Shannon Miller
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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 learned, 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 CAPE podcast, the Child Abuse Prevention and Education podcast. I'm really excited to have a, I'm sure [00:01:00] it's going to be a very interesting conversation today with Shannon Miller. Shannon and I haven't met in person as most of my guests because there's, it's just such a big Australia and a big world that when we connect on similar topics and we.
Find each other in the in LinkedIn and in Instagram. We just become advocates together and, and yeah. So Shannon put his hand up to come onto the podcast today and talk about visibility visibility of young people, children, child protection and family violence and the, and our you know, Children's visibility in regards to that.
And I'll let Shannon explain a bit more about that. But Shannon's from the center against violence in Victoria or in Australia, and has a very unique opinions and thoughts on a lot of things. And I think I, like I said to Shannon before I press record, I'm really excited to see where this conversation goes.
So Shannon, thank you for being here. And yeah, I can't wait to hear what you have to [00:02:00] say about all of this stuff and, and to, I think I'm going to get an education here. So, so Shannon, do, do my listeners a favor and explain to them a bit about yourself and your history and stuff like that.
Shannon: Yeah, sure. My name's Shannon.
I work at Center Against Violence. And And I, yeah, I've been doing, I guess I've been doing this work for, for quite some time, about 12 years now. Yeah, my background started in as a, in alcohol and drug work and working with high risk adolescents. And then sort of from there went into the child protection for yeah, almost a decade.
And then, yeah, in that time sort of developed my, my understanding of family violence. And then that's become, I guess. I'll say a vocation of, of addressing family violence and, and trying to put the, put the message out there, you know, what it is, who it's affecting and, and to break down some of those misconceptions.
So I try and go on as far as social media goes, and then, yeah, in my, in my professional role, I am disability and family violence practice leader in our area And I work close with, you know, the Orange Doors, Child Protection, other family violence services.
Kristi: [00:03:00] Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, there's a big spotlight on family violence right now.
Big spotlight.
Shannon: Absolutely. It's the spotlight's dimmed a little bit over the last few months, but yeah, it's still there.
Kristi: I don't think it's going to go away. You know, when I was in, and I was just thinking about this before we jumped on the call. When I was a police officer and I was first being taught about family violence and you know, going out into the, the world and, you know, obviously being a police officer who was dealing with family violence, it was the number one thing I was called out for as a, as a first responder, the number one thing.
And then second to that is I don't think we had enough training in family violence.
Shannon: Yeah, absolutely. It's certainly my time. Obviously, I was I'll say very present in the Luke Batty case. So yeah, I guess I'm happy to pass on. You know, I was actually part of the child protection team that investigated the case.
[00:04:00] Like, Betty Ann worked with Rosie in that, in that time. That's when I was starting my time in child protection. You know, past that we had the Royal Commission on Family Violence. We had a huge push for family violence within child protection and where we had, you know, specific family violence scenes within child protection and, you know, four weeks in, they, we just sort of sat back and were like, This is a complete waste of time.
Every case is family violence. Like we couldn't, we couldn't narrow down families to go that team because every single case of family violence, every single and every single case of, I guess, the maltreatment abuse of children, it really had family violence as the underlying issue.
Kristi: Yeah, and it is, it is.
Family violence is, you know, it doesn't matter if it's a little bit or a lot, it's, it's, you know, we, I, I, I don't know about you, Shannon, but I sit and contemplate a lot. I'm a very big thinker. My brain is very busy and You know, I contemplate what it takes to be a good parent, right? Cause I'm here to tell parents become, you know, protect their kids, but it also [00:05:00] requires us to look inside ourselves and go, you know, what is it that will make, what is it that we need to do to be the best parent we can be?
And, you know, we get it right. Sometimes we get it wrong sometimes. And I definitely have in my own parenting journey, but one of the things that I have realized over the last, you know, my daughter's 16 now over the 16 years, she's been around. Is that you can't be a good parent unless you deal with your own shit.
Unless you like get real with yourself, take accountability, be responsible for what you, what you're doing inside of what you are allowing, et cetera. And yeah, and that's been, and that's tough for some people to do. And so, you know, when it comes to family violence, you know, we all have a choice to make, to make sure that we are as healed as possible.
And I, that's just my little rant and tangent there because, you know, we all have the, we all have it in us to, to do that, you know, bad things to kids, bad things to pay other people, bad things to our partners, [00:06:00] et cetera. We all have it in us, but we make a choice every day.
Shannon: That's it. I mean, we're the children's biggest teachers, aren't we?
And I guess, yeah, it sort of comes back to that, you know, you can't tell an adolescent to spend too much time on your phone while you're scrolling through your LinkedIn profile. And the same goes for, I guess, like, addressing those gender roles and family violence with your children. Like, we can't be telling, you know, predominantly young boys, you need to do this, you need to do that, you need to do this, while we're doing the complete opposite.
They role model what they see. And, you know, and the conversation I have all the time is, you know, we, you know, we, the media will, will, will crack onto the most serious cases of family violence, the femicides, the, you know, the, the classic monster stories and all this, but they're I mean, they're not, they're not born in the lab.
We've created these, these people in society through the way that we interact, what we teach them, what we teach boys that are important, what we idolize as being an ideal male and, and masculine and all that.
Kristi: Yeah.
Shannon: Yeah. And [00:07:00] everything, every, everything we, we're doing with them is a teaching point from, from the moment they're in this world to adolescence, they're adults.
