Friday Q&A: Digital Dangers with Protect Children

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2:16Simon Bailey: But for now, George, should we get into it? Hello and welcome to Friday's episode of the podcast. Obviously, a hot topic between Georgia and I and obviously you guys at home listening is how we keep our kids safe, how we protect them and we really want to dive into this subject today because it is something that keeps both G and I up throughout the night on many, many, many a night. Is it safer online? Are the horrors out there? And actually probably it's an amalgamation of all of it that we need to be aware of. So today we're going to be speaking to two people, two amazing people from Protect children.

2:52Simon Bailey: It's a non-profit, non-governmental Helsinki-based organization working internationally with a dedicated team advocating the right of any child to be free from sexual violence. Before we get into today's conversation, a bit of a trigger warning, we will be discussing things that might be uneasy to hear. Yeah. And if you've got any little ears around, probably best not to listen now and save it when it's adult only. Yes. So please welcome to the podcast, Katrina and Simon. Yay. Welcome. Thank you. Really, really great to have you guys on. Yeah. Thanks for having us. Zoe's just given us an intro into what we're going to be talking about.

3:27Simon Bailey: But I wonder if just before we get into the questions that we've been sent, if you just give us a little bit of background about, you know, what you do, who you are, what your roles are in Protect Children. Yeah, just a little insight for the listeners.

3:40Katariina Leivo: Hi. Yeah, my name is Katerina and I'm a senior specialist at Protect Children. So I think my role there is to do a lot. preventive work, creating materials for children, safety materials, also training parents, professionals. We also work with when things go wrong and support families. But it's a lot what we do. And it's really exciting to be. I'm also a trauma-focused therapist for children and young people. So I get to use a lot of the skills and experience that I have in this role. Wow. Amazing. So, I'm there.

4:21Simon Bailey: So I was a police officer for 35 years. You're giving off police officer energy, actually. Yeah. Thank you. You know, it's sort of an authority walking into the room. Yeah, I wonder what that was. I can't shift it. So I was the chief constable of my home force for eight years, and at the same time I was also the national police chief's council lead for child protection. So I coordinated the UK's response to Jimmy Savile, to the Independent Inquiry of Child Sexual Abuse, to the explosion in online child sexual abuse, and having retired in 2021, I now work around the world to try to improve the global response to the threat of online harms to children.

4:59Simon Bailey: And for the last three years, it's been my pleasure and joy to be an advisor to protect children, helping them to achieve their mission, helping them to really make a big difference. And for a small non-governmental organization, they pack a huge punch and there is no doubt that they are making a massive difference. globally to keeping children safe. Wow. Simon, just before we get into the chat, from your experience, has the digital world basically made it more dangerous in general for kids now? Because we always, you know, growing up, the dangers were in the park, you know, being out late at night, all of those things.

5:40Simon Bailey: And now it feels like we don't talk about those things so much anymore. And now our main concerns feel like, you know, it comes from the online world. and that for me is perhaps one of the most important messages from this podcast to all your parents that are that are listening my personal view is now that the threat that is posed to children through digital devices far exceeds anything that's in the physical world and there is a perception of the view that my child is safe at home they're in their bedroom they're on their phone or on their on their ipad and actually the world now has access to your son or to your daughter.

6:18Simon Bailey: And unless we as parents, as grandparents, have really meaningful, difficult conversations with our children around what they're doing online, they're actually being exposed to far more risk and far more harm than they ever are in the real physical world. Which is terrifying when you say it like that. Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes said a couple of weeks ago, giving your child a smartphone and not being across what they're doing is the equivalent of saying to your kid, go off in the middle of the night down a dark street and get on with it type vibe. Are we all in agreement with that, that the conversations have to happen?

6:54Katariina Leivo: Yes, but it's not the parents' fault. Changes have happened so quickly. And I think it's the lack of understanding what you actually give to your child. Lots of the parents can see the device as just a device, but it's more than a device. It's a gateway to a very complex social environment where the children, of course, they have lots of positive experiences as well. It's almost like if they're a little bit unlucky, they can experience lots of negative aspects of the online spaces as well. And I think it's that lack of understanding. We adults, we use it as a device. We can wait for two days to respond to a message and that's fine.

