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41. The One About Protecting Our Children (with Kristi McVee)
0 Playsin 12 hours
In this incredibly important and eye-opening episode, I’m joined by Kristi McVee - a former WA police officer, child abuse detective, and now child safety educator.
Kristi spent over a decade working closely with children and families in some of the most confronting situations imaginable. Through her experience, she developed a deep understanding of how grooming happens, what red flags to look for, and - most importantly - what actually helps protect children.
This is one of those conversations that may feel uncomfortable at times… but it’s also one that every parent, educator, and caregiver truly needs to hear.
Because when we understand more, we can do more.
💡 In This Episode, We Cover:
- Why most harm comes from someone known to the child (not strangers)
- How grooming actually works - and why adults are often groomed first
- The subtle (and often missed) red flags in behaviour
- Why confident, empowered children are far less likely to be targeted
- How predators build trust and create distance between children and their safe adults
Practical Strategies for Parents
- Think of the internet like a pool: Put a fence around it (boundaries + controls)
Teach them how to swim (education)
Supervise where possible - Keep devices in shared spaces
- Avoid devices in bedrooms and bathrooms
- Set clear boundaries and time limits
- Focus on connection over control
- Stay calm and approachable so your child feels safe to come to you
Why This Conversation Matters
This isn’t about fear.
It’s about raising children who:
- trust themselves
- understand their bodies
- feel confident to speak up
- know they will be listened to
Because those are the children who are most protected.
🔗 Connect with Kristi McVee
- Website: https://www.kristimcvee.com
- Instagram: @kristimcvee
- Facebook: Kristi McVee
🔗 Connect with Victoria
- Website: www.victoria-r.com.au
- Instagram: @the.victoria.r
- Email: hello@victoria-r.com.au
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction of Christy McVeigh and Her Background
00:00:39
Speaker
right, hello, welcome to the Mindful Educator podcast. I'm so excited to have Christy McVeigh joining me today. Christy is a child safety expert. So welcome, Christy. Thank you so much for coming on. You're welcome. Thanks for having me.
00:00:52
Speaker
Yes, love it. And I've been actually really excited about chatting to you because the work that you do is just so important. And I know that so many people listening are going to benefit from hearing this. So i thought we'll just start with you just introducing yourself and telling us a little bit about what you do, essentially. Yeah, so little
Transition from Maternity Leave to Police Work
00:01:11
Speaker
bit about me. ah So i was a West Australian police officer for 10 years. I joined the police in 2010, and I had a two year old at the time. So completely went from, you know, maternity leave to becoming a police officer. I don't know what I was thinking at the time, but I thought, oh, I could do that. I think once you become a mom, you think that like, it's a pretty empowering process to become a parent. So
00:01:36
Speaker
um And then whilst I was in the police, I became a specialist child interviewer.
Role in Child Abuse Investigations
00:01:40
Speaker
So I used to interview children who had been abused, both sexually, physically, et cetera, and had witnessed crimes. And then I became a child abuse detective after four years or became a detective, but then specialized and put my hand up to go into child sexual abuse investigations and abuse investigations.
00:01:59
Speaker
And I pretty much did that. I did a little bit of detective work on non- child abuse, but kept going back to it. And then towards the last two years of my career, I predominantly did child sexual abuse investigations, you know, interviewing kids, investigating cases, you know arresting offenders, and then also managing child sex offenders when they were released from prison.
Impact of PTSD and Career Change
00:02:21
Speaker
so Very child child abuse centric. So that's, yeah, it's it's wild when I think about it. And then I left in 2020 when i actually got PTSD, as you could imagine, after 10 years of listening to stories like the ones that we know exist in the world. And when I came home from the doctors after being diagnosed with PTSD, My then 11 year old, nearly 12 year old said to me, I don't want you to do this job anymore, mum. You're not the mum I remember. And so my mental health was really poor and she, you know, she felt safe enough to tell me that she didn't want me to be in that space anymore.
00:03:01
Speaker
And she meant more to me than any job that I ever did on and will ever do. So I went the next day and resigned basically.
Becoming an Author and Child Safety Advocate
00:03:11
Speaker
and And that was six years ago. so when I left the police, I thought I was going to be a personal trainer.
00:03:17
Speaker
yes I thought I was going to work in gyms and help people get fit. And then COVID happened, everything got locked down and I started writing, well, actually I started writing a book before I left the police thinking, you know, if parents knew what I knew, they would do so differently. And why can't people see the red flags? Why can't people see grooming? Why don't they understand what these people are doing? i could see it, but they couldn't. And then, um yeah, so I started writing all of that down. And then by 2022, full book. And I released that self-published that book and then started talking about this pretty publicly on social media. And it's just grown and grown and grown. And now here I am, you know, six years after the police, 16 years down the track. And i talk about this all day, every day.
Understanding Predator Tactics
00:04:06
Speaker
but but I know I think this is a thing like it's ah incredibly uncomfortable topic for a lot of people to think about so the fact that you're then able to kind of give us as parents and educators and all the rest of it some ideas as to what's going on I think that's just so beneficial because a lot of people aren't aware of what to look out for so where would you start like what would you say would be kind of your first kind of signs that something isn't right with the children Yeah, I guess it's it's there's it's a twofold thing. Like it's not just the children. I mean, you know, people who want to harm children predators, for instance, they actually groom adults first. They don't, you know, they very much groom their environment and their adults around them. So it's not that they just see a child and start talking to a child because if you can imagine, that wouldn't go down very well. So they have to become friends and have to become close to the adults or the people in surrounding the children or child. So, you know, they, and I mean, most people don't know that over, you know, close to 90% of all child sexual abuse is by someone known to the child. So it's not a stranger, for instance, which is what I was taught as a kid, you know, watch out for the white van and someone giving, you know, don't help the person at the park, you know, look for their dog kind of thing. Mm-hmm.