Kristi: Yeah. And I had that realisation really early on when my daughter was about three weeks old. I had that realisation, I don't know, like it was late at night, I was feeding her in the middle of the night and I had two realisations. One, I was never going to be alone again, and two that, you know, How do I help this little baby become a confident you know, Good, you know, human, like how do I help her get from, you know, this baby to a really good, decent human that's contributes to society and gives back to the community.
And she's confident and strong and she, and all of this, right. And I had that realization when she was three years old. So everything I've been doing since, and then obviously I don't know if you know my story, but I became a police officer when she was two and et cetera. And so then that even became more paramount because I [00:08:00] saw what happened if we.
A, weren't present parents. B, didn't protect them. C, you know, we we allowed, you know, what influences they have and who's around them and what I did and my, you know, what I'm sharing and showing to her, like you said, modeling. But yeah, it's just, Parenting's, not ha, not easy. But we need to think about it a lot more than we do.
So with regards to your role and, and your experience, I mean, you, I would say you're an expert in this field. What is it that you are what is it that you are seeing? I mean, you, we are, we are here to talk about, you know, children's visibility because, and before we started, I've mentioned that I don't think there's enough.
We don't give children enough credibility. We don't give them enough. We don't take them into account enough in a lot of this stuff. We don't think about them a lot of the time. So what is your, what's your thoughts, what's your experience and what do you want people to know about that?
Shannon: Yeah, yeah, sure.
So yeah, [00:09:00] absolutely. The first number one for me is that every child and young person that we You know, see family violence experiences that has parents who have experienced it, has parents who have perpetrated it, they know this. They, they is, they're not blind to it. They, you know, we've, we've moved a long way in the last 10 years of, you know, they weren't in the room.
They're not affected. We're past that, which is good. But the, you know, they are victims of family violence in every single incident. You know, whether it's, you know, what they're saying, what they're hearing, how they're seeing the relationship form between their parents. And we, we, always see, and even in the family violence system, where, you know, we have quite capable programs and professionals work in that space, we always see the children and predominantly, you know, we're talking about mum as the victim in most cases.
We're seeing children just put under this umbrella with mum as, as the family violence [00:10:00] client and not their own clients. And we don't, and you know, there's not enough look into what exactly they're feeling, what they're going through. It's just sort of lumped together as a package deal where they are their own victim.
And you know, we'll have You know, people who work in family violence who might be listening will say, you know, would have used the term, you know, talking about, you know, children are family violence victims in their own right. We, we, I mean, we say that almost daily in these services, but a lot of the other programs aren't operating that.
Like, even in schools, like, apparently, you know, schools might know, you know, there's family violence going on in the home, they might know there's an IVO in place against dad, dad can't come to school, but we're not addressing, you know, Those experiences of children in depth and yeah, and that's number one, but, but also the, the other, other big thing that we see that's just not getting enough attention is that, you know, is the learning that young children, young people are getting from these family violence incidents.
You know, not only are they getting traumatized, they're getting, you know, all sorts [00:11:00] of health, health issues, mental health issues from their experiences, they're learning what's What a relationship looks like, and if you've got a father who's, you know, assaulted, assaulted mom you know, sexually assaulted mom dictates what mom can do, you know, isolates her from her friends, they are learning that is what a relationship looks like.
And we see, and, you know, it is extremely common that we see young boys who are victims of family violence to develop into perpetrators because they reinforce, this is what men do in a relationship. This is their role. They take control, you know, when, when their girlfriend, partner doesn't do what they're supposed to be doing.
If they're texting someone they don't know, it's their job to know who that is, where they're going, who they're seeing And, and same, same for young girls, the young girls are learning, you know, this is what being a partner is, you know, he can yell at me, he can, he can check my phone, he can, he needs to know what I'm doing to keep me safe.
Like, keep you safe from who? [00:12:00] From other men. And that's, and that's probably the biggest problem we're seeing. And so it's always little, I guess what we're seeing, I shouldn't say little, but, you know, what they're seeing is small behaviors that they're experiencing that they're learning about relationships, developing the big, big problems.
And then what, and when we've got You know, when we've got young boys who, you know, grow up to be, be tough, take control, you know, that they're superior to women that, you know, they're, they're more important they have a bigger role in society, and when you combine that with their experiences of supporting to use violence.
Experience of violence, you know, maybe exposure to criminal activity. This is where we're, this is where we're seeing these, you know, high risk perpetrators come from a lot of the time. You know, we do have, you know, we do have lots of perpetrators who, you know, are taught, I guess, more around that coercive control power.
So I guess and, you know, in the media you might see that as, you know, the middle class you know, the businessman, the manager that's, you know, dominates the [00:13:00] family's decision making, that sort of thing. And certainly, you know, that's a different dynamic, but still reinforced by, you know, beliefs and values that they've learned as children through their own parents relationships and through their own role models.
And I guess the other thing the other big point I really think is important is, you know, Obviously, the media, media tracks onto, you know, whatever's going to get the most clicks, the most papers sold. And, you know, we, we hear these stories about, you know, Andrew Tait and Mark Singh and those people who were influencing young boys.
And, you know, and what I see in young, you know, young perpetrators and adult perpetrators is the, By the time they've even know who Andrew Tate is, the damage is already done. They, they are already, they already think that men are superior. They already think that you know, that the women are taking away men's roles or ruin their rights and all this, all this nonsense that they're learning.
