Episode 20 Navigating social media as parents with Maddie Graham
===
Kristi: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the CAPE Podcast. CAPE standing for the Child Abuse Prevention and Education Podcast. My name is Christy McVie and I am an ex West Australian police officer who spent 10 years with the police where I was trained as a specialist child interviewer and a child abuse detective. This podcast is all about sharing what I learnt, saw and knew whilst investigating child sexual abuse in the police force.
It is also about sharing the knowledge that I gained in that time that helped me with my own parenting of my then two year old daughter. My mission is to help share my knowledge and to help you in your role as parents to keep your kids safe along with guest experts in the field of child abuse prevention and education, both in person and online.
Thank you so much for joining in on the fight to prevent child sexual abuse. Your kids will thank you for it./
hello and welcome back to the Operation Cape podcast. I'm very excited to be sharing this podcast with the wonderful Maddy Graham, [00:01:00] again, someone who I met on social media. So we're going to be talking about social parenting and social media and in this episode, but, , there is some really amazing benefits to social media, which we'll talk about, but there also is a lot to consider with social media.
Thanks for being here. Maddie and I met through now, we were just having a conversation before we press record that it was potentially tick tock and it came, went over to Instagram and we've had many a conversation since Maddie is a great advocate , she's an amazing human who has also started her own company,
or let's call it a social enterprise called changing the conversation. So I would highly recommend at the end to go and follow changing the conversation, but thank you, Maddie, for being here.
Maddie: Thank you for having me. I think this is an awesome thing that you are doing and I'm really excited to, to dive into this, exactly like what you said,
we met via social media and to even just jump into that, you know, social media has amazing benefits. We see the benefits of health promotion and [00:02:00] advocacy, which we see through the work that you do, through the work that I do through connection. We can connect and network with people, , people from different states and.
, we can, you know, really share messages and educate, on so many different topics. And then like what you said, there's the other side of social media. So
Kristi: how did you get, like, we, we've had many conversations and you've got an interesting story. So I'll let you explain it. I won't tell anyone what you've told me, but let's start with, first of all, you're a psychology student.
Maddie: Yeah.
Kristi: Yeah. And wrote many papers on these topics. So I'll let you explain those, but why have you created Changing the Conversation? Like start way back when, wherever you want to start. Yes, of
Maddie: course. Well, so Changing the Conversation is a community development organization, and we we Aim to drive social change through social engagement.
And a part of that is social and emotional workshops for Australian school students from K to 12. And the reason why I started is [00:03:00] because. I've always been you know, an advocate for well being and feeling really good about yourself. And I just remember when I was in school, I had a situation happen and I reached out for help and I was essentially dismissed and shut down and there was no support.
There wasn't any opportunity to have such an emphasis on social and emotional skills as there was with maths and geography in society at that time, which was, you know, over 10 years ago, they had put such an emphasis on school uniform. And because I wasn't.
Equipped with the skills to navigate life's challenges at that time, I had developed other behaviors, which impacted my learning, it impacted my social skills. And it impacted so many other areas, which then developed into other coping mechanisms. Yeah. And so, you know, when I kind of went into psychology, I.
At that time, I was like, Oh, you know, I want to go and be, be a psychologist because I want to go and help in schools. And then I majored in sociology [00:04:00] and I started to look at, behavior through like a bit of a, sociological lens. And that's when I started to learn a lot more about these social issues, which got me into learning about. equality and learning about the discussion of pornography, the discussion of , different access through like social determinants of health. So I could see that. You know, it came back into the schools is that it was the private schools that had the, the funds and they were the ones that were able to have the social and emotional education.
And so I kind of look back and I see the work that you do and I see all these other social issues that are being addressed, and I wholeheartedly fundamentally believe that if every single. Student and child can be equipped with social emotional skills. I believe that there's open communication. You can communicate
when something's going on, you can navigate, you can regulate your emotions, you can you know, reach out to your friends, make [00:05:00] friends, instead of being a bystander, you can advocate and stand up for someone. And I think that that is so important when we're looking at these larger social issues that you address.
And so that's kind of why , I'm going to finish my psychology degree, but I'm going to go down into, into public health and look at things. I think. So, you know, tie it all together. I don't want to be the ambulance at the, at the bottom of the cliff. I want to be the fence that prevents the fold.
Yes,
Kristi: yes. I totally agree. That's, that's how I felt when I was writing my book. And when I left the police, you know, as a police officer, I was the ambulance at the bottom after everything had happened. you're trying to. , patch people back together that are broken and, bleeding out when really we should be focusing all of our energy and efforts into preventing it from starting , maybe they might've, you know, hanging off the cliff, but how about we pull them back up, back in and, and give them that support.
So yes, I'm with you 100 percent Maddie, Maddie, just for context, because obviously you can't tell through voices, how old you are, how old are you? [00:06:00]
Maddie: I am 26. I just turned 26 two weeks ago.
Kristi: Congrats. 26 is a great age. So you know, like, and I'm 42. So you've grown up with social media and I didn't get my first phone until 19 which probably sounds crazy to you.