00:05:27
Speaker
that's what we were all told but it's actually 90 is someone known to the child and it can be a family member a friend another child who can abuse a child so it's um i think that's the one that the first thing we need to get our head around is that it's not going to be someone that you don't know i mean there's still that 10 risk that a stranger you know could harm a child but it's more likely to be someone known to them so that's the first thing to get your head around and, and to yeah get good with, because it's not everyone, but it can be anyone. And predators don't, um you know, they choose families and children based on how close they are, how protective they are, whether they have conversations with their kids about body safety and, you know, whether they teach their children bodily autonomy and it's okay to say no. And, you know, so,
00:06:23
Speaker
some you know And this was the other thing that I saw all the time. Some perpetrators can be in a family unit. They're a family member with lots of children around them, but they select this child over here and this child over here because the other children have good conversations, relationships and and protection around them. This child and this child, they might not have that same amount of protection. So it's not all children that they you know they can move within their family, friends, whatever, and be picking kids off based on whether they are close to their parents or their caregivers, whether they they have the knowledge and whether they're naive or not about body safety, whether they understand that, you know, whether they speak they speak up about things like, you know, confident kids, empowered kids, are kryptonite to most predator predators. I'm not saying all, but most predators won't even look at them because they are, You know, it increases the amount of chance that they could get caught.
00:07:25
Speaker
Yeah, but they've got that confidence to actually say something when it's not right. Exactly. And, you know, there's research around this. There was a, um in 2019, there was a group of researchers that, you know interviewed prisoners in a Queensland prison and they asked them, they child sex offenders and they asked them what stopped you from offending against a child. And they said the non-compliance of the child. So that means that the child put up some resistance of some description, whether they said, no, this is my private parts. I'm going to tell my mummy. you know whatever that whatever it was the child put up a resistance so they backed away and changed moved off and obviously targeted another child right
00:08:07
Speaker
so From my perspective, that tells you a lot. And that's 84% of them said that. So 84% of it was the child saying, no, that's my privates. That's I'm going to say something that we don't keep secrets in our family, all the things we teach in body safety, whatever it was. And then the 16% was the protective parents. So the protective parents stepped in, said, Hey, that's inappropriate. Hey, no, you're not allowed to spend time with my child one-on-one. What are you doing kind of thing? That's not safe. So, um you know, it really comes down to then they're only going to target the children that are easy and won't get them caught. So, yeah.
00:08:44
Speaker
Yeah. and For me personally, when I think about, you know, when I see that these people generally make themselves very, at that they're very like, I can do anything. I can help. Do you want me to take the kids? Oh, I can see you're struggling. um you know, oh I don't mind driving them home. Like they're super helpful. And if you're an exhausted, tired, stressed parent with multiple children, trying to get them everywhere, that of course you're going to take on that support if it's offered to you, if you need it. Right. And that's only, and there's no shame in that at all.
00:09:18
Speaker
But these people, um, you know, they they make themselves so available. And there was this FBI profiler, I can't remember, I think his name is Jim Clemente. He's, you know, created the one of the shows on TV called I think it's FBI or like one of these shows, right, Profiler or I can't remember. know Jim Clemente, he was an FBI profiler on TV.
00:09:44
Speaker
in real life, and then he created this TV show. And he said, if anyone wants to spend more time with your child than you do, that's a red flag. So, you know, like i get that um I get that some people do love spending time with kids, but there comes a point where you go, I'm done, I can't i can't do this anymore.
00:10:02
Speaker
yeah Even all us as parents, like, mummy needs time out. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, but these people, they never run out of energy for kids.
00:10:13
Speaker
Okay, well that's good to know because, yeah, I think I'm i'm aware that obviously, yeah statistics have shown that it's usually people that are ah close to you and I think that I
Teaching Children About Safety and Autonomy
00:10:22
Speaker
was the same as you. We grew up, you know, the stranger danger, all the rest of it. So as well as, you know, it's still important to teach our children that, obviously, it's also important to have these open communication and conversations and stuff as well. So what would you suggest um for parents and educators to start doing with their children if they haven't already? Like what would you recommend? Yeah, so I mean, look, the first thing that I was taught when I became a specialist child interviewer is that they target kids who don't have that protective parent and they don't have bodily autonomy education or body safety education. So I started teaching body safety education to my two to three year old, I started talking about these are your private parts and naming them the correct terminology.
00:11:05
Speaker
really important for all children to have because a predator or a groomer will use nicknames as a way to gamify abuse because we don't, you know, kids don't know what they don't know. If they've never been told that their private parts are, this is their name. And a lot of families still have a lot of um shame or secrecy around private parts. But when we make it so obvious that this is my private part, no one's allowed to touch it, it's The secrecy goes and children know, like they just know and they can call it out and they can speak about it. But what really frustrated me or what really upset me was that there was kids who had been abused and they were so like unsure or scared to talk about what had happened to them because it's not normal. We hadn't normalized or the parents or families hadn't normalized talking about their private parts in detail, right? They hadn't talked about and used the correct terminology. And so when an, and as an investigator, you're trying to get a child to talk about the fact that someone has touched them there. or abuse them and they can't say it out loud because there's all this shame around it.