7:35Katariina Leivo: But children, young people, they actually hang out in that social environment and all the experiences there are real. I still hear a lot of parents, even when things go wrong and we support the family saying like, thank goodness, it only happened online. It didn't really happen. But then we see the very negative consequences and those experiences are real.

7:55Simon Bailey: Could you please just give it to me and give it to both of us and break it down? What do those scenarios look like?

8:03Katariina Leivo: Can you give me some examples? So, for example, parents often say that my child is only spending time on those platforms that are meant for children. They only play games that are for young children.

8:18Simon Bailey: What sort of games are we talking?

8:20Katariina Leivo: It could be any game, but I think that shows that when you don't have a criminal mind, you can assume that if children don't go to the adult platforms, they are safe. But of course, if we have an individual who wants to contact children having bad intentions, they will be on those platforms. So just understanding that any platform where there is a chance to chat, you know, in a game, that's a potential someone connecting to your child. And children, it's not teenagers who are in the most risk because they have lots of social skills. They have lots of these skills where they tell their friend, like, oh, this creep, and, you know, I'm going to pluck them, and, you know, this.

9:00Katariina Leivo: But we are talking about the five to nine-year-olds who don't have those skills yet. it's very easy to manipulate them. So unfortunately, any kind of platform where there is a chance to be contacted by a stranger is a potential risk. It doesn't mean that every child is a victim, but it's almost like it just depends where your child happens to be.

9:23Simon Bailey: Would you agree with that, Simon? Absolutely. Yeah. And I think what we have to understand, and we almost have to put our place or put ourselves in the place of our children to understand what their digital worlds now look like because they don't differentiate that their their digital world is simply an extension of the physical world so so much of the contact is done through their devices and we need to be careful because there is an awful lot of good and we want our children to become confident comfortable assured around using the internet being able to research being able to grow with it but the key point is is to understand that there are the risks that are associated with it.

10:06Simon Bailey: And there are bad actors out there whom would seek to exploit our children and our grandchildren. And unfortunately, on too many occasions, they are being exposed to harmful and some of the most harmful content. Not that they're searching for it, but it's just served up. Children's Commissioner did some survey work. And I think I'm right in saying the average age that a child is now seeing pornography is 13 years of age. And when I talk about pornography, I'm not talking about page three. The world has moved on. It's hardcore pornography. It's images that can traumatize a child. And go back to the point that we were having earlier on, this is not the parent's fault, far from it.

10:54Simon Bailey: And what they have to understand that it is, as Kat said, it's more than just a device. It's now their world and it's an extension of their world. and it's so important that a child a grandchild can can approach a parent or a guardian or a grandparent and just have the most open and honest conversations and not be afraid to disclose somebody's just asked me to show a picture of my genitals yeah and if that happens it's probably traumatizing it's probably frightening for them they're then feeling a sense of I'm going to be off because I shouldn't be in the place where somebody's asking for that type of imagery they then start to feel the shame and they start to blame themselves where we should be saying no no no talk to us we're not going to say you've done something wrong because we want you to be safe and that's why it's so important to have that engaged conversation yeah I was just gonna say that we've had quite a monumental moment in our house recently with roadblocks and I felt a lot of shame around it and I was also trying to make my son happy because he's seven all his friends play it and and actually over the last maybe maybe 12 months there's been so much noise around roadblocks and we've all seen the videos and and you know we've seen the research and what goes on and it's been like all these headlines you know it's a hotbed for paedophiles and but yeah I was still letting him play it and one of my friends was in my kitchen the other night and she's very relaxed her parenting is quite like me and she just said I've taken Roblox off of my her son's iPad and I and she was like have you done it and I said I'm doing it right now and we did it and it was probably two weeks of him kicking back and asking for it and he hasn't asked for it and he understands and we had the conversation he said why have you done this and I said there are some very bad people on him we went through the conversations and it's gone not only is it I feel so much better his mood has also dramatically changed in the house in fact the iPad has virtually gone away now he doesn't have it any longer and I just I'm really proud of myself because I feel like I was trying to do the right thing by giving it to him but actually I was I'm putting him at risk yeah it's all it was awful of me I feel a bit of shame I think around that why it took me so long but I know but I do think we are having a conversation with some parents last night about it it's like you can do one thing in your house you know like you can say no we don't play Roblox we don't you know have an iPad at this time whatever but when they go to school and their friends are talking about something that they have no idea about it's alienating and then as a parent that makes you feel bad because you think gosh I'm literally causing a segregation between kids in the playground and my child was left out because I won't let him or her have this one thing there's like it's so it's so difficult um to make a stand unless everyone else is like on the same