So you. pointed out some things like that, you know, you had some issues going on in high school or in school, that led to some behavioral changes and behavioral issues. Then you didn't have the support in that process. And so then it continued on and, and it's not until you started look like becoming a psychologist or getting your degree that you went, huh?
Like, was there a turning point in there? Like you went. That's why I did what I did, you know, like we've all been there.
Maddie: Absolutely. If we kind of go back, I was in year eight when Instagram was originally released. So, I guess I'm going to call it an adverse childhood experience.
You know, I went through that when I was in year seven, it was within the first term of year seven. And that's kind of when everything kind of went [00:07:00] haywire. And that was, you know, I guess within the same year that social media was introduced, so I. Have not known what growing up without social media looks like, I have been on social media since I was in year eight.
And so that was a big thing that we would follow friends, we would go to things and we would connect with people, but, there was other sides to it. There was you know, when I kind of got to year nine, 11, I, was engaging a lot of like risk taking behaviors. And, you know, again, there's, there's, I kind of took a kind of a step back and as I'm learning so much more, I can see, I can see why that I probably would have turned to other coping mechanisms because I couldn't navigate Right.
You know, this type of experience at that time, I didn't have that. And I'm really lucky that when I, you know, went to my new school I developed an amazing, an amazing friendship group, which I'm still friends with now, and, you know, I [00:08:00] was, I'm a kid, I was very out there and very outgoing, but I'm also very well aware that.
There are a lot of kids that may not have that ability to make friends and I wholeheartedly believe that your social circle and social support has such a big difference, a big impact, I would say, on your social emotional wellbeing. So there was a turning point. The turning point was when I was learning more about abnormal psychology and I was learning a little bit more kind of going through social behavior.
And I kind of took a step back and looked at the development, the developmental kind of, what the issues were coming up at certain types of stages. And I sat there and I thought, huh, that makes sense. But when you're in it as a kid. You're not going to be aware of that.
Cause I definitely know that I wasn't, whether that's as perspective of denial, whether that is because you're, you're trying to, you know, fit in and you're trying to find your, thing you know, I just know that, so it was really interesting kind of taking a step back and thinking.[00:09:00]
That makes sense. And even when I'm speaking to, school principals now and I'm speaking to teachers, it's, there's a common pattern that is coming up in each, developmental stage. So yeah.
Kristi: You talked about risk. Taking behaviors and with social media and stuff like that.
So how did that look for you? Like I can imagine, you know, I didn't grow up with social media. We, I feel lucky that I didn't grow up with social media and I remind parents all the time, you know, like we need to stop. Being angry at our kids for doing things like taking risks online, because you know what we did we did stupid shit all the time, but we just didn't have a phone that recorded it or we couldn't share it online.
There's no there's no evidence of what we did in our in our teenage years, but we did stupid shit. So, what's your experience with, some of that risk taking behavior like. I
Maddie: think, I think my risk taking behavior is probably more kind of going down the party end to be completely honest with you, but in that same note is that [00:10:00] I would then connect with people online.
I would connect with people on Facebook Messenger, I would connect with people on Instagram but you don't really know these people and then we would jump on something called Omegle and we would be You know, on this video site, and we would be seeing things that we should not have been seeing at that age.
And we would be speaking to, we would just be wanting to connect with people and you'd be speaking to randoms online.
Kristi: Complete strangers. Yeah. So for any parents listening who haven't heard of Omegle, Omegle is a video chat app or website that basically one half of the screen is you and the other half of the screen is a random person.
And the actual catch line is talk to strangers. And it's quite common even today for teenagers and young people as young as 10, 11, 12 to go on a meagle. And it is a pedophiles. Playground basically, would you
Maddie: call it that? Absolutely. I would, I think I saw, I saw too many things that shouldn't have been on there.
And it [00:11:00] was something that like you would be, you know, you're, you're hanging out at your friend's house and you're, you're having a sleepover and you're wanting to do something really fun. And you're locked in your room with , I mean, you're not looking at me, but you're in your room with your friend and you're on the computer and you're suddenly.
You know, generating new people to talk to. And then you're seeing a man with his pants down. He's asking how old you are. And you think it's so funny. It's so much fun. But the issue is that this is where if, if you think about it, we've got to think of the protective factors. If you are with, for someone that has social support around them.
Compared to someone who is completely isolated and is looking to connect with someone because they need help and then they connect with someone like this, that is a recipe for someone to obviously with grooming. And I think that they can then obviously say, Oh, like, you know, we can talk, we can talk about it.
Where do you live? I can be your friend. That is a big issue. And so I think of it and I think that there was all the fact that There was just like not really a care in the world from, from our end at that [00:12:00] age, that younger age, because it was like this whole new world of meeting new people, you know, it was just like, let's just have fun and obviously from a developmental perspective, risk taking behaviors is something that, a lot of, teenagers engage with.
But I think that it's really important to be really aware of what that looks like and understanding what it is like from someone who is in that because we thought sort of fun and funny and we would laugh about it. And that was what it looked like. But in reality, I just genuinely can't believe that I that.
Me or my friends ever even got onto that website because then, you know, they would send you other links and they would, you know, try and get information from you. And when we, when they try and get information, when they tried to get information from us, we would click out. But again, like what I said, when we're looking at the protective factors for these types of things.