And this is stuff they're learning from birth. And, you know, like, yeah, Singh's you know, they're [00:14:00] reinforcing these values, they're giving them a role model to latch onto, but this is not, it's not where they're learning these values, they're, they're well and truly embedded in their minds around this is men's role, this is women's role before they find, even know who these people are and I think, yeah, we, we often see, you know, a lot of blame put on, on obviously that, you know, these people are just awful and preying on young boys but yeah, like they, they are Their key target market is these people who already have those, those values instilled and people who have learned, learned the same sort of values in their life.
Kristi: Yeah. And in all of that, I think when we're talking about, you know, those, that role modeling and what they're seeing, young men You know, for, for one of a better word phrase, they're struggling with their identity, right? There is a very, and it doesn't matter if you're a young man, a young woman, but you're, they're struggling with their identity.
Therefore, all of a sudden they're, you know, they've got the, behind that you've got, you know, What they've seen in their parents [00:15:00] relationship or in their, in their family relationship. And then you've got these influences who all of a sudden seem like these messiahs or these like people to look up to.
And they're, because they're struggling with who they are, what it means to be a man, what it means to be male. They're, you know, these people are, like you said, preying on them. You know, I think though, as adults and parents who are listening to this, it's our responsibility to counteract the noise that is in social media, in the world.
You know, we need to, we need to have a bigger influence on our children. Before they get to the point where they can be influenced by people like Andrew Tate.
Shannon: That's it.
Kristi: That is really what it comes down to. Now I'm thinking about the I have a few men in a few family members and men in my life that, you know, they make the comment, well, I'm not like that.
I'm not like all men. So I don't like how they keep putting it against all men. Like it's not all men. [00:16:00] And you know, I sit there and I go, well, it's not all men, but it can be any man. And, you know, and a few of those family members get really upset. They're like, I'm sick of being lumped into this pile of men that, you know, but yet I don't think a lot of people even, and not, I'm not just saying men, I'm saying all people understand the, the actual scale of what happens before you get to killing someone, right.
It starts down the bottom with attitude and beliefs. So do you want to,
Shannon: do
Kristi: you want to go through that with me? Cause you know, like just explaining how we get to murder. Yeah,
Shannon: yeah, sure. Cause it doesn't
Kristi: go from, I hate you, murder.
Shannon: Absolutely. Yeah, so I guess what, yeah, we, we talk about you know, We talk about the values and beliefs.
You know, you know, a really good one is looking at the gender drivers of violence. You know, you can, you can listeners can look that up on our watch. So we've got, yeah, condoning, condoning of violence as a whole and particularly [00:17:00] against women. We've got men's rigid gendered Stereotypes.
Yep. You got men's control of decision making. And I always forget the last one.
Kristi: I can't remember either, but you know, like even just the thought that they think that women should be, you know, men are the, men are the you know, they're the moneymakers, they're the providers and women need to look after the house and women need to be the child and women, you know, like even, like just, if, For anyone and for anyone who has young kids, just having a look and pulling apart your unwritten beliefs, you know, the ones that we don't even talk about very often they're there underneath it all.
Shannon: Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, so, so we've got all those drivers that and, you know, there's lots of what we see is everyday things that really feed into those drivers. And, and that's the conversation I have a lot with with parents particularly fathers and mothers, mothers as well, is, you know, we, we can't be saying you know, trying to address violence against women, trying to address [00:18:00] the gender roles trying to teach them that, you know, aggression is not the key, that's not the way, but then, but then dads go take their sons to go watch MMA on the TV, like, we, we can't have every single interaction with a young boy be about promoting violence, but then say, oh, you know, Yeah, but we, we, we can't have you doing that.
I mean, and it's everywhere. It's, it's TV. It's every, and, you know, my son and I, my son is really young. We are, we're big gamers in our house. And, you know, we go on the PlayStation store and every single game is, is violent. Shooting
Kristi: game, violence game.
Shannon: And, you know, and the only alternative, really for the 90 percent of the games available is it's either shooting and killing, superheroes beating up people, violent games, or sports games where the issues are not much better.
And when you see, you know, live on TV, you see, you know, what's happening in the crowds, you know, we had, you know, Had Cope America and the Euros where, you know, huge spike in violence against women [00:19:00] because a team lost. And then, and then we've got, you know, Cope America, so people were breaking in, some families of, of players got, got beaten up at the game.
I'm like, what is this? Like, this is, this is what we're saying is positive places for, for young boys. But I digress a bit. So we've got those drivers of, you know, controlling decision making. We've got, you know, that men can take control, that they're superior to women you know, and and that we promote violence.
So we've got all those drivers that young boys are teaching. And then what we've got is, then we've got complicating factors, which is where we take these drivers and then we add in, you know, alcohol use, we add in you know, maybe drug addiction, childhood trauma, we've got financial stress, you've got unemployment, housing.
And when we've got all these things, it, this is where it builds up into, you know, really high level conflict in the home. We've got these mental health issues for men is, you know, is driven by the insecurities. They're, they're, they're [00:20:00] feeling that they're not a real man because of X, Y, Z And, and then, you know, and then we've got, you know, things like you know, women being supported to leave that relationship because they're not safe, which is absolutely what we want.
And then, you know, that fear, that insecurity, that childhood trauma, that belief that, you know, men are in control, you'll take away my control. And that's when we're seeing a lot of these femicides. And that, and that's why we talk, talk to victims, we talk to professionals around, you know, when, when a woman makes a decision to leave that relationship, that is the highest risk because that is her cutting off that, that tie to him and that's him losing control.