00:12:13
Speaker
smaller kids are a lot better at it than teenagers for instance because teenagers you know they've grown up with no one's allowed to talk about it and then you know there's a lot more shame there or a lot of more embarrassment as well so um so yeah first thing i would do is talk to them and be honest with them about their private parts they're just body parts no different to a knee nose or a foot they're just body parts and then secondly i would talk to them about uh early morning signs and giving them the language of what it feels like to feel unsafe. So the thing about our bodies is that for most of us, and us as adults as well, you know, we've got intuition and gut feelings. We talk about these things, right? What we need to really be good at is that understanding that our gut feelings, that intuition, our early warning signs is what we call it to kids. is that they our body knows before our brain catches up and our body knows when it feels unsafe. And so a lot of kids will say things like, I i have a tummy ache.
00:13:14
Speaker
My body doesn't feel good. i don't you know I've got a headache. I've got sore knees. My knees are shaking. My hands are sweaty, whatever the sign is. And that's basically their body giving them a warning sign. It it might be for nothing because we do have ah You know, like when we look at the spectrum or the continuum of safety, we've got safe and unsafe at on either end. But in between that, we also have fun to be scared and risking on purpose. So fun to be scared could be going down a slide, could be going on a roller coaster, could be jumping in the deep end of the pool. That's fun to be scared because once we do it, it's fun. We get adrenaline, we feel good about it, right? But in that moment before we do that thing, we feel scared. Our bodies feel scared. yeah Same with risking on purpose, you know, standing on a stage, talking in front of the class, doing something that you haven't done before, that first lesson of flute or piano or going to that sports team that you haven't played with before. That's risking on purpose. You're doing something that your body tells you is scary, but but it's actually you're doing it because you want to do something different or you want to try something new. So, yeah, we've got fire we've got safe, which is i feel warm, safe, and and it's my happy place. And then those two in between and then unsafe. And that's when we need our kids to be able to understand all of those things because...
00:14:34
Speaker
just, you know, one of the things that I taught my daughter was sometimes even when, you know, anxiety shows up as fear, as being scared, right? So, you know, all of us have some range of anxiety over something. And so how I taught my daughter when we were going through that continuum, she had that language by the time she was five, six years old. She knew that sometimes she would feel scared, but it was actually not real scared. It was just, I'm going to do something wrong.
00:15:00
Speaker
hard I'm gonna do something new and so you're able to talk it through with them and understand help them understand that it's okay to feel scared your body just is tricking you and then But the real fear, the real scared, we pay attention to that. We can talk still talk it through, but what is it? And sometimes you don't understand why and sometimes kids don't understand why they feel scared. They just know that this person doesn't make them feel safe and that's when we pay attention. So that's the early warning signs that we teach. And then the next step to that is who do we talk to or who do we talk with if we don't feel safe? and
00:15:36
Speaker
Or who do we talk with if we need comfort and support? So we we help. our kids find five people that are on their safety network, their safety team, and those five people are people who will listen to us, believe us, and make us feel safe again. And the next step to that, which is just for adults, is they'll do something about it. So whether it's, you know, take action, make sure that child isn't with that person alone, they're always supervised with that person, et cetera. But for kids, they just need to to know that the people that they choose on their safety team team are people who are
00:16:09
Speaker
listen to them, believe them and always make them feel safe. So, you know, they get to choose those when they're little, you help them choose them. But, you know, at some point your child needs to be able to decide who they are because we could be helping them choose someone who's not safe for them.
00:16:26
Speaker
Yeah, that's a really good point as well. Because, yeah, you we're kind of being groomed as well and not realising. Then that's a really important distinction to make there.
Predator Manipulation Techniques
00:16:35
Speaker
Yeah. like So, yeah. And then, you know, like there's teaching them secret versus surprises. There's teaching them about, you know, the body safety rules. My body is my body. No one's allowed to touch, take a photograph or video my body or ask me to touch theirs, their private parts. You know, if anyone does, this is what we do next. We go and seek help. We go and tell someone when we can, if we can. Sometimes, you know, the thing is, is the children who knew this stuff and had safe parents and adults in their lives,
00:17:06
Speaker
they got help quicker. So I can't say that teaching this stuff will 100% protect your kids from abuse, but when they had that information, when they had that supportive, protective parents, it just needs to be one, but at least someone, then they were able to get help quicker and heal quicker. Whereas the children who had nothing like that in their curriculum or in their, you know, knew about it and didn't have safe people to go to, they were the ones who lived with abuse for years and years and years.
00:17:36
Speaker
So I think, yeah, it's it's just one of those things. I just can't see any bad reasons not to teach it. Yeah, exactly. And I think this is where, yeah it's just so important just to, I suppose, yeah, have inform the adults, let them know that, you know, it's really, it's actually really simple to teach this as well. It's not anything overly complicated, is it? It's not, you know, it's not like we're trying to teach them. I'm not saying, hey, if anyone abuses you or if anyone put, like, I'm not even, and this is what I try to remind parents is that ah when you teach body safety, you're not talking about abuse at all. You're teaching them a a system or ah like some, you know, well, body safety is all about lessons that help them understand their bodily autonomy and their safety. Like you literally everyone has the right to feel safe. Everyone has the right to speak with someone about anything.