It's thinking about the ones that potentially don't have that social network or social support and they're looking for someone to, to speak to, or to help them. That's, [00:13:00] that is, yeah, that's basically what the
Kristi: experience was. Yeah. And in, in a lot of cases, they're asking for their snap or their Instagram.
They want to know where they can connect with them, can stay connected with them. You know, like if you have a young person that has, like you said, no social support is. is struggling, is looking for someone or looking for something to make them feel better and they're not getting that at home and they're on something like Omegle, then this is where that it opens the gateway for people to exploit
Maddie: children.
Absolutely. It is. And I think as well, you know, I use Snapchat when I was about, I'm going to say like 15 and I probably stopped using it after high school. So probably for a couple of years. But I know that again, Snapchat is still extremely popular. There is no Thank you. You know, it's, you know, you've got snap streaks, which is, you know, your friends but anyone can add you and anyone can take screenshots but also at the same time, if you need evidence, [00:14:00] things are deleted and people are just wanting, you know, when we think about this from a, from a safety perspective it's very easy to hide behind a hide behind an account, someone can make out That they, that they are someone, but the one thing that came up in a conversation a couple of weeks ago was the discussion of tick tock because obviously tick tock also, you know, it's kind of not, I'm not going to say it's similar to Omegle, but as in, you've got rent, you know, popping up on your for you page all the time and.
I was chatting to this mom and she was talking to me about how her daughter and her friends are about the 13, 14 year old, and they do like outfit of the days and they do, you know, they film it at the local shopping center. And what I brought up to her is I said, it's really important that number one, you're really aware of like, they are really aware of the geotagging, but I know that there's this idea of wanting to be an wanting to be, you know, getting free clothes and this other side.
However, you don't know if someone is going to, from TikTok or any other [00:15:00] account is going to find who else is tagged in that they know your location, they then see your Snapchat, you know, account username, Instagram bio, and suddenly you think you're talking to a friend. And that is the biggest issue is that there is everything that is so interconnected because so many accounts are find me here, find me on YouTube, find me on TikTok, find me on Instagram.
There's all this kind of going on. And it's, again, it's just so important to recognize that you just do not know who is behind these accounts. Have random people adding you. Yeah.
Kristi: And I, I mean, I do talk about this and I do share. if anything, if your child has social media, please ensure that they don't have their Snapchat and their Instagram and their TikTok so that they can follow them further.
If it's a real friend, a true friend who knows you in real life, then you're going to be able to share that information with them and they'll be able to find you on those apps. But if you have in your bio, your TikTok tag or your Snapchat[00:16:00] name or whatever in there, then, you know, that's just giving someone who doesn't know you a predator free access to find you.
And, you know, you might, might not share stuff. You might be very careful on TikTok to not share your location and your information, or you might be really careful over an Instagram, but you'd not, You might be not so careful on Snapchat. And then this friend or person has followed you from one to the other.
Yeah. I share that all the time. I guess the thing is, is that you've grown up with this and you've actually seen the worst of what can happen and you've reflected and you've gone, Hey, well, like some of this stuff was really actually not safe, but you had a really bad incident
Maddie: about. A few years ago.
Yeah, I've actually had a few experiences. So I'm, from the Shire in Sydney. And so when I left high school, I guess what I think about my Instagram account, everyone that I'd followed on there was from the local area. So. It was some local area.
You go to parties, all of that. And then I [00:17:00] started a business in the Shire as well. And so what had happened is I had, you know, developed a public account, and this was where my place of business was, you, I did exactly what you said, just not to do. There was find me on this page, find me on this page, but you're running a business, right?
That's what we see with a lot of local business owners. And we think about, you know, young entrepreneurs that are developing their business, we're like, okay, go, well, this is where you can find me. However, I remember that what had happened is over a couple of times, there was one incident where I was, you know, I was kind of underneath the car park at at the place that I worked at and what they had done is they, they kind of admitted it a bit later, but.
esSentially they kind of had waited for me underneath the car park and they had realized I'd held a workshop from like 6 to 9 because I'd advertised that I had an event at this location and they followed me on Instagram and they were just kind of like waiting for me to finish because they really wanted to talk to me.
And obviously I was really spooked out, but this was all the way back in 2018, 2019. And [00:18:00] then there's been a couple of other instances where I would be walking out in the city and I would get a message saying, I've just, you know, was this you crossing a road here? I just saw you, et cetera, et cetera.
Now, it's okay when it's a friend that, you know, I just, you know, I just, just drove past you, hope you, you know, hope you're having a great day, but the issue is that every single person that has messaged me on this. I don't know who they are. Some of them don't even follow me. And some of them don't even have a picture in, in their display, you know, in their display icon.
Kristi: So what you're talking about is you've got people that don't know you who either have seen your posts or followed you or whatever. And this person who, who was waiting for you in a car park was someone who was following you on your Instagram and knew that you were holding a workshop, et cetera.
Maddie: Yes, and it finished at nine o'clock.
How fucking scary is that? Very scary and obviously this really spooked me out as well because you know, they had approached me and they talked to me and I didn't know who they were, but they knew a lot about me. [00:19:00] And obviously, , the discussion about when you have a public account, people are going to know about, the events that you do.