And then, you know, if we've got all these other issues building up and, and sometimes it can be a struggle to explain this you know, to people who don't understand how these things happen. Because, you know, we talk about, you know, behavior is a, is a, is a decision, they're making decision use files.
And yes, that is absolutely right. But it's driven by all these values, all these complicating factors that are building up and sort of, yeah, I guess the concept I [00:21:00] spoke about, I've spoken about recently is what I call, I started a LinkedIn page and I didn't, it hasn't really taken off. I haven't, I haven't even looked at it since I started it.
And I call it the one, like the 1%. And I talk about, you know, that, you know, Murder is, basically murder is at 100 percent and it's these, all these 1 percent things that are building up. It doesn't happen. We, we don't get someone who has no gender drivers, no complicating factors to, to murder someone. It just, yeah, I've never seen it happen.
Maybe, maybe someone, maybe someone does have an example, but even
Kristi: in my experience of investigating or being part of teams who have investigated murders, there was always there was two reasons. The two most common reasons was drugs and family violence. You know, there's very little in between.
There's generally there's you know, and. There's very little reasons why people just all of a sudden decide, snap and decide to kill someone.
Shannon: That's it. And yeah, yeah, yeah, the drug and alcohol is an interesting topic [00:22:00] and it's very polarizing across professionals, even professionals who haven't, you know, long educations and experiences.
It's because we got we sort of got this one cohort that's saying, you know, alcohol and drugs is in every case, so we can't say that's not a cause of family violence. And then you've got the other camp saying, well, Alcohol and drugs can't make someone who doesn't believe in violence against women, doesn't have those beliefs and values, to just get up and assault someone.
It's, it's not a magic substance. It just makes you aggressive and want to kill someone. And it's, yeah, it is, it is interesting topic. And yeah, there are a lot of academics at the moment who are having quite the battle. And in In disproving each other. It's
Kristi: interesting because I've seen men, especially, who, or, you know, and women, but men who, and, yeah, and women, now I'm thinking about it, there's been some women who've, who, for instance, get, they get on meth.
Especially not a lot of other drugs cause this, the [00:23:00] complete flipping, you know, the personality that meth does where they haven't shown any signs of really violence or abuse or even, you know, Sexual proclivities or any of that stuff until they get onto meth. And then all of a sudden meth is like, they are a different human.
So for me, meth is probably one of the one of the most dangerous drugs that anyone can do. We know that anyway, but I've seen parents who were very good parents before that, who have neglected and abused their children after being on meth. So for me, I'm not sure maybe they had it deep down in, and it unlocks.
Yeah, yeah.
Shannon: Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. And that's what a lot of people do believe. You know that's, you know, these, these, these substances are, you know, and these like, like your financial address and all that is, you know, certainly it's, it's It's [00:24:00] removing their ability to control the beliefs that they've, they've, they've long held.
And that's what, yeah, a lot of people are trying to address at the moment. But yeah, there's, there's no question that if, you know, addressing, you know, homelessness, financial distress, alcohol and drugs is absolutely going to reduce family violence and any physical. Oh, 100%.
Kristi: Even just healing some of your childhood, own childhood trauma will help you be a better person to everyone else.
Shannon: Yeah, absolutely.
Kristi: I think one of the things that really upsets me the most is how, when, and you know, a lot, one of the things that upsets me the most is the family court system. I've seen family court do horrendous things. Things to parents and to children. And it doesn't feel like the family court have children's best interests at heart, in my opinion, like from what I've seen and heard what I keep seeing and hearing, I don't feel like the family court has got it right at all.
And children aren't being put at the [00:25:00] front of any of this. And you made a comment and I want to, I want to like put it on record. You made a comment that it's like, what was it? What was the comment?
Shannon: Oh, I'll make the controversial comment. There was a few advocates for this. Going as if is definitely getting traction particularly in social media.
And that is the reference that the family law court system is a form of child trafficking. And that is a big, that is a big comment to make. And, and the reason is, yeah, absolutely. And the reason is that outcomes in the family law court can be bought. And that's, and that's what, that's what's happening.
And that's what, and it's, and these aren't people who are not educated, these are, are lawyers in the system, they're, you know, people who have been victims of the system, professionals who have given evidence, and, and what, I guess, I guess a step back a bit, you know family law court, you know, the reason we have family law court is because parents generally separate and an agreement can't be made between them for different reasons [00:26:00] around what happens with, you know, property with the children in custody.
Now the, the, I will say the biggest reason of that occurring is family violence. We've got people, one being in control. We've got victims ending that, that. That marriage, that partnership because of the experiences and they want to get out and that, and, you know, that's their right. It's, you know, we, We have to accept that times have changed no longer.
And, you know, there are male, absolutely male victims in the family court system. But, you know, predominantly we're talking about female victims men, men keep the finances. In a lot of these cases, they have limited finances. They have to rely on legal aid because, you know, property money is tied up and it's usually you know, the father that, that controls that.
There's disagreements over custody and then, and so then we've got the court system trying to make decisions on where children should be placed, what access, you know, what arrangements, who's got who, who's got custody, who's the primary care, all that sort. And then, and then what happens is we then start bringing [00:27:00] specialists.
We start paying specialists to give evidence as to why someone's unfit, why someone shouldn't, you know, why someone committed family violence And what happens is we, the more you pay for these specialists, the better your outcome. And that, and that's also with the legal system as well. The lawyers, you know, if you're.
So you've got a family, they've split up. It's been, let's say it's family violence. Children have experienced violence from the father. Father goes and gets a 40 grand, 40 grand a year or whatever, whatever barrister. Mum goes to Legal Aid because she's got no finances because she's been a stay at home mum this whole time and dad's controlled the finances.