00:18:31
Speaker
the thing that predators do really well is is they convince children and adults, but children, that they don't have rights to their own body, that they don't have the rights to talk to anyone, that the only person that they can rely on is them, that you know when they groom children, they literally drive a wedge, depending on who it is, but drive a wedge between the child and all their other safe adults. So the child relies before abuse happens generally in person, but they will drive a wedge between the adult relationships that they have and the person and the child. And so the child now, you know, they start by love bombing them and making them feel good about themselves and bringing all of this you know, treating them for things and making them keep secrets, small secrets to begin with. And then it becomes bigger secrets. You know, for little kids, it can be giving them treats and make it letting them do things that mum and dad might not let them do.
00:19:24
Speaker
Or, you know, one parent versus another, they they build this like wedge between the adults and the kids. For adults, how they build a wedge between that child adult and the child is they will ah potentially put the idea that the child lies or is you know, going through something, oh, you know, because we might see behavior changes in children when they've been groomed, for instance, you know, because they're getting given all of this stuff over here, and then this parent or this person over here is not allowing it. And so there's big tantrums and blow ups. And this person's in the middle guy, oh, look, I can, you know, I've dealt with this before, I know how to help.
00:20:00
Speaker
Let me go and talk to little Christy and see if she can, ah you know, make it feel better, you know, and then they're driving that wedge deeper and deeper and deeper and you know they're getting the child to keep secrets and then they're making the other parent or the other the other adults think that this child is just going through something and so if the child does speak up oh now they're lying they're fibbing how could you talk about that person like that you've you know like they literally are that uh that devious, you know, like it's it's because they don't want to get caught, right? Who wants to be caught for that? So they're going to make it so that no one believes the child and everyone thinks that the child is playing up and but misbehaving.
00:20:42
Speaker
Gosh, it's, yeah. When you explain it like that, it's like you'd see how all these moving parts can kind of end yeah up in that. So one of the questions I did have, like obviously when it's actually happening in person, it's quite, you know,
00:20:59
Speaker
Yeah, obviously you've explained how that happens, all the rest of it. What about the whole online space? Because
Online Dangers and Gaming Risks
00:21:04
Speaker
that's kind of like a whole new realm that I know for me as a parent, it's a bit mind-blowing trying to navigate all this as well and the gaming and and all the rest of it. So how would you approach it in that regard?
00:21:17
Speaker
I mean, look, our kids are under attack everywhere they go, really. And when you add it to the online world, you know, we've got 7 billion people in the world or 8 billion people, you know, good people. 80% of people are online. There's lots of billions of people online. So when you hand your child a device, you're giving them access to everyone who's actually online. And so, you know, it's it's very quick. Online grooming is very quick because when we sit behind a device, there's this thing called the, um there's a a phenomenon. I don't know. It's like a psychology term. That's like the online disinhibition effect. So because we're sitting behind a computer screen or a device, it basically doesn't feel like real life.
00:22:03
Speaker
So as a young child, it's like a game. It is a game. Like mostly they're gaming, right? So they're gaming, they're talking to their friends, and suddenly a stranger pops up.
00:22:15
Speaker
And so a stranger is just someone we've never met before. And, some you know, that's what there's a saying that I like that. but But, you know, online we've got millions and millions of strangers. and for the predators online that it's like fishing for them they basically throw the line out and see which kids react so they're going to how it works for our kids is is they're just doing their thing with their friends someone comes into their dms or friend requests them says hey you're really good at that gives them a compliment and makes them feel good about themselves oh want to play another game Now, the thing that is really interesting in psychology for this stuff is that within a game, it takes when children play a game, online game with other people, yeah it naturally breaks down that defense mechanism of this is a stranger and within minutes they believe they're friends.
00:23:08
Speaker
So right within online gaming, it's really fast. And the predators know this. They know that they can break kids down very fast with gaming. So they will game with children on Roblox, Minecraft, Fortnite, whatever they're playing, Grand thread Theft Auto, whatever it is. So that they will go around playing games with other kids or with kids pretending to be children.
00:23:29
Speaker
Yeah. it Depends on the age group. Some people, ah some predators will have multiple accounts, multiple personas online, and they will pretend to be kids and adults and see which one the child talks to And so they are coming at them from multiple places. And so our kids are really under attack. It's literally like shooting fish in a barrel. You know, they'll they'll approach 100 sometimes five or six might talk to them. That's their, that's who they target. If your child is aware of grooming and understands grooming a little bit, then they are less likely to be, to be caught out. But even people who know this stuff get caught out on a regular, I mean, one in two children are approached by a stranger every day. And so, you know, the, it increases the risk tenfold. If they're not playing within a contained group of people they know,
00:24:21
Speaker
If they're not talking to a contained group of people they know in real life, yet that's the distinction. They think that they know them because they've spoken to them online. This is where predators are really good at breaking kids' defences down, breaking down their inhibitions is because kids look at online like it's not real life.
00:24:40
Speaker
There's no police. They don't get policed out online very well. Like there's really little that police can do when it comes to online stuff. No one's sitting over their shoulder going, you shouldn't do that most of the time. They're doing it in their bedrooms and and in like private spaces because we get sick of the screaming and the noises when they're gaming.