13:40Katariina Leivo: page yeah and that's why we need changes like more as a society it shouldn't be the responsibility of like one parent there needs to be certain kind of regulations and rules also for the service providers that we need to protect our children not only parents but of course parents need to make some difficult decisions especially because we're a little bit behind so we often have given already devices quite freely to you know children but now that there's more understanding there needs to be like difficult conversations explanation why we maybe we have to you know supervise more but I think it's it's also it's about understanding that the children need parents in that environment as well it's not just a device like I keep saying it's a very complex social environment yes we wouldn't let like like we started we wouldn't let our nine-year-old or even 13-year-old just like like, bye, like, go to this, like, very complex social environment with all these strangers, adults, children, and there's lots of adult content, but also good ones.

14:45Katariina Leivo: We wouldn't just let them there and, like, hopefully you're safe and come and tell me maybe if you're not. We would kind of go with them and explore. And we also want to, or we should want to, as parents, to show positive attention to our children. This is a very important environment where they have lots of good experiences as well. They make friends, they create, they explore, they have interests. So, you know, when we see our children playing games or being with their friends in this physical environment, we show lots of interest and we show us others like, oh, what were you doing? Oh, that's nice.

15:20Katariina Leivo: And oh, you're so good at playing football. We should do that exactly in the online environment as well, because now that we're not, there's this gap between the parents and the children. and that's why children don't come and tell us when something goes wrong because they just think like, oh, I'm just going to lose my device because my parents don't understand.

15:41Simon Bailey: Is sextortion on the rise? You're looking at me like it absolutely is. It is. Can you give me a brief overview of what that would look if you haven't heard of it listening? Yes, of course I can. And again, to place this in context, it is being abled, by the digital revolution. So one of the most frequent forms of sextortion, which is demanding money or demanding further images or demanding that you do something horrible to a sibling and it happens. What? Yes. Oh, my gosh. So there are AI, artificial intelligence tools that will now turn a man into an attractive teenage-looking girl or young lady in her 20s.

16:31Simon Bailey: She will then encourage a young man to perform a sex act. And then once that act has been committed, they'll then say it's now been recorded. And I'm now going to share that act across all your family and all your friends because I've got your contacts list. And in extreme forms, they're then directed to then record the abuse of a brother or a sister. In other occasions, they're asked to provide money. It is a horrific form of abuse. Snapchat is perhaps the go-to channel at this moment in time for sextortion to take place, but it's not just exclusively young men. Young men have been more in the news, and some young men have tragically ended their lives.

17:17Simon Bailey: Taken their own lives, I know. And again, it is one of those areas of threat amongst many, and we go back to that conversation to say when you make the decision to put a phone and let's be clear it's not a phone it's a supercomputer into the hand of a child it is more than just that it is a gateway for people to then engage and that's why putting in place the appropriate safeguards the appropriate security checks the blocks the checks and the balances and to have an open conversation and as Kat has just said to be as interested in your your child's online activity as you are when you take them to play the netball match or the football match and to compliment on the game really well played because they don't now as I said they don't now see a difference there is no difference the digital device is now an extension of their world and there is an awful lot of good that can come from it but we have to have these conversations and you've asked me so I haven't dumbed down the horrors of what can take place and there's this balance.

18:32Simon Bailey: I think it's so interesting when you say about showing interest in there online because my husband and I have been having this conversation recently about we're so guilty of it. Like when it comes to like YouTube, we're like, why are you watching that rubbish? That's rubbish. This is absolute nonsense. What are you doing? But we do it because it is genuine nonsense. but you know like then that is already probably putting in like our kids minds oh gosh I won't tell my mom dad I'm watching YouTube because they don't like it yeah and I think that's so right in fact my mom was the one who said she does it she said oh god I sat with Hacksaw and watched that thing about the football matches and I was like oh god did you she was I mean it's rubbish but I pretended I liked it and I was like, ah, okay.