You've got this high priced lawyer against you know maybe potentially a free legal aid, and you know, I'm not, I'm, I'm certainly not saying that you know, lawyers who, who work for doing legal aid or anything like that, are, you know, not superior but you know, you've got these.
Kristi: But they're very pressed for time.
Shannon: Yeah, well, that too. And they're only funded for so much, you can run out of funding as well, and [00:28:00] then. You know, that's when we see mothers withdraw from the battle that is family law court is because they can't afford it. They've run out of legal aid. They've got no money. Dad's got all the money.
He's, he's got this high priced lawyer who's making up all sorts of nonsense in his favor. You know, he's paying, he's paying a 10 grand psychologist to provide a report saying mum's unfit and all this garbage. Or, you know, maybe, maybe it's an assessment of the child and, and you can absolutely buy that.
Is yeah. It's what I'm hearing is
Kristi: It's just another form of abuse against the partner.
Shannon: 100 percent and we see it used all the time. And you know, we see you know, and I, I do, I do make this comment quite regularly is, you know Because people, because, you know, people who don't understand family violence, don't have the experience, don't know people who've been through it, will be like, Oh, you know, she's left him.
It's all good. She's safe. She goes to refuge or whatever. And no, it's, that is the start for, for a lot of women and families and children. The separation is just the start of the abuse. [00:29:00] And then comes, you know, financial abuse, systems abuse, using the police, the court systems using custody, using professionals, using the schools, and we see it all the time.
And yeah, and so we do have, there's quite a lot of really strong advocates, you know, advocating for a revamp for a royal commission in the family law court system because it's broken. And I wouldn't, I wouldn't disagree with that because it really comes down to, you know, Down to funding and whoever's got the best funding gets the best outcome and that's, and that, and that's why we're talking about child trafficking because they're essentially, we're giving children to the highest bidder and that's why, you know, that's how that term sort of come about.
Yeah,
Kristi: yeah.
Shannon: Yeah. And I have
Kristi: seen it in my comments on social media about child trafficking in the, and family court. And I was like, wow. And I was kind of like really confused because I hadn't heard that term before, but now that makes sense. And what I'm seeing or when, when people are contacting me for, because they're [00:30:00] desperate for help is usually when the, The other, the parent, so I, I'm trying to use gender non gender terms, but you know, the abusing parent is, you know, sexually abusing the children yet they've been threatened with loss of loss of custody and loss of court.
Because if they make any further claims of child sexual abuse and yet the child's going to them on a fortnightly basis or every other week and being sexually abused weekly or fortnightly and coming home after abuse and you know, the parent is basically hogtied the non offending parent is hogtied by that.
Shannon: Well, yeah, absolutely. I do absolutely agree. I'm just gonna add one other thing on there is, then you've got child protection. Yeah, you know, for people who don't know, family law courts override child protection. Yeah. Essentially. So, family law court will suspend their proceedings. If they've got ongoing proceedings for child protection, they'll investigate or, or.
Or make [00:31:00] a claim. But, you know, say, you know, say your situation, you've got your allegation of sexual abuse. So you call Child Protection, Child Protection do that assessment. If you're the non offending protective parent is what they'll say. That's the terms they'll use. They will close they'll close their file because we've got a parent who's doing the right thing.
We've got, you know, in their, in their involvement, they'll say, well, dad can't have, you can't let dad have contact. Yeah. And that's fine, but then as soon as child protection close, that family law court, that family law court order is back in place. And they actually, the, the, the second that child protection close in some of these cases, they actually have to.
return the child to the perpetrator and there's nothing they can do about it until the family law court have made a decision.
Kristi: The only thing that stands above a family law court order, and this is for, I think this is Australia wide, is a violence restraining order or an AVO or something. That's the only thing that goes above a family court order, if, as long as the child is on that family court order.
[00:32:00] Violence restraining order. So if, if you go and get a person, if personally you go get a violence restraining order because you're being threatened by your ex partner or whatever, if your child isn't included on that, you still have to hand them over every fortnight or month or whenever they go to that parent.
And that's, and that's the only thing that will, you know, override a family court order. So, just FYI listeners.
Shannon: Yeah, and the other issue there is, is they're vastly different in length. So, you know, if you've got a final order with family court, you know, it's until the child's 18, whereas you might have an interim IVO that's only valid for three months or maybe gets granted for a year.
You know, in serious case, we do see, you know, extensive IVOs, but they're, they're not that, that common. And, and we're talking about huge risk. And usually when, you know, and we're talking about cases where perpetrators are in custody for serious assaults and that sort of thing. So yeah, and, and that's, and that's what parents are dealing with.
And, and, And I would say, you know, I would say at [00:33:00] least, as a, as a rough guess, I would say at least 50 percent of victims whether male or female in the family law court give up because of finances and because the battle is too hard to deal with. Well, on
Kristi: average, on average, it's costing around 250, 000 to fight a family court battle.
Yeah. 250, 000, you know, and with the cost of the way things are going, you know, you're, you know, if you don't have If you have been a stay at home parent, if you don't have a job that can support you, all of those things, and then adding the complexity of, you know, the child going into a, a unsafe situation with that other parent, parents, you're like, you said, parents are giving up because that, the other thing that I that popped into my head about all of this is that, you know, like we know, and we're not diminishing violence against men, but it's a very small percentage.