And I totally get that. However, why it spooked me was because they knew so much about me based off the fact that they had been actually, they'd been following me for a very long time. And that was when it really kind of like, I was like, Oh, that's a bit weird, but I guess I'm running a business. So, and I just really kind of invalidated it because I was like, Oh, I guess.
You know, that's really strange, but then other situations had happened, you know, actually quite recently even when I was in Melbourne and I was in, a different state that also happened to me when someone recognized me from Tik TOK and they were like, Oh, is this your local coffee shop?
We should get coffee sometime. And I guess from one side, I see, like, I love connecting with people. I'm a social butterfly. I would love to get coffee with everyone. But at the same time, been really aware of, you know, unfortunately we do have to be very well aware of our safety. I'm, you know, I'm 26 and I'm very self sufficient [00:20:00] and street smart, but if we kind of put it into a bit of a different context and think about the young ones that are putting out their their TikToks and they're all about social media and they start talking to someone online, you just don't know.
You know, even people that don't even may not even follow you and you may be on a public account. You just don't know who's watching and as well, like I have, you know, I think those, when I was actually a bit younger, I had someone follow me from the gym and I had to like, basically like followed me back and to like my house and I remember I'd boarded up with my friends and this person drove a yellow car and I remember it would just, yeah.
It's always just, I think about this yellow car and I think it's just really important to recognize that like, although social media has its great benefits and know for advocacy and connecting with people and connecting with long distance family members or friends that live in another state, it's great to stay connected with them, but really be aware of the other side that can happen because you just, you don't really know people's intentions.
People can turn on you like that. Yeah.
Kristi: Yeah, [00:21:00] totally. Totally. And I mean, you know, I guess. We, it, it raises the question or raises the thoughts. Okay, what should we be sharing online? And how much should we be sharing of our lives and our children's lives online? Like we've had conversations about parenting, you know, over parent, over sharing our parenting journeys and sharing too much about our kids, because I guess we've got to remember that.
Every time we share a photo, every time we share a video, every time we share anything online, like something look something up on Google, those apps are sharing it between themselves. And once we post something online, we no longer have the intellectual property rights over it.
It belongs to Snapchat, Tik TOK. Facebook, Meta, whatever you want to call it, we no longer own them. And a lot of people don't realize that the minute you hit, I agree when you joined the app, you gave away all your rights to all of every thought, everything you write, everything you say, everything you like, [00:22:00] everything you post, you gave away those rights.
anD a lot of people don't realize that. So anyone listening, like have a think about how much actual power you're giving away to this free social media app. And the reason why it's free is because they're mining out information, using our information. I had someone post the other day is, Facebook listening to me.
Because they had an ad that was targeted towards something. And I said, yes, they are. If you're, if you have your phone open on scrolling and you're talking to your spouse or you're talking to your friend and you're talking about, Hey, I need to go and buy some cat food or Hey I look up flights to Greece, for instance, which I do all the time.
I look up flights for things. You know, it's going to then target retarget ads to you straight away. Even Google talks to Meta. So. You know, everything we do and everything we post is no longer ours, but in the sense of you're just speaking, like if you've got a, if you're posting pictures of your kids online [00:23:00] and you're not doing it carefully and you're not taking care of who's a friend and who isn't, you mentioned earlier that, you added people that you didn't even really know.
Yeah,
Maddie: I'm still removing people to this day because my Instagram blew up really quickly. And it's kind of, you think about when you're running an organization or you're running a business or you're wanting to advocate a certain message. We think of a lot of politicians or, , it's kind of, like build a brand and get the message out there. Then there's the other side, which is like, Oh, hold on a second. All these people are going to know so much about me, but I think, you know, what I kind of see in the, in, in the media a lot of the time is we've got, there's a lot of celebrities that refuse to post their kids online.
And I, and there's, you know, there's the argument of we don't want people knowing what our kids look like. There's the other argument, which is, they haven't consented to us posting about them online
Kristi: or chosen or chosen to be famous. We are famous. They're not like, it's a choice and you know, you got to think about it from that perspective.
[00:24:00] Like if you're, it doesn't matter that you're not a celebrity, you're still sharing.
Maddie: Absolutely. And, you know, obviously with the discussion of AI obviously something came out a couple of weeks ago where they had used an AI photo of a child and they generated exploitive content with an AI generator.
And I think, to be honest with you, like if I had a kid, I wouldn't be posting them online because I think that, you know, the further that you understand how the web works and you understand all of that it's really scary is really scary. And you know, I, I can sit here and I can.
Say that I have chosen to upload certain things online and I am consenting to my own you know, my images and everything that I'm putting out there on my own. But again, when we're thinking about child safety, we're thinking about who we're sharing it to. I think that, you know, if you're super private and you've only got, you know, family members on there, I don't think there is an issue.
It's just more, again, I'm thinking the people that are my age that I have gone to parties with and [00:25:00] I've known them from like. Year nine, year 10, and I probably haven't spoken to them in six years, it's when they're getting, they're getting to that stage now where all they've known is, is share their, you know, their social media and they're putting up, images of their new born child.