19:18Simon Bailey: That's amazing. That's what I need. That's what I need to be doing because I don't. I shut it down and I definitely shouldn't. And you saying that has really hit home. So things like TikTok, how many young girls in particular will now use TikTok to do dances and things like that? If all of a sudden parents start to say, well, come on, I'll do it with you, all of a sudden. They would die. They would cringe. They would die and they would cringe. But actually, what you are now saying is, I'm really interested in what you're doing. I want to be a part of it. Or play a game. And play a game. Oh, yeah.

19:52Simon Bailey: And then all of a sudden, you're just breaking down that barrier that children unfortunately perceive. If mum or dad or my carer or grandma or granddad think I've done something wrong on my device, they're going to take it away. So they then don't want to share it. And they don't want to talk about it. And they then see you as being the villain in all of this. Yeah, yeah.

20:12Katariina Leivo: and that's where you don't want to be and we all we all do the kind of like we're warning children all the time saying like you like okay do something else don't be on your device tablet phone kind of on the that red all the time instead of being interested in what they do and we all do it but maybe we can slowly try to like if anything whoever is listening to this can do instead of going like oh i heard these horrible things that can go wrong because that makes that gap even wider to actually go and show me something that you like doing online like what's your favorite game can I try to play it with you yes such good advice yeah that that actually makes a little bit closer and those open discussions and you know everything that that you need to be doing with your child but it's really difficult none of because we didn't grow up in that environment so it's it's really difficult and what Simon said earlier about the the kind of the difficult stuff that happens to some of the children online.

21:06I think one of the, if we think victims and victims online,

21:11Katariina Leivo: one of the things why they don't often come and tell safe adults is because when there's a lack of physical intimidation, someone's manipulating and using kind of manipulation and emotional abuse, it's really difficult to see. So the victim often, and there's research as well on this, and we're doing more at Protect Children research on this. so the victim actually takes lots of kind of victim blaming attitudes and not only the victim but many around them as well like why do you just block them why do you just close because it's really difficult to see the manipulation emotional abuse that the offender has to use much more because there's no physical intimidation and that's why there's lots of kind of negative consequences as well shame and guilt for the victim and that's why also they don't come and often tell they're safe adults so any child before they start using the the devices independently i think the most important message that they need is like no matter what happens it's never your fault

22:09Simon Bailey: and you can come and tell me i think we we as a world and i waking up to the impact that social media is having on the development of of young brains and cat knows a lot more than i do about the development of the physiology of young people. But the fact is, young people being exposed to social media, their brains are not developed enough how they can to be able to deal with what they're being exposed to.

22:34Katariina Leivo: And I guess in ideal world, we would have a situation where the young people could benefit from all the positive sides of the way they can meet friends, they can kind of, you know, explore and be creative and find their identity, all these positive things of social media, online spaces. But at the moment, unfortunately, there's so many of the harmful elements, those risks as well, that that's why there's all those bans. But I would say that in an ideal world, there would be something like social media where the risks are minimized and the benefits are maximized. But I don't know when we're going to get to that world because it needs a lot of responsibility also from the service providers and the whole kind of society.

23:22Simon Bailey: As an adult, I was being sent. Do you remember when I had that guy? He was sending me the most horrific sexual messages on Instagram. I feel weird. I haven't spoken about it, I don't think. And it was just day after day after day, things he wanted to do. It was really obscene. And I'm a grown woman, 43 years old, and I just was blocking. He was setting up new accounts. And it was like he was sending me a WhatsApp. And he would just get at me every single day. He stopped, thank God. But I was finding it very, very overwhelming and really quite emotional. I didn't like it. I remember before I told Doda about it, you know.

23:56Simon Bailey: And so imagine a child receiving that, what it would do to you long term. Because, you know, we all get the weirdos on Instagram, but this was next level. I didn't know what to do. So what does a child do?