00:25:00
Speaker
um You know, we don't see or hear what's being said to them because we're not with them. Yeah. We're not supervising. And, you know, these predators are really good. Like they they've got scripts. They talk in dark web groups. They tell each other how to groom kids. They are hunting in packs. If one predator has luck with a child and gets them, you know, grooms them and gets intimate images from a child, they go and share it with the rest of them and say, ah here, try this one.
00:25:28
Speaker
So they're hunting packs. They know what they're doing. They do it really well and our kids are at risk every day. Yeah. how, like, what can we as parents then do to help protect our children if they're gaming? Because this is, this is my conundrum at the moment. I've got two of my children that are at that age where it's how their friends are interacting with them. So it's like, okay, well, how do we navigate this? Because I never grew up with gaming. I'm not a gamer at all. So for me, it really is a whole new world. And I'm trying to educate myself as best I can and do what I can to um keep my children safe. But I mean, to be honest, I just want to throw everything out and nod and not do it at all. Don't worry, I get it. I mean, look, I was a detective dealing with kids every day who've been groomed online and, and you know, had
00:26:17
Speaker
inadvertently been abused online and then you know I'm coming home and I've got a daughter who's asking for TikTok on robblox and and Fortnite and all of the things that their friends her friends were doing so I do get it and there is some you know I can't say you can 100% and my daughter has come back you know a year later two years later she's 18 now gone yeah I people tried to groom me online all the time and you know but I knew what to watch out for so I don't I hope, I mean, you know, we can never be a hundred percent sure our children tell the truth and, but you know, she knows what I does, for what I do for a job and she's been pretty open and honest. And we always had an open and honest conversation. The reason being is, is that one of the things that most kids tell me when they, when I was talking to kids regularly is that they never felt like they could talk to their parents about this stuff that they didn't, that if they brought it up with their parents, they would overreacting and ban devices They would say, right, that's it. You're not doing that anymore because we so we're scared for them so we overreact. yeah Instead of trying to get down on the level of, okay, this is not going away, this is something that won't change, how about we teach our kids what to watch out for first and then and and help them. Like i I look at online safety as a pool.
00:27:36
Speaker
So the the online is the pool. When we teach our kids how to swim, We supervise them. We give them lessons. We put a fence around it to protect them so they can't be there when if they can't get in when we're not around. We, you know, we've got so many things in place to help our kids be safe around water because we know that if theyre if they don't have that safety in place and they don't know how to swim in it, they could drown. yeah It's the same with the internet.
00:28:04
Speaker
So we put a fence around it. Okay, what's the fence look like? Okay, we have to go and set up, if we can, parental restrictions in place, blocking any private messages or private, you know, anyone from Facebook.
00:28:18
Speaker
And, you know, I had a fair, um I've got some free stuff on my website, but I had a fairly strict, until she was 12, 13, I had fairly strict rules around what games and what things she could do.
00:28:30
Speaker
did yeah Did she, did it slip through when she went to a friend's house? Yes, of course it did. Yeah, that's how they get around it. Did she come home and tell me she'd been playing Roblox at such and such's house? Yes, she did. So, you know, like, but the thing was, is that she was able to come and talk to me because we had enough conversations and we hadn't had enough, um you know, like she had enough information to be able to stay as safe as possible on there. However, I'm sure there was possible situations that i I couldn't keep her wrapped in cotton wool. Yeah.
00:29:01
Speaker
And I think from my experience and from what I know is that we can't wrap them in cotton wool. What we can do is prepare them, empower them and make it safe for them to come and talk to us when something goes wrong. Because
Creating a Safe Online Environment for Children
00:29:12
Speaker
a lot of kids said to me, i can't go to my parents. Even... 14, 15, 16, 17-year-olds, 18-year-olds, I can't go talk to my parents because they'll get mad at me. They won't love me anymore. They'll hate me. Like they'll take my device off me.
00:29:26
Speaker
And we forget, i think his parents, we forget that we forget We stuffed up too. We did stupid things, but there was nothing on the internet because we didn't have phones and the internet when I was growing up. We did stupid things too.
00:29:41
Speaker
This is their stupid sometimes. This is their, and they are under attack. I keep, I'm going to keep saying that they are under attack by these people. So we have to prepare them, which means that we put a fence around it. We put restrictions in place. we put time limits in place. They shouldn't be able to have 24 seven online because it's not good for their brain. And for as much time, my daughter, she hated it, but you know, like she looks back on it now and she says, thank you so much. And I, it might sound like I'm making this up, but no, no word of a lie. I was over in Thailand with her for her 15th birthday and I nearly drowned in the pool. I was swimming in the pool and I'm very short. So I'll have to like I can't put touch the bottom. And she goes, I'm really glad that you didn't let me have social media before I was 13, back before the ban. And I'm i'm really glad that you made it so that I didn't have access without, you know, support and supervision, et cetera. And I nearly drowned because I was like, what? She's like, because. I had a childhood and I was safe and a lot of so so many of my friends didn't and they didn't get to, you know, and keep keep younger. Like they didn't get a childhood because they were too busy worrying about what everyone else was doing online. Oh, that's lovely.