In, you know, really cute outfits. And of course it's like, Oh, if I know this person personally, it's so cute to see, it's great to say, but when I, the other day, when I saw, you know, this, this girl that I haven't even met before posts up her child in a school uniform, it's things like that, that, you know, when they can identify what school they go to, what their name is. I'm sitting here and I'm thinking, I hope that there is not someone, you know, out there that is following this person that would take advantage of that image or that information that she's sharing. Yeah, because
Kristi: we don't know who's got... You know, who's attracted to children. I did an online workshop for some teachers and for a school last night.
And, you know, one of the things that I kept [00:26:00] saying to them is we can't, there's no one look, there's no one smell. There's no one identity of a person who's attracted to children or a person who has nefarious thoughts about young people, or, you know, it's quite. Scary when you work in the spaces we work in and you've dealt with the things we've dealt with that you start to really question I stopped posting pictures of my daughter without her consent about three or four years ago. I actually regret some of the posting that I did when she was younger because, she was so little and she didn't actually have a choice. And I just used to post because I was proud. I was a proud mom. But About three or four years ago, I just went, you know what? This is wrong. Like posting pictures of my child without her choosing to have those posted, you know, they're my friends, not her friends.
It's my choice, not her choice. And. Anything I post now is with her consent she's nearly 16 now, but I say, Hey, is it okay if I post this photo? And I get her to have a look at it. [00:27:00] And you know, one of the things that I ask parents when I talk about this stuff is who are you posting those photos for?
Is it because you want the world to see them? Or is it because what is more important to you? So, like, I guess, you know, and it's not, I'm not here and I know you're not here shaming anyone, we just want you to be really, really careful about what you do, with your child's images because they are being used by people and a couple of podcasts ago I think Jessica from ClickSafe Intelligence, she goes onto the dark web and she scrapes it for information about how pedophiles and predators are preying on children.
And she's using that information to be able to educate people. And one of the things she said is, is that they are actually using kids photos. As material for them, you know, they don't actually need to go looking for child exploitation material or child sexual abuse material because, and she openly states [00:28:00] this because they say parents are willing to post their kids online and that is enough.
Maddie: Yeah, absolutely I fell into this rabbit hole not too long ago, but. Basically, if you look up young girls or you know, young boys on Instagram, you go to the explore page, you're gonna find a lot of pages of, infants, toddlers very young children and all you have, you read the comments and it is horrific.
It's disgusting. You've got accounts obviously, yeah, from predators commenting things that are basically, like, you know, reinforcing that they are attracted
Kristi: to this. Sexualizing those images, yeah, I know. It's vomit worthy. It's vomit worthy. And this is why we're talking about this today.
So personally, you've like had it all mate. You've had it all. but you know, this is beautiful that you're actually sharing your experience because we want parents to know, I want people to know that we've got to learn from the mistakes we've made. We've got to learn from it.
Otherwise we're not going [00:29:00] to do better. Once you know better, you can do better. So you've been stalked, cyber bullying, probably I'd imagine in your childhood. I
Maddie: think. I don't think I got cyberbullied I think it was more the fact that I used social media as an outlet to I guess to validate myself.
And I think that we see, yeah, and I think that we, if we think about that, right, we think about, think about this, this in this context is that if you are a child that is. You know, seeking that validation and you're seeking, you know, connection and belonging social media is a very easy way to, to fulfill that need.
And the issue is that we're seeing the glamorization of being TikTok famous or being, you know, an influencer. And we're seeing a lot of this, we're seeing. You know, advertisements for young women to be on OnlyFans, we're seeing a lot of this targeted kind of like glamorization of what your world could look like if you were an [00:30:00] influencer.
And I think it's, again, really important , being able to have, , a comprehensive education for social and emotional skills to not only help them navigate adverse childhood experiences. Experiences or, you know, something that, you know, was out of their control, but also to be able to have that self awareness to be able to think, okay, hold on a second.
What is my, what am I doing right now? Am I posting again? Like what you said, am I posting to, I guess validate my self esteem and to show, you know, to, to, to get likes, to, to make sure that I feel like I'm worthy and, you know, XYZ. Or, you know, what is my purpose here? Because I think again, it's very easy to kind of, again, go down a rabbit hole of seeking, certain types of feelings through social media.
And that's why I think it's really understand that because again, I've spoken to a high school. And we're talking about one of the cohorts and the teacher was saying to me, you know, really big issue and a conversation is about [00:31:00] Instagram, self esteem, body image popularity, a lot of this kind of stuff revolves around social media.
Someone's unfollowing someone, someone's blocking someone. All of this. And again, we can see how then that's coming back to impact them in a school setting and in their general social circles. So I just think, you know, as much as I've had at all, I've, you know, I've experienced some aspects, but I also think that there's another side as well.
That if we kind of think, you know, I grew up with social media and I have been social media savvy since I was younger, but these experiences still happen to me. And I think that is. And that is so important because the parents that may not have grown up with social media, they may feel like, Oh, I don't understand it.
Like my mom, you know, we'll come across these ads on Facebook and I'm like, no mom, that's a scam. And she's like, no, but you know, it's a, it's a pretty dress and like, mom, that's from wish. com. We're not buying that. Though I am savvy and I, and I can, I can see how it works, it's still happened to me.