24:08Katariina Leivo: This is kind of often normalized. The young children, quite young already get quite harmful messages, but also see harmful content. and that's another element. Like it's kind of normalized, but it's still upsetting. Yeah. And perhaps it's not talked about. I feel like children, if something happens in physical environments, they're more likely to talk to someone. But because of this happening online, there's a certain kind of blame that the children take because I was having this conversation. You know, often they don't want to go and talk.

24:39Simon Bailey: Yeah, I'm totally with you. I think if something happens in the real world, people almost listen up, take it more seriously. and that's probably why we don't speak about it so much yeah um we're gonna yeah we're gonna get into the questions because there's been quite a few and this is probably a good place to start how do you talk to children about sexual predators online like where do you start that conversation

25:02Katariina Leivo: i think you can compare it to for example let's say uh road safety yeah you don't go and talk to your children about the most horrific traffic accidents like i mean you mention certain things but you kind of do it quite in a positive way where you explore together and you have conversations about the dangers, but it's more about the skills that you need if something feels uncomfortable. And you do this beforehand. You wouldn't send your child to like the traffic by themselves and then, oh, if something happens, then we have this list. No, you talk about these things beforehand and you mentioned the dangers of roads and the accidents, but not in the way that the child is scared.

25:40Katariina Leivo: It's more like so that they have those skills beforehand. So I think this is the same kind of online road safety where you have the discussions beforehand. You start from the positive conversations and you mention the dangers as well. But most importantly, you mention what to do when something feels uncomfortable. For example, protect children. We have this, oh, you take a screenshot anytime you practice taking a screenshot because sometimes children don't have even words for this uncomfortable situations. They don't really understand what's happening, but they often say later on that I felt there was something weird happening, but I didn't really know what.

26:16Katariina Leivo: But if they learn to take a screenshot when they feel confused or embarrassed and show it to a safe adult, this is, for example, a skill that we want parents to teach. And these all happening kind of beforehand, like in any other, you know, we teach children a lot of kind of these skills.

26:33Simon Bailey: so if you're at the sort of the stage which is kind of I guess where I am now where my son will go to secondary school next year and we're on the sort of bit where there's gonna probably will need some sort of device where he can contact us it's a brick George it's you know it's a year off at the moment but we know in the next year that we're gonna have to do something and again like with the whatsapp group things I don't want him to be left out of that because some of it's actually quite useful we all know like we've got someone in the whatsapp group reminding us that it's pe tomorrow he actually can't be on whatsapp till he's 13 yeah no i know but there are there are groups that's why they put that new account out though the one for under 13s so it wasn't for under 13s no no it is that's the whole point of it no but i thought it was okay fine it is yeah we'll pick right so it's we know we it can't be a brick phone because you want them to have like also like they've got school apps like showbie where they get their you know homework on and all that kind of stuff we know it's gonna happen right at some point in the next year so where i am now there's probably other people whose kids are going to start secondary school soon where do you start you know because you don't just go straight in like 11th birthday here's a smartphone off you go I'm quite short can I interrupt because we obviously have known each other for such a long time are you going to give Axel a smartphone no no no no I'm just saying like this is where I am now right this is what do I do thinking about like yeah before actually yeah what do I do in this next year to prepare and I wouldn't think that keeping a child offline

28:17Katariina Leivo: until they're like 15 would be the safest thing but I I kind of think that child slowly getting in like gradually getting more independent in online kind of environments so using shared devices and kind of having these open discussions well before they have their own smartphone so they're aware of like for example that they know that sometimes um like in online spaces certain kind of content might come up which is scary and can be like really embarrassing they could be like naked adults however you like kind of talk talk to your child about these things if they know about this beforehand their brain is much more able to kind of function safely in those situations because if something happens as a surprise it's almost like you don't know what to do and that's a that's not a safe situation but if they know okay oh yeah mom or whoever told me oh this type of content might come okay i need to do now take a screenshot or show it to my mom yeah it's much like we adults even if we go somewhere we know what's likely to happen we can act yes better like it's we we're prepared to act but if we're surprised yeah that's that's like the worst drop in scenarios of things yeah you can kind of openly discuss i i don't think children are shocked if we say like you know like now that you start using the online you know sometimes if you click something or you go there could be something different that you're aiming to watch it could be something scary like if you if you're in a situation where something confusing you're not sure or something scary comes up like it's not your fault just do this or that and take a screen come and show me and we'll figure out together if you've had these conversations with your child many times before they are more likely to go into these scenarios can you imagine going into this kind of like surprising situations like never talked with anyone you're likely to think oh my god someone's gonna take my phone away i'm not gonna mention it's my fault and my mom's gonna say like i told you you shouldn't be on your on your tablet yeah these things happen it's very different kind of situation when you've talked about it before yes so and there's a lot there's