And. Someone pointed this out to me the other day, men are less likely to be [00:34:00] physically abused, but they're more likely to be psychologically and mentally abused, right? So the abuse that men have in violence is generally women, you know, psychologically abusing them versus men physically abusing women.
Is, is that your experience or is that something else?
Shannon: Yes, somewhat. I wouldn't entirely say that's a thing that I see. I guess what's important and you know, I have written about this before, is is women who perpetrate family violence, I've, you know, 12 years, maybe 10, 000 clients I've been, my mind goes, I've never ever seen a female perpetrator of violence not be listed as a victim.
However,
the caveat I'll give there is, is we do see, you know, a lot of male perpetrators of family violence also being victims of family violence themselves more often, I guess, as children, as opposed to women who, who, you know, it's usually as, as a child and an adult before [00:35:00] they are a perpetrator of violence.
Shannon: The. Yeah, sorry, the, the example that I often give when I'm discussing this with others is, you know, we had a local case you know, it was a, a homicide and then a second incident that was very close to being a homicide. The person survives you know, heavy in the media, huge mental health issues, horrendous act of family violence from, from this female perpetrator.
She was, she was essentially jailed for, I think 20 years out of this incident. And I was actually, you know, I had a role, role with this, this case. And then I checked the, you know, the police history of the, of this of this case. And so this incident of fem violence was the third, I think the third or fourth incident where she was the perpetrator.
And then before that we had 78 incidents where she was the victim. And this is, you know, and, and, you know, the media is tracked onto this, you know, this horrific, you know, men are victims, all this, and the history for her abuse was absolutely horrific. And they weren't, and you know, I, I guess I don't like [00:36:00] labelling family violence instances as, you know, low level or high level, but these were really hospitalisations, broken bones.
Her history of abuse was, Absolutely. One of the worst I've ever seen. And that's, you know, that's the kind of, these are the kind of incidents that are leading I guess, female perpetrators into that space. Yeah. I
Kristi: can see where you're going. I can see where you're going with that. It's, it's generally, it's not a just, oh, they just flip their lid and, and because, I, I don't know.
It's, it's. Without the gender gendering people and without, you know, generalizing people, you know, for most part, women will be nurturers and they will be trying to keep the family unit together and they're trying to do everything they can to support everyone in the family. Most of the time, I will say this because.
You know, in my experience, I get, because I talk about child sexual abuse all the time, I get all of these people pop up in my comments going, but men never, you know, women abuse kids too. And women do this too. And I'm like, [00:37:00] yes, they do. But the probability of Abuse is more likely to be a male.
97%.
Shannon: Yep.
Kristi: And it's probably similar, you know, yes, women do abuse children and yes, women do perpetrators of violence against men, but it's more likely to be a man.
Tina: Quickly interrupting this episode to let you know that Christie has a whole library full of resources to support you. If this podcast hits home for you and you want to learn more about cyber safety, abuse awareness and prevention, and how you can protect your children, head to the link in the show notes where you can access free downloads, informative guides, and courses relating to these topics.
You can also order Christie's book, Operation KidSafe, a detective's guide to child abuse prevention. If you want to join the fight against child sexual abuse, you can support Chrissy to reach a wider audience by leaving a review on this podcast or sharing it with your community.
Shannon: Yep. Absolutely. And I, yeah, I guess, [00:38:00] I'll just, yeah, another comment I'll just add there is, you know, when we talk about, you know, women who abuse children or, you know, you know, a big, big topic with the Amherst report on filicides has just come out around, you know, man, obviously the stats have changed.
It used to be, you know, we people believe that more children died in the care of a mother. And, you know, that's that. The new stats don't reflect that, which is, which is amazing. But we, you know, we, there's often this focus on, you know, women's mental health, postnatal depression being the cause of, of, you know, a philosophy or harm to a child or neglect.
But what we, what gets missed in these, in this space is the cause of those mental health issues is generally, is, is and it's about the, you know, the, the the experiences of violence and abuse for a lot of time is family violence against them. It's actually the, the experiences of violence and abuse that they've experienced that have resulted in their mental health and then results in child being abused or neglected or, you know, whatever harm has has occurred.
and that It always gets missed. [00:39:00] It's always this focus on women's mental health being a cause and that's in child, yeah, particularly in child protection. But what we don't look at enough is what was the cause of that mental health condition in the first place?
Kristi: And it wasn't until I had a friend go through, she had a, It's hard to explain someone else's health conditions, but she basically had a non, like they had no idea why she was having some neuropathy and she was having like these, it seemed like she'd had a stroke, she was really young, etc.
And then she had to have brain surgery to investigate what was going on and all of this stuff. She actually had a, like, brain surgery and then come about two years after that, she, her and her husband split up and she discloses that she's been a victim of violence for years and years and years, ten, ten plus years.
And All of the violence caused the neuropathy and, and the stroke like symptoms and the problems in her brain. And we've, I think I saw a study about this the other day where they're [00:40:00] saying like, it actually causes changes in the brain, you know, and what we're seeing and what we're trying to get, what I want to take this back to the original thought process is that 48 something percent of kids are a affected by domestic violence, nearly 50 percent of children who are have witnessed or experienced domestic violence in the home.
So if we're, if our children from zero to 18 are experiencing domestic violence, we know that domestic violence creates brain chemistry changes. It contributes to mental health problems, contributes to their belief systems. It contributes to all of that. And then we expect them to be 18, being able to handle the world, being able to handle a relationship.