And I think that is something that I really want to get across is that it's really [00:32:00] important that there is opportunity for open conversation with your kids. And that, you know, again, we create safe spaces to talk about these things so social media or the online world doesn't become the outlet to fulfill that need.
Kristi: Yeah. And, and having curious conversations like, you know, You might not understand it, but sitting down with your, or sitting in the car with your young person going somewhere or watching, you know, sex education on a, on a Friday night with your young person, because every parent should be watching that with their kids, because it's going to open up your world and open up their world to, the actual issues they're dealing with.
But anyways sitting on the couch, watching a show and just curiously ask them what's happening. And why, and, and ask them to explain things to you. Like, you know, if you don't understand it, you need them to, and be open to hearing and not shutting down and not saying, Oh, that's stupid.
Because our young people are dying to connect with
Maddie: us. Absolutely. [00:33:00] They are. And I think as well, you know, it's especially if they're not sure how to connect, being able to create opportunities that maybe it's not so much that it's a sit down one on one talk.
Maybe it's doing an activity together. Maybe it's, you know, That opportunity to bring, you know, not so much bringing up and addressing something because if, you know, if the, if the child is feeling very overwhelmed about it, and maybe they have a tendency to shut down, they're more likely to shut it out, but maybe it's bringing up something related.
To what that is, or maybe it's about bringing it, reinforcing it back to it. You know, if the discussion of, body image and discussion of , self esteem is if we've got, parents that, you know, shame their own bodies right in front of their child, then it kind of just, you know, it's being able to just make sure that.
You know, what is it that we are, you know, how are we talking to ourselves? What are we doing? How are we then modeling this behavior for our kids and being able to kind of say, like, you know, if you want to address something, [00:34:00] finding other ways, potentially, if the child is more likely to shut down and dismiss it, finding other ways to connect with your kids can be a great way just by doing activities together or doing something that maybe you can connect with to really create that bond and that may be a foundational level of, of that safe space.
Kristi: Yeah, I used to play Roblox with my daughter when she was into Roblox, just to, you know, even just for half an hour, 45 minutes, I was useless at it and I hated it, but just to connect with her and, you know, and sometimes you, this is a quote from another podcast interview that I had last week, go in the side door and talk about their friends and what they're doing.
You know, like the side door was what Mike Dyson said, he goes, you know, if you don't want to, if you can't go in the front door, go in the side door and talk about what their friends are doing, and they're more likely to open up and, and share the experiences that they're seeing around them, which is their experience as well.
So, you know I just wanted to touch on the adverse child experiences because. I [00:35:00] don't reckon a lot of people, like, when I talk about the Australian child maltreatment study, everyone just has a blank face. Like, no one knows about it. But in our world, that is like the biggest thing that we've seen in forever.
Adverse child experiences, just explain that one. Cause you've used that term a couple of times.
Maddie: Of course, so adverse childhood experiences they can be referred to, yeah, an experience that can be seen as traumatic to the individual throughout their childhood. So an example of an adverse childhood experience could be you know, a death of a parent, separation, it could be a natural disaster, it could be a family member or a sibling getting you know, having a terminal illness.
You know, it could be a, an accident, it could be, you know, anything. Domestic
Kristi: violence. You know, witnessing domestic violence. I mean, some of the adverse childhood experiences that we generally work with is like physical, sexual abuse and neglect. We see a lot of that stuff. And then obviously, you know, witnessing [00:36:00] domestic violence and, and like the ones that you just stated, like they're all.
They're all experiences that can have adverse effects on a young person's development and growth and their and it can affect them for their lifetime. Is that right? Yes. So it was
Maddie: really interesting. The study that you, I had actually, I don't know if you attended the, the study, the study you know, webinar that they did with Griffith University.
But I remember when I attended the Griffith University webinar, it was talking about, They basically looked at you know, if it, if a child had experienced a specific type of adverse childhood experiences, what, you know, what they also saw, you know, years after that. So the experiences for a child that was That was sexually abused as a child.
That's when they kind of looked further into the perpetration of you know, sexual violence. And then they looked at into different types of adverse childhood experiences and what the behaviors that were kind of seen later on in life. [00:37:00] And I think that, you know, when I did. I proposed a psychoeducational framework for Australian schools back actually last year for mental, for the mental health day.
And I had spoken to parents and I had spoken to teachers and I'd also spoken to students to just kind of get everyone engaged on the conversation to say, Hey, what is needed? Basically, they had all kind of come back and said that when it comes to adverse childhood experiences, like what I had experienced in year seven, that was, you know, beyond my control, it just completely disrupted me.
That there, you know, there was, there was a lack of the schools weren't prepared to handle these adverse childhood experiences. And I think it's really important to really understand that there are a lot of kids that would fly under the radar. When it comes to these types of experiences, they can easily disassociate.
They can easily just not even think about it. You know, again, like kids are very resilient. But it's then, you know, we're seeing all these, you see behavior things coming in that, you know, the kid [00:38:00] that is, you know, always sent out a class and all this kind of, you know, discussions about child, you know, classroom behavior.