30:32Simon Bailey: a lot that you'll be able to do as a parent and all your parents listening shouldn't i be thinking right so what what can my child access on their device yeah how do i put in place the blockers that don't allow them to send or receive a nude yeah don't allow them to send or receive pornography yeah okay the next listener question george okay best place to learn about protecting devices and things to look out for so you've mentioned like blockers you can put on the phone apps or like

31:01Katariina Leivo: which ones like where what are the good ones there are some great ones but i i would highlight that no matter what parental tools you have they're just tools for you help your parenting you still have to transfer your parenting into this environment yeah so because first of all and we all know i mean children are often called as digital natives even though we always say that's a myth because they do use the devices really smoothly but they're still children exactly the same children than previous generation and lots of the skills are still developing so they need parents to kind of supervise them support them in those situations that are difficult socially situations that maybe bring some difficult emotions you know like it's and and even if there are parental tools they still might go around that because they're really good at using the devices they might see something in someone else's device that hasn't got those parents also so you still have to be aware like what is your child doing with who what kind of content but most importantly what are they feeling do they need support with whatever they are experiencing

32:13Simon Bailey: in online spaces so like the apps are there to as you know to help but yeah that's such a good point because you can put all the blocks you can say no to a phone all of that kind of stuff but essentially they can work around it yeah their friends have got one yeah and so if you haven't prepared them you still need to yeah yeah that's so interesting but they're a great tool and they're

32:34Katariina Leivo: going to help you with the parenting because you kind of i mean screen time parents talk about screen time all the time even though i think more important it is to i mean 15 minutes could be harmful for a child so more importantly we need to know what they're doing with who and so on however we still like screen time for example it you know even if it's a most positive learning tool or anything but that still can take time away from other important activities sleep homework hobbies socializing offline so those kind of tools are great and they help you with parenting but they don't you still have to have those discussions and be present correct yeah it's very interesting

33:12Simon Bailey: that's such a good point kat actually because i think we're so good or at least we're getting our heads around um the conversations that we do need to have in our 2026 parenting journeys with them and you know a big one being in our house consent you know we're going through that as my daughter turns that you know trying to have but yet the online world still feels something that we are removed from and I don't know whether it's a generational thing it's moved too quickly because we keep saying oh well you know and I can't believe I say it but like backing up when I was a kid and they're like what in the olden days and I'm like fucking hell I sound like a dinosaur but it's true isn't it so we have to become savvier yes and and it becomes i think it just needs to become just routine in the house yeah so at what point do you have the conversation around the birds and the bees and pornography yeah yeah and and actually children are going to go online and view porn yeah now do they do it in isolation do they sit down do they do you have the conversation with them to say right look this is not the real world these are actors some of the things that you will see is actually will probably make you feel very very uncomfortable it's it's having those conversations and normalizing and i know it's it's it's horrific yeah but actually as parents you wouldn't let the child go out as you say walk down the street at night down a dark alley with no lights you wouldn't do it because of the the perceived risks that are there just giving them that device and saying right there you are in the in terms of where they are in terms of their own physical, emotional well-being, you just need to start to think, right, how do we just normalize this?

34:47Simon Bailey: It then becomes the conversation over the dining room table. And one mum described it to me, Simon, it's the driving conversation. So I said, what do you mean? She said, I'm looking straight down the road. I'm keeping my eyes on the road. I'm holding the steering wheel. And I'm then saying, have you been on Pornhub yet? Right, yeah. And you don't then have to – and then you're not looking at their reaction. Yeah. And it's, oh, mum, I don't want to talk about that. Well, come on. Have you – I did that with my son, and his response was, dad, I'm not sure I really want to talk about it. Well, come on, lad.