And we haven't fixed that or helped them understand that or gotten them support or done all of the things that we can do to make that make it so that they understand that that actually isn't how we, we're meant to be interact with our partners and have relationships, then no wonder [00:41:00] we continue to like this is a continuing cycle.
Shannon: Yeah. Absolutely.
Kristi: That's what's going on, isn't it? Deep down. So I guess to like get back to what we're talking about in regards to like, how do parents help support their kids and, and talk about this with their kids, you know, it's hard. I'd imagine it's really hard as a, as a person who's going through it to try and protect your kids from it as much as possible.
And sometimes staying is easier. I know that it takes about eight times. Is that about right? Eight times. I don't
Shannon: remember the last step, but yeah, it's about eight to 10 or eight
Kristi: to 12 times. I know that a friend of another advocate that I'm friends with, she tried to leave 17 times before she was successful.
So, you know, for anyone listening out there what, what kind of things would you suggest that they be talking with their kids about, you know, healthy relationships, relationships and relationships? support, you know, talking to them about, you know, these gendered roles. What kind of things can they use?
What tools can they use? [00:42:00]
Shannon: Yeah, sure. Yeah, I would say, you know, some really good resources on the Raising Children website and, you know, looking at our watch, our watch have some amazing resources and some videos to really explain, you know where we see family violence operating from, but I, yeah, like, and obviously, you know, we've got that crowd saying, not all men, not all men become perpetrators and, and, you know, and, you know, that is, that is true.
But I guess understanding what behaviors are really likely to drive those, those those people when they're older is understanding that. So really understanding, you know, the, the encouragement of violence you know, the sport you know, we see a lot in sporting clubs you know, that this obsession with, you know, power and control, domination of your opponents, of, you know, aggression and, and we, there's such a huge crossover between you know, young boys who, who are in, in, in sports, particularly aggressive ones, like yeah, it was like, yeah, big, big in the footy [00:43:00] clubs at rugby.
Yep. And, and, and, and football, I guess, soccer, I call it football. And yeah, you know, we, we do see a, a, a lot of these behaviours in those in, in how they're taught to win, how to, how to be, be somewhere. And those rigid roles from early ages, you know, what we're talking about you know, young, young boys relationship with young girls and what we're teaching about, you know, men's role in society and what we're thinking about women's roles in society.
You know, we're seeing a lot more schools and primary schools really try and address this, which, which is amazing, but, you know, it'll probably be a few years before we see, see, you know, the positive outcomes. I
Kristi: just want to mention though, it's not, it's not necessarily, and yes, it's great that schools are covering this because if they're not hearing it at home, at least they're hearing it somewhere, but it's really our job as parents to, to.
And unpack and address this like us as parents, it's our job to role model and talk to these things. You know, I've been talking about healthy relationships with my daughter since she was seven, eight. You know, [00:44:00] talking about what's, you know, even you, you don't have to talk about sexual relationships or relationships with partner.
What about relationships with their friendship group? You know, when, when one friend is trying to control everyone else and tell them all what to do, you know, that's an unhealthy that's an unhealthy relationship or that's might be an unhealthy behavior and explaining that that, you know, that type of control is not okay for people to do.
You get to choose what you, you know, and that's how I addressed it when she was little. And then we've talked about it when she got into. You know, teenage hood and she's in a relationship now. And we talk about it constantly because they, these are the stereotypes and gendered roles that we have.
Right. So I think it's really important that we, as parents take the, the leading role and let the rest of society, like schools and stuff, help, you know,
Shannon: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I would, yeah, I would say my, my three things for parents as a parent myself is yeah, first is encouraging that, that relationship to build between boys and girls from as early as you can.
I think we, we see huge barriers [00:45:00] for young boys who are essentially raised until 12 to just have, you know, male friends just be through sporting clubs. And, you know, we see, I guess a much better gender equality understanding of you know, women's rights and that for young boys who have have more female friends from a very young age.
And that's something I really pushed with my own son from a young age. So he, you know, we really tried to, you know, support him to have, you know, Like an equal mix. All kind of friends. Yeah, and, and all kind of friends and, and you know you know, I, I often quote about, about my son but like, just the, and just the range, like we do, you know, obviously given my role you know, we do a lot of work around gender equality, around gender roles around disability as well.
Obviously, you know, I work in disability space whereas he, he, yeah. Like my son is, is oblivious to him like.
Kristi: Yeah.
Shannon: If someone from another culture is, is so oblivious to him, he's just another friend at school.
Kristi: Yeah.
Shannon: And that's my daughter was too.
Kristi: She didn't even notice. She didn't even notice. Like, it was so funny.
[00:46:00] NAIDOC week, like years and years and years ago, she was learning about you know, obviously first nations culture and NAIDOC week in like year, year one, or maybe pre primary. And then she came home and was talking about it and I was like, yes, but your cousins are first nations. And she goes, I said, have you not noticed?
And she goes, no, I didn't notice. And she didn't even like, they were just her cousins. Right. And that's the thing about teaching kids to be to see everyone equally.
Shannon: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I think like what we've seen is just, you know, we, we try so hard to go, teach particularly young boys, you know around, you know, not using aggression, no fighting, you can't hit people and all that.
But I mean, their role play, their toys just feed so much. And, you know, we, when my son was young, we, we spent so much time teaching these, these sort of values and beliefs in him. And, you know, And, you know, the first day at school, he was like, in a, in a tussle with another kid. And it's just, it's so easy to be [00:47:00] influenced when they're not with you and when they're with other peers and you just got to keep reinforcing that.