00:30:51
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, so it will come back. The arguments, the fighting, the screaming, it does come back around. Okay. There's hope. There is hope, i promise, and your kids will thank you. However, it doesn't make it any easier in the moment. So I had really strong rules around,
00:31:06
Speaker
You know, when she that when there were certain games that she wanted to play, they weren't to be connected to any kind of internet. Like for a long time, she just had to download a game and play it. yeah You know, there was no private messaging within the game. There was no friend requesting within the game. If that if the game, and I always researched every game she debt was allowed to download. She wasn't allowed to download anything without my permission or consent. I had to look at it. She'd go, mum, can I have this game? And I'd be like, right, give me 10 minutes to have a look at it. I'd have to check it all out. There's a really good website called commonsensemedia.org. And you can look up reviews on games, videos, shows, movies, all of the stuff. And it gives you reviews from parents and from kids to tell you whether it's age appropriate for and, you know, whatever.
00:31:56
Speaker
And so I used to like look at the Apple store, look at the common sense media. If I wasn't a hundred percent sure I'd download it myself, have a quick look at it. And then I would say yes or no. And she knew that that was the process until she got to a certain age. Then, you know, when she did get on Roblox, when she did get on fortnight, because eventually, you know, we had to upgrade into the next level of, okay, you know, all the things we got to, you know, we've got to risk it for the biscuit kind of thing. We've got to know what we're going to do. So yeah.
00:32:26
Speaker
you know, that was then done with supervision. You know, you had to do it in a public area of the home. I had to deal with the screaming and the yelling and the swearing from other friends when they were playing together. But to me, it was more important, like to know the rules were it's in a public area. I have to be able to hear your message at your voice chats yeahp because then I could identify whether there was a random stranger on there or not, or if it was a friend from school.
00:32:51
Speaker
You know, if it got outrageously loud and and too much swearing, I'd be like, wait, like time to calm down kids, calm it down a little bit. I learned that it's really exciting game, you know, and then, you know, and that was still time limited, you know, you can't have, ah it can't be a free for all on those games. And then, you know, the learning to swim, it was like sitting down like every now and again and saying, oh, who's this friend? How do you know them? Where did you find, where did you meet them?
00:33:21
Speaker
Have you ever met them in real life? do And then having those conversations where I was like, oh, well, what what could you do if someone asked you to? And here's the thing. What most predators do, they meet them in a game, they move them to another platform.
00:33:35
Speaker
They'll move them to a private doing messaging because then they want to, oh, I'd love to get to know you better. ah you set yep let's like Let's message over here so that i can we can talk about the game or we can talk about this. That's like literally Predator 101 platform.
00:33:50
Speaker
uh tactics is that okay let's move from the game to a private messaging app where i can get you alone basically yeah and you know that's where they groom them more they give them you know and then they do the same thing they stick a wedge between the child and their parents you know if it's a pre-teen or a early teens they might be talking about boyfriends and girlfriends they might send them some porn and see what they do they might you know, ask them if they've ever had a been kissed before. They talk about things that no one else is talking to them about. and yeah But yet they're grooming them to for the next part, which is, hey, let's share some photos. That's if they're only interested in kids. Then we've got the other part to it, which is ex sextortion, where they go from zero to a hundred and they trick our young people, especially our boys, into sending nudes by sending nudes first.
00:34:40
Speaker
And they literally biohack a young man's young boy's defense of oh well this is a stranger I shouldn't do that by sending nude of themselves first which is not their nude it's generally a guy behind the screen it's an organized crime gang and they send a nude of a young woman or a young person to the to the young boy and then the boy they're like send me a nude you know like and what boy isn't like oh my gosh i've got to do this because it's they've just sent me one i've got back and it by hacks their defenses and then the next thing they know within 10 15 minutes sent a nude and they're being extorted for money
00:35:19
Speaker
Oh, That's, yeah, it's full on, isn't Yeah, there's definitely, it's a lot going on online. um There's two, but the main two things that you need to know is, is you've got predatory online, pedophilic, pedophilic, predatory online people. yeah And then you've got the extortion people, the the ones that are after money versus the ones that are actually after in nudes of kids and and are interested in kids. So there's two different ways that it can go online online.
00:35:49
Speaker
ah I love how you've used that analogy of it being like the pool and the swimming and all the rest
Balancing Offline and Online Activities
00:35:55
Speaker
of it, though. I think that, for me, the way that you've said that has really helped because, yeah, you're right. Like even I do feel like some days just throwing everything out the window and, you know, going off the grid. not going to help anyone. mean, get 20-plus-year-old men contacting me about sextortion and asking what to do. So our young men are under attack when it comes to sextortion and, like, they're, you know, they're being – You know, we've got a, we've got a loan as we keep getting told, we've got this male loneless loneliness epidemic where young men are ah can't connect with others. I mean, one thing I will say about this is is we can't let our young men rely on their online life to keep them sustained. Yes, that's how they connect with their friends, but we need to provide them other opportunities to connect. So it was always the rule in my house is that if you spend an hour online, you have to spend an hour offline.
00:36:48
Speaker
Yeah. so the rule was you choose when you want to spend that hour online, but you're going to do it in public. You're going to, and what, you know, you either spend the hour outside running around doing toitch chores or whatever it is, hanging with your friends in real life, or you spend an hour, you choose when your hour comes up.
00:37:08
Speaker
And then once that hour's over, i was very firm most of the time, you know, unless it was for a, a catch up or hang out with friends or whatever, then that rule might get extended.