35:18Simon Bailey: We need to talk about it. How old is your son? He was – oh, look, he's 30 now. This was a long time ago, but actually it was a highly, highly relevant conversation. Yeah, brilliant. Well done, son. That's great. And I guess, like, all these apps and stuff, right, that you can put on the device or blockers or whatever, it's the same as going – like, if you let a child out, saying to them oh well here's some pepper spray and here's something else it's just a like it's just a tool to help yes if you get into danger but it's not the solution you still want to know

35:50Katariina Leivo: where they went if they had a good time and kind of fine yeah okay and you said like kind of like it's scary and it's overwhelming but I would say and I've seen the darkest side of the no no no but it's totally normal but I've seen the darkest side of the the kind of what can go wrong in online environments but I still think that it's kind of all the same things that and dangerous that have always been in children's lives but what's different now they are much faster and closer and more available as are the good things as well so we need to talk about them even earlier even more and even about the things that were really difficult for children to get access to before so it's not that there's kind of like you know for example in the 90s you had to if you wanted to get like alcohol or get someone to buy you alcohol you had to go to a physical environment and try to get like a fake id or is that what I was talking about sorry you have to go somewhere to find an older person to get it for you for example that's what I meant but now the children can get it like really fast anything and everything for example so it's all those same things but it just happens much faster and much more available and these conversations need to happen earlier and actually parents do have the skills they're just scared to transfer them into this online environment because they think it's something really difficult and different but it's actually you can use all those parenting skills that you have already and children are children they use the devices really fast and better than you but actually the social skills emotional skills they're just children and young people and they need exactly the same kind of support in those environment than somewhere else.

37:30Katariina Leivo: We've started letting the girls,

37:32Simon Bailey: well, all three of them go out to the shops and they're obviously Isla 12 and then nine and seven and they take the dog out and they go around the shops. And we've been slowly, slowly having these conversations around, you know, if someone stops the car and they try to have a conversation with you, let's talk to them. Anyway, the other day, Luna was going out with her friend Rafa just around the corner and she went, it's okay, mummy, I've got my protection with me. And I said, oh, what have you got? And she goes, I've got a spray. She pulled out her Sol de Janeiro perfume. She goes, I'm just going to spray the person in the eyes.

37:58Simon Bailey: and I was like, oh my God, I'm not sure if it's, I said, you take that with you, Luna, you won't need to use it. You know, like she's already really, the Sol de Janeiro perfume, it'll do the trick. Just before we go on to the next question, what would be your absolute must, like blockers, like three things that you would absolutely put on a child's device?

38:19Katariina Leivo: Okay, I'm not an expert on the kind of technical tools and parental tools. So I would say, like look into those but I still go back to like even more important is to have those kind of skills. Conversation, child to know how to take a screenshot and come and show it to parents, you know, like in any situation that feels uncomfortable, those parental tools don't want, you know, kind of protect against all the situations. And the third one would be... We got two.

38:54Simon Bailey: We're going to finish on this question because we've been nattering for 40 minutes. Can you believe it? And this is one I think about, actually. This is from Katrina. Should we be giving permission for our kids to appear on public school social media pages?

39:07Katariina Leivo: This is not black and white, I think. It depends on in what kind of… I have a view. Yeah, please.

39:17Simon Bailey: If it's different, it's on your mind as well. I have a view. Unfortunately, there are people that are using artificial intelligence to scrape the images of school websites. and to turn an image of your son and daughter into child sexual abuse material, and to then extort the school. Wow. Yes, it's a thing. It's happened. It's happening. And heads and safeguarding leads all over the world and are becoming, come into terms with the fact that this is now a threat. It's a risk. And there are people out there that are using these tools to make those demands. my candid advice would be go and consult companies that are able to provide you with the artificial intelligence tools that means that you don't then have to post the images of a real child on a screen the ai will then create an ai generated image so if an extortion demand comes in you don't have to worry about it so that would be my counsel i wouldn't i wouldn't post there is by all means within private messaging groups, WhatsApp groups, the school football team, no issues at all.