But, we're kind of thinking about adverse childhood experiences, it's really important to, I would highly recommend whether you want to read the study or whether you want to read something about it start to learn about what adverse childhood experiences are, what they look like.
like and what the impacts are of them. Because again, if something is happening outside, if something happens to your child, let's say that they grew up abused somewhere else being able to understand what the impacts are and obviously what, their behavior may look like.
So in worst circumstance possible, you understand what needs to be done because we see on the media, that someone's now been charged because they were sexually abusing kids in a, in a swimming pool or, all these things are kind of coming out and yet, you know, In in that circumstance, as you would see you know, in your work, behavior is is severely impacted.
So I think when it comes to the discussion of adverse childhood experiences, read up on it, [00:39:00] understand it, what does that look like? And even in the circumstance where it's a different Thank you. type of adverse childhood experience, knowing how you can navigate that for not only yourself, but being able to navigate that and be you know, and, and, and seek support for your child.
I
Kristi: think more so, I think the more we understand about, you know, generations have gone by where we've just ignored. All of these things and, wars have happened and are happening and we are ignoring that and thinking, well, that's not happening to me, but everything in our world is, is affecting us, and, you know, even, even a young child saying pornography that they didn't intend to say could be considered an adverse childhood experience because, you know, it's something that was out of their control and they didn't, you know, they didn't understand it, but we support.
With support, then you can turn that around and you can make that not as, you know, as a bigger thing for them. And this is what [00:40:00] you're basically saying is that, you know, if you know what they are and you can support your child or support yourself through it, because we've all been through adverse childhood experiences, all of us.
I can't see how we could get through life without them, but we know what they are, we, and we understand what they are, we can then go and get the support or we can actually, you know, label it and then hopefully move on. Oh, that's why I do that. You know, that's why I flip my lid when my kid does this, like just simple things, right.
Maddie: Yeah. And I think just having the education around it, then that way, then again, you might have a child and maybe something happens being able to know what it is and then be able to kind of have that confidence to navigate, okay, because this has happened, we need to reach out to a psychologist, we need to reach out to a social, this is who we need to contact because I think that when throughout these experiences, Okay.
I think a lot of people may not know what to do next because they don't even know how to deal with it just internally [00:41:00] themselves. And that's when kids can feel isolated and then that's when other things, you know, start to happen.
Kristi: Yeah, I. I totally agree. And one of the questions I get all the time is how can we help, how can we stop child sexual abuse?
I mean, obviously my main focus, my main aim is on child sexual abuse and obviously online and in person, but how can we stop it? You know, how, how, what, what's the answer to these questions? And it was only recently, like in this last six to 12 months, cause I had no, I had no idea. Like I knew, I know that we can prevent it.
I know that through, you know, protective behaviors and talking about it and awareness and all of this stuff, all the stuff that I'm doing, you're doing, you know, we can prevent it. But someone said to me, how do we stop it? And I said, and it only just came to me is that if we can help parents be better parents.
And we can help them heal from their own traumas so that they can't bleed it onto their kids and then their kids don't bleed it onto it, it will literally slow it down if we had more [00:42:00] parental support and parental help and we, we identified what we needed, we got the help, then we're going to be better parents, we're going to have better childhood experiences, it's a flow on
Maddie: effect, right?
Absolutely. And I also agree kind of based on that as well is, you know, I guess that's kind of like why I do what I do. I think that if we can equip, children with the essential social, emotional skill set, and they know how to effectively communicate, they know how to identify when something's wrong.
They know how to regulate their emotions. You know, I think that that kind of goes hand in hand with what you're saying and your mission as well, because, you know, I think that, yeah. Every just again, every single child deserves a safe environment internally and externally. And I think it's devastating the work that you've witnessed, you know, during your workspace.
And I think that if we can just help 1 parent, we can help 1 person. That's 1 more person that you know, we can, we can do to make that change. Yeah, totally.
Kristi: Well, I've got one more question for you, and I didn't pre prep you with this question. It's a question I [00:43:00] ask all my podcast interviewees, and sometimes I give them a heads up, but I forgot.
So my question is, when I was writing my book, I used to think if parents knew what I knew, they would do things differently, right? And what is one thing that you want parents to know? So that they can do things differently. If they knew it, it would change their child's lives.
I
Maddie: would have, I'm going to have two, I'm going to have two things. Welcome to the social media thing. First things first, I think that it's really important that you think about what you're posting. Really important. Think about what you're posting and just, just be aware of maybe, what your kid is posting as well.
If they have their own social media account who they're following, just have that open, honest conversation about it. Because, we might think they know that there's so much, learning to do with social media, but kids growing up with technology are extremely [00:44:00] savvy.
So I think it's just, you know, having that open space to talk about social media and the safety around it, so important and being really engaged with that. And just being able to have, you know, that safe space for kids to be able to reach out to you and say, Hey, I've had this random person out of me online. Do you know this person? They're saying they're a friend of yours. Just being able to have the safe space for open conversations is really important. And my second tip would be that it's, it's really important that. You create a, connection that, you know, if, if you find that your child is, starting to act out or they're having, you know, their, their behavior is starting to change instead of shaming them and telling them that they're a bad kid and saying things that might isolate them.