00:37:21
Speaker
But one thing I did notice is that, um, my daughter now, but she's so but painful. She doesn't answer any messages. She, she's bad. She loses her phone 24 seven. Like she's so bad at keeping in contact and it's because she doesn't spend time on her phone.
00:37:37
Speaker
Yeah, right. That's great though, in a way. i Obviously not as a mum. Yeah, yeah. Like I can see where she is most of the time because she's, you know, we're able to yeah keep an eye on ourselves. But, you know, like she doesn't, when she's with her boyfriend or with friends, she's like putting her phone away and she's, you know, not got it next to her and looking at it 24-7. think...
00:37:59
Speaker
What's really important is, first of all, to set up really good boundaries around it. She was never allowed to have her devices in her bedroom for for a very long time. All devices were charged in the lounge room. and there was a very strong rule is that like once it's bedtime, we don't go back on them.
00:38:16
Speaker
Yeah. Like there's no checking messages because our kids need to sleep and having a device in the bedroom, there's science and research around it. It actually is like connecting with your neural pathways, your neural, like that it's energetically connecting with you. So ah you can you, first of all, you can't sleep well. Second of all, who can sleep when it's pinging all the time?
00:38:37
Speaker
yeah And they they're going to pick it up and they're going to look at it and they're gonna get drained by the drama that is online life. So the rule was no devices in bedrooms, no devices charging in your room at night. um And, you know, we that we have to have some time off. You know, we we got into, ah especially in high school, we got into a bit of a social media free Sunday or like device-free Sunday where we put our devices in a drawer and hung out for the day. Yeah, actually connected.
00:39:08
Speaker
Yeah, and just connected, played board games or, and it kind of started because my daughter went into high school when COVID hit. So it kind of started in COVID and, you know, it's continued since, you know, so.
00:39:20
Speaker
We, I, I block, um I've got a device called a brick. Oh, same. Yeah. And I block my social media and everything from 5.00 PM till 7.00 AM every day. and so, yeah. And like on weekends or on holidays, i block it so that I can have like. Because we wear it we get dopamine. Our kids get dopamine.
00:39:41
Speaker
our Our devices are making us addicts, both us and them. And if we're aware of it and we're not helping our kids control it, understand it, then it's it's dangerous. Like it's really, might as well give them a cigarette and let them start smoking because that's what it's doing. Yeah. yeah right And, um yeah, so the other, and i look, my, my, I've been there, done it. That's why I've got a brick because I can't do it on my own, right? and So i'm not I'm not like shaming anyone or telling you. I literally have to force device to make me stop getting on there and looking at things and checking things. Yeah. The other thing that I will say is is that we should never let our kids have their devices in bathrooms or bedrooms, especially because that no good happens when a device is in a bedroom or bathroom. Most of the cases that I saw in the police, the photos, the intimate photos were done in one of those spaces. Yeah, right. if you think that that's a, you know, if you think, okay, this is ah this is a high-risk area.
00:40:44
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah.
Parental Guidance and Communication Strategies
00:40:45
Speaker
And from a risk minimization perspective, then we have to reduce it by not having them in there. e And one of my one of my colleagues had a rule that if if they had their device in their bedroom, for it was for his teenagers. If they had their device in the bedroom, the bedroom door had to be open. And if they were found with the device and the bedroom door not open, then he would take the door off.
00:41:11
Speaker
Oh, I love it. i know, a bit extreme, but he was like, this is where all danger exists for kids. Yeah. Especially because you guys were seeing it all the time as well. So it'd be like, nah. Yeah. So, I mean, like, you know, and you wouldn't let a stranger sit in your child's bedroom and yet we let them have a device in our child's bedroom. So, yeah.
00:41:32
Speaker
It's really important. And then the next thing is to have those conversations around, you know, grooming. And, yeah you know, if anyone, do you know that there's people online that don't, you know, they're there to, you know, harm kids?
00:41:46
Speaker
for but You know, and if if you've had those body safety talks from a young age or from whatever age your child is, then you can add in if anyone ever asks you for a picture of your private parts, you come and tell me. You'll never be in trouble. I'm here to help you.
00:42:03
Speaker
um I can help you with that because it's not for children to deal deal with. Yeah. And there's some things that kids don't need to deal with. And I'm your mum. I'm here to love and protect you. And, you know, you'll never be in trouble. And the last thing I would say is is to always talk to your kids and remind them, doesn't matter if it's impersonal online abuse, but the one thing that groomers tell them is,
00:42:25
Speaker
If your parents find out they'll never love you again, they'll stop loving you. They won't believe you, blah, blah, blah, blah. So you constantly remind your kids you have to say it more than once. You have to constantly remind them nothing you do or say will ever make me stop loving you. I will love you no matter what and I'm always here for you. My job, I might not always like what you do.
00:42:47
Speaker
but I will always love you. And so reminding kids that, you know, we are there for them. We are their safe space. We are there to help protect them. And we all make mistakes. My 18 year old did something silly a couple of months ago. And i was like, Oh my goodness. And she's like, mom, I'm just learning. Like I didn't know. And i was like, yeah, okay, babe. Like it's fine. Yeah. I'm just saying, you know. yeah And she's like, yes, I know. Now I know. ah Oh, I love that. Normalise making mistakes as well. Normalise making mistakes.