40:29Simon Bailey: My advice to any heads would be, or anybody that's running a youth-based organisation, don't host the images of your children on externally facing websites because there is a risk. Yeah, and the same would be to us on our social media pages with regards to that conversation around do we post our children on our Instagram? And Georgia and I have definitely pulled back on that. There's still images out there and you would say no. I would say no. And you would say no. And you, Kat, would say?

40:53Katariina Leivo: I mean, I kind of see this like the digital environments are here to stay and we can't keep our children totally away from it. It depends what age they are and how are the images. But I know I am aware of all the dangers as well. But at least when you as a parent or professional post something online, you need to be aware of all these risks and you have to make these decisions based on that knowledge, I would say.

41:24Simon Bailey: A grim point to finish on, but one I think about, are there more sexual predators and paedophiles today than there were, say, 25 years ago? Or are they being given the tools to make it easier? Is it easier for them? Yeah.

41:39Katariina Leivo: I don't know if there's more, but I would just say that one offender now has much more easier access to hundreds of children simultaneously when it was more difficult before the online spaces. And I would also say about one danger that I think we are paying more attention to and we are making changes. Children are, we have to also protect our children from becoming offenders because there is this dark side as well where children are exposed to very violent kind of content and kind of content that might mean that they will go down to the path where they start viewing certain kind of abuse images and then possibly becoming something that they wouldn't without the online spaces so but this is something that is now paid attention to and they're I'm hoping that there's a much more kind of hopeful future but but I would say that those online spaces are there yeah offenders to breed lots of children but also unfortunately there are certain children and young people who are going down the path because of the content that they've been seeing since young age this is the darkest it's good to sit in it find it uncomfortable but it's good to sit in it I think we need to be aware of this kind of the darkest side so that we can kind of maximise the benefits and protect our children and minimise all these risks we need to talk about this so that we can make changes final word for

43:12Simon Bailey: me Simon the scale of a threat is a whole new podcast oh we'll come back guys it's been an absolute happily happy too because it's it's i think it's really important because the scale of the threat is not understood it's a very very difficult subject as you've experienced this morning yeah to talk about cat and i've only just touched the surface of it and actually it's it's a conversation that needs public airing it needs proper debate and it needs conversations like this with people like yourselves that have a huge audience to be able to talk to parents so they truly understand it because genuinely we we haven't touched the surface today yeah and anyone listening to this you know i think lots of our listeners are you know you listen to a parenting podcast it's because you want to learn about parenting you want you know your mind to be opened up but anyone listening to this who maybe have you know they've got a friend or parents school whatsapp groups all of that share this episode in that group because i think it's yeah the ones listening to the podcast hopefully our listeners are the ones you know wanting the change and all that kind of stuff but it's ultimately it's the people who don't listen to this kind of content that we really want to reach you're absolutely right georgia and also it's not good enough now to you don't have to be terrified the whole time.

44:35Simon Bailey: That's not what we want. But it's not blouse, eh? We know that knowledge is power. We've always said that on this podcast, but it's not good enough now to say, oh, well, that sort of stuff doesn't happen to us. Oh, not at this point. And that's the key point, Zoe. There's too much well-looking. It's not going to happen to us. Yeah, yeah. Unfortunately. And we live in a nice area. It'll be alright. It doesn't happen. It's not like that anymore. Nobody can say that anymore. And that's why these conversations are so very important. Right. Guys, thank you so much for coming on. Kat, is there anything else you want to say before we say goodbye?

45:01Katariina Leivo: I just wanted to say that even though backside there's so much that we can do and it's so important to be aware of the risks but there's so much like kind of positive things that we can do and we have this more than a device project now which is all about training parents reaching those parents who we don't normally reach and then giving them practical tips and kind of support how to do this together how to transfer the parenting into the online spaces it sounds amazing yeah Simon thank you so much come back and see us thank you so much for having us thank you

46:02Simon Bailey: my boss slagging me off on whatsapp to a funny friendship and everything in between this is thrilling watch and listen every Wednesday on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts we're waiting for you in the girls bathroom