anything that we have as part of us, our hair, our clothes, they mean so much more to our children than they mean to us.

We have to put ourselves in their shoes and come at it from their perspective. We can’t think, ‘Oh, I’m on Facebook, so I get social media and everything that comes with it.’

Sorry, Mom. Sorry, Dad. That’s not how it works. They’re not coming at this from the same place that we are.

That’s why every conversation we have with our children has to be rooted in digital empathy. The understanding that these devices and technologies mean something completely different to our children than they do to us.

If we can remember that when we start these conversations, we have a much greater chance of them going well, versus our children shutting down and shutting us out.

That’s what can happen when we approach something without digital empathy. We can drive them underground and lose that connection and the ability to have meaningful conversations with our children about their digital lives.

If you’re interested in booking an Above The Fray presentation for your school, church, or community group, just click here and we’ll send you some information right away.

The post How To Start Talking To Your Child About Their Digital Life appeared first on Above The Fray.

Christmas break is almost here and you know what that means.

Whether you’re a teacher or principal a superintendent or a parent what’s about to happen is kids are going to be, by and large, left alone for a little while. You know, this is just like summer break, just like spring break, it’s a time when a lot of parents are working and their kids are together at home alone. They’re with a babysitter. They’re with a grandparent. They’re doing some activity. But for a lot of kids, they’re not gonna’ be with their parents because during the day while mom and dad are at work.

It’s the latchkey kid thing a little bit coming back but in the new technological era that we’re in. It means our sons and daughters are gonna’ have unfettered and unsupervised access to their smartphones, to their tablets to their gaming consoles, to their computers. They’ll be playing a lot of Fortnight. They’ll be texting their friends. They’ll be browsing the internet. And this is the time that we need to be proactive and talking with our kids about what they’re doing online.

You know, we’re handing them the keys to the car but we’re not teaching them how to drive.

That’s where we come in as parents, as educators, to make this a topic of conversation. Making an Internet safety a topic of conversation, the uncomfortable topics that we don’t want to talk about but we have to.

I was having lunch with a friend the other day and she’s in this space of keeping kids safe online and she was telling me about one of the struggles that her company is having right now is – apathy – parental apathy, by and large.

It’s unfortunate that we’re in this place where there’s so much going on in our lives. There’s so much to talk to our kids about. There’s so much happening in the world. Carving out time for one more thing is tough.

I understand that, but this is vital. This is something that we desperately need to be taking seriously and not waiting until something bad happens to talk to our kids.

It’s more important than ever that we talk to our children about their digital lives and the impact that they can have now, and the actions that can impact them for the rest of their lives.

This is serious stuff. It’s not just a lot of slap on the wrist and you know don’t do that. There are kids out there who are who are altering the course of the rest of their lives because of their online activities. So, if you’re going to be in that situation -even if you’re not for this Christmas break – you know just the whole ask of Above The Fray is to talk to your children about their digital lives on an ongoing basis. Parenting online, just like we do offline.

If you need any resources, if you want to have any conversations about that, feel free to reach out to me. Our Above The Fray Presentation is available virtually, so we can stream right into your classroom, into your cafeteria, into your library. For kids, for parents, let’s get this conversation started about how we’re gonna’ parent our kids online and keep them safe online during this holiday break.

The post Christmas Break Is Almost Here. Are You Ready? appeared first on Above The Fray.