Just be aware that there could be other things that are going on and that's a very vital, I guess, timeline in the sense of being able to come in and for them to open up to you because things would be happening at school, [00:45:00] something could have happened you know, Online, something could have happened and I think that where, where, what I listen to when I speak to parents is parents obviously get frustrated that their kid is now having these meltdowns and they, you know, they're acting out and, and there's all these big behavioral changes, but.
If we can take a step back for one moment and think, okay, what is happening underneath, something else could be happening. So instead of shaming them, create a safe space for them to actually talk to you. So important because if something has happened, it's really important that they have that connection with you just so whether it's reaching out to the school or whether it's reaching out to actually other support.
Really important because so many kids then become isolated and then they seek that connection through somewhere else, which can be seen online. Yeah,
Kristi: I'll, I'll add to that. I, you know, I've been triggered. It's very triggering when your kids are acting out behaviorally and, you know, and sometimes we just act how [00:46:00] our parents acted, right.
We just snap how our parents would have snapped but I don't think any parent wants to be that parent. Especially if you're listening to this podcast, you're not a horrible person, , you're going through your own shit, and also if you do say something that you regret or you're not okay, like you, you know, that's damaging or, , might actually, have done harm, just go and apologize and say, look, I'm responsible for my feelings and what I do, you're responsible for you, how I acted was really badly, I shouldn't have reacted like that, what's going on. I think, just owning up to when we do act like , when we do react I think that can solve a lot of issues as well, even when in the moment I've got a fairly reactive teenager and she's been going through hell last few years and, you know, I haven't always acted in the best ways.
But the one thing that I've always maintained is that as long as we go back and we repair. We can turn around that thing and then, when you're being vulnerable and sharing that you're not coping very well, then that gives them an opportunity to be vulnerable and share as well.
So
Maddie: I think it [00:47:00] shows that it's okay to not be okay. And I think that think about the stigma surrounding mental health or talk about feelings like, you know, you. I think a lot of parents have this big high expectation about, being a superhero parent all the time, but you know, you're navigating being a parent, you know, that is already And a human.
Exactly. Exactly. You know, you both are human. Yourself, your partner, your child, you're all human. And I think it's really important to think about that the entire time.
Kristi: Yeah. Well, it's, it's a, mate, you haven't got kids yet, but it's fricking
Maddie: hard. I don't. I have a cat and that she stresses me out enough. I see her and I'm like, she's screaming.
And I'm like, Oh my gosh, I can't imagine what it was like to be my mother. Like that. My cat stresses me out. If she doesn't need to come back by a certain time. I'm like, this is, this is a lot. I, this is,
Kristi: yeah. Yeah. Don't have kids. If you're worried about a cat. Oh my goodness. I will yeah, just [00:48:00] share where people can follow you or what we've just talked about.
Don't follow people, random strangers, but Maddie is, is changing the conversation. So she's over in New South Wales and she's going into schools and maybe someone listening from New South Wales might want to engage you from a school. So tell them about that. Yeah, of
Maddie: course. Yeah. So changes conversation.
That's my organization and we want to create change through social and emotional wellbeing and create social change when it comes to these social issues. So you can follow me changing the conversation on Instagram with a double N at the end. And yeah, we provide workshops from K to 12 you know, surrounding.
All different areas when it comes to friendships, emotional regulation, bullying, life after high school, we do leadership. You know, we do relationships. There's a lot of different areas within this and they are developed by psychologists. So have different lesson outline plans for each grade and each stage.
So yeah, you can follow me on there [00:49:00] and yeah, if any teachers or anyone wants to see a website. You got a website? It's under development at the moment.
Kristi: So soon, soon to be
Maddie: released. It will be www. changingtheconversation. com. au, but it's under development. So we've got an Instagram page at the moment.
Yeah,
Kristi: cool. No, it's, it's like that when you start a business, it's very time consuming. And you're still studying and you're still doing all the things and you're out in the community. Like at 26 years old, you've got a lot happening. So I don't blame you for the fact that it's still under development.
Maddie: Thank you. Yeah, no, it's gonna be very fun. And we've got you know, workshop facilitators that are, that are joining the team. And so I think it's going to be a really fun you know, funny. Year of making a making a difference to these students world. I'm excited
Kristi: for you Maddie. So thank you so much for being on my podcast.
And let's keep having these conversations.
Maddie: I agree. I love it. Thank you so much for having me and yeah, I'm excited to see [00:50:00] what's the next step for you. Oh
Kristi: yeah. Well, you'll never know. Well, you will when that comes out.
Thank you for listening to this podcast episode. Education empowers children and empowers parents and education prevents abuse. That is why I'm here and that is why you are here. So thank you. If you want any further information or support, follow me on social media, either under Christy McPhee. KAU social media accounts.
I'll put the links in the show notes. You can also purchase a signed copy of my book Operation Kids Safe via the [email protected]. Also, on my website is a free ebook titled 10 Tips to Keep Your Kids Safe from Abuse. and self paced courses for parents to help you in your journey of child abuse prevention.
Don't forget to join our free Facebook group called Operation KidSafe Parenting Group. [00:51:00] Please see the show notes for any extra information, links and help should you be looking for extra support. Thank you once again for giving a shit about preventing child sexual abuse. See you next time.