00:43:21
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, Christy, thank you so much. Honestly, what you shared is absolutely amazing. And I really appreciate you taking the time today to come and chat about all this as well. So, yeah, I know I've definitely got a lot out of it. So I'm sure the listeners will.
00:43:35
Speaker
I'm glad. I'm glad. And, you know, like just I don't know. The one thing I can ever say is that you you can't stuff this up. Yeah. People are scared to talk to their kids because they think they'll say the wrong thing. One of the things I used to say to my daughter all the time, because, hey, I was learning alongside when I was doing this as a job. I had a young child and I was learning alongside it all. And she was my guinea pig, right? So I used to say to her, you know what? No one gives mums and dads a book to tell us how to do this stuff. so I'm learning. sometimes I make mistakes and I get it wrong and I don't want it. But, you know,
00:44:10
Speaker
And, you know, if i had if I hadn't talked about something or if I'd missed something or if i I felt like I'd, you know, stuffed something up, I'd say, you know, I think I might have made a mistake by not talking about this or but maybe I wouldn't use the word mistake. Maybe I'd say something like is I realised the other day that I haven't actually talked about this yet with you and that's my fault. I should have probably brought this up before now but I didn't realise. So, you know, let's have a chat about this. And so if anyone's listening to this podcast, you can always say to your kids,
00:44:40
Speaker
hey, I listened to this podcast with this ex-detective and she told us that, child you know, it was talking about how we need to talk about X, Y, Z, whatever the topic is. Don't choose them all at once. if You know, choose wise zo boom yeah like one part of this and say, hey, I realised that I hadn't talked to you about online strangers.
00:44:58
Speaker
And, you know, how they can be there because they might be a nice person, but a lot of people aren't nice on online and
Utilizing Media for Safety Education
00:45:05
Speaker
they can say, you know, they can be there to make kids feel good, but actually they want to get something from kids, you know, whatever age they're at already. And the other thing I, um so I used to say that to my daughter, i'll be like, guess what? I realized that I had a job today and I realized that I haven't talked to you about XYZ. And, you know, like, you know, kind of wish I had to talk to you before, but, you know, what do you know about it? Like I always used to ask, what do you know about XYZ? And I use TV shows and podcasts. radios when I was driving to school and I heard something on the radio about something I'd use that as a conversation starter like hey did you just hear that like wow what could kids do if this happened what would you do if this happened to you so you're introducing it without and you're turning it everyday moments into teachable yeah so like a big serious like you know noo do do it's a sort of conversation it's just like oh yeah you know yeah yeah and like the more and like
00:46:00
Speaker
It's so funny because my daughter, like I used to do it in the car a lot, like sitting side by side, best time to do it. Laying side by side, you know, when you're saying goodnight, reading a book to them, um you know, anytime that or kicking a footy if you've got boys. like not looking them eye to eye. Don't sit across and interrogate them. yeah I didn't interrogate people for a job. It's not really advisable because most people, kids are like, nah, not talking. I'm in trouble.
00:46:27
Speaker
so yeah like that book yeah' shut down down so do it when they are calm, peaceful, quiet, come at it with, let's just, we're learning together. And then, you know,
00:46:40
Speaker
If they're really not sure, you just say, look, if you ever got any questions, you can always talk to me. I'm sorry that I've not brought this up before. I didn't know I had to talk about it I didn't know how to talk about it. No one showed us. yeah You know, just being humble and it works really well with kids because they go, oh, mom. Like my daughter would come to me and she'd be teaching me stuff because she's like, have you heard this? Have heard this?
00:47:03
Speaker
you're like yeah had it but yeah cool yeah cool and I'd be like oh wow and if I ever didn't know something I would be like oh wow that's so cool or if she was like a little bit iffy I'd be like oh wow have you heard about this oh well what do you know about it and then let her try and explain it to me. And whilst in the meantime, my brain was like trying to work out how to keep up and like, so you know, talk about it the next part. Yeah.
00:47:30
Speaker
It's okay. You can't stuff it up. Yeah. I love that. Thank you as well. Cause yeah, it's like, Oh, my mind's kind of like lots, lots to talk about now. And I love how you've said just to, yeah, keep it when it's in a more relaxed state as well. Cause yeah, that eye to eye, it is very intimate. Oh, who likes sitting there like,
00:47:48
Speaker
Yeah, talk to me. But, you know, if if anyone's got any questions or like scared to start the conversations, I do have some products. Like I've got the conversations with kids cards, which are like literally ah conversation starters that can help you with these conversations, talking around early warning signs, public versus private secrets and surprises, you know, all of the things. And then, you know, I've got a online safety guide as well. Any of those things, you know, they're really about just starting the conversation because believe it or not, you know more than you realize.
00:48:22
Speaker
Yeah. Awesome. And where can they find all these resources, Christy? I'll put it in the show notes as well. Yeah, just on my website at christymcv.com and then just look for the body safety ah products. There's the body safety cards. They're now printed cards as well. um You know, they come in like a little like tarot card deck, some cards and stuff and a little guidebook. And then also the online safety guide is an online guide at the moment. But yeah, it's all there. And and I've got a podcast myself. I've got free resources, blog posts, like I've got it all there.
00:48:54
Speaker
Yeah, so helpful. Thank you so much. And I know, like I said, this has been amazing chatting to you today. So I really appreciate it You're welcome.