And you know, what's, what, what, sometimes what things, things like might seem small you know, how they're playing, what kind of characters they're trying to be when they're, when they're playing or role playing or in their costumes. You know, you start to see those behaviors when, when they are.
Yeah, absolutely. I think
Kristi: also challenging thoughts like channel challenging critical thinking, you know, when your kids are young, or even when they as a developing, you know, why, you know, asking questions like, Oh, why did you choose that? Why? What were you thinking? Like, you know, even if they, you know, and challenging, you know, their thoughts around certain things.
Topics because it's really important that we be present and we help guide them into those Into where we I personally think it's really important These are all really important because as I was saying it doesn't start at murder. You don't go from you know There's all these little levels and one of the things that really [00:48:00] upsets me is how little people think that making sexist comments and jokes and sexual harassment that you know Like in the school, in the schoolyard, you know, sexual, sexualized stuff is just the beginning of gendered violence.
And it's, it progresses to violence.
Shannon: That's it. And I think like a lot of people will dismiss like the ideas of, you know, you know of people who say, you know, blue is not just for boys and that sort of thing. And you know, that is something we, we, we really, I won't say we pushed. On our, our son, but you know, we promote in their house you know, at, yeah, my son will say, you know, the, the house color is rainbow.
And we've got, you know, bright colors everywhere. Yeah. I mean, I'm in a be kind shirt as we speak in rainbow colors, but you know, it really made a huge difference as he's got older with, you know, just, you know. They have free dress day. He'll go in all sorts of rainbows. And, [00:49:00] and, you know, even, you know, and this is a six year old and even he's got parents or friends at school in, he's not even, he's in foundation.
He's not even in year one yet, who already make comments that, you know, Oh, that's not a boy's color. Oh, why would you, why would you wear, let your son dress like that? And then people have said that, like, I've had people just give me a weird look, like really, you're letting your son go to school like that.
Yeah. And, you know,
Kristi: why, why are we making, where, why are we making this a thing? Like why are we associating with something with it? Yeah. That's
Shannon: it. And, and so you can see so easily when, you know, I mean, obviously this is my job, this is my life. Yeah. And, and you know, I'm gonna, and you firmly believe in it.
I'm gonna, yeah. I'm gonna see things that other, other people would notice. But you can see. Kids aren't even year one yet and they're already being promoted on what's acceptable to be a boy, what's acceptable to be a girl.
Kristi: And that's because at home, that's what's being promoted.
Shannon: Yeah, exactly. And it doesn't come from anywhere
Kristi: else.
It comes from the house at that age.
Shannon: Yeah. Yeah, so that would be my other advice. Just, you know, really look into those things and how they're impacting your [00:50:00] children from such a young age. And it's going to make such a huge difference as they develop into older adolescence, how they view, you know, how they view women, how they view girls how they view boys and men yeah, exactly.
Kristi: One of the things that I said to my husband early on, I mean, obviously, you know, having my daughter and then becoming a police officer and then having those blinkers blown away off and then like really having a really good think about who I was as a parent, as a human, as a, as an adult, et cetera. But one of the things I used to say to my husband all the time, especially when my daughter was at that really impressionable 10, 11 year old age is how you treat me is how she's going to expect her partner to treat her.
Yep. So. You know, and I used to say to him, you know, be really mindful how you treat me. And it was, it was a tough time. I don't, you've listened to a couple of podcasts, but we had a, a year separation when she was about five or six, she doesn't even remember it because I protected her from the separation.
And, you know, she [00:51:00] just thinks dad went to work and didn't, and went away to work and, you know, was gone for a year. And it wasn't until she was about 12. I said, yeah, we broke up for a year. And she's like, Oh my goodness. I didn't even know. But yeah, so the thing was, is that you know, when we did get back together and I was saying, you know, how you treat me, how you talk to me is how she'll expect her partner to talk to her and treat her.
And that's the same with your men, whether you're male or female or you know, whatever gender, whatever person you are in the world. If you, if all you see is your parents fighting, if all you see is, you know, mom having to scream to get beat, to be heard, And which is my experience as a young person, as a child, I heard, saw my step mom screaming to be heard by my dad.
He ignored her. So therefore my early in my relationship with my husband, that's what I did, because that's how I got heard. I had to scream to be heard, you know, and then, But if, if everything that you saw as a child and you, so, you know, as an adult, as a parent, we need to have a [00:52:00] bit of a think and go, is that how I want my children?
Is that how I want my child to go through the world?
Shannon: Yeah, absolutely. And, and we cannot ignore, they see everything they see and notice everything with, and people think they don't, but they, they, Absolutely everything. They see who's cooking, they see who's cleaning, they see who's, who's job is to take them to school or to swimming or you know, they see who spends time on their phone, they see, yeah they notice everything and yeah.
Like what, what sometimes we think is really small things that they're picking up. You know, they become big things when they're older.
Kristi: And if I had my time over again, I mean, I was with my husband 12 years before I had my daughter, but we've been together since 15 and we got married at 19. And I think if I had my time over again, I would have taken more time to discuss these things before we got married before we had, cause it's quite funny.
He, we laugh about it now, but my husband grew up with. Mostly, like, his parents both worked. So he saw that his dad was a workaholic, but his [00:53:00] grandparents bought him up most of the time that he spent a lot of time with his grandparents. And back when his grandparents were young or, or, you know, that the father went to work and the mother stayed at home and she was the cook, the cleaner, the everything.
She didn't, she got a, she got a an allowance. Every week, you know, to go and buy food. And she got maybe 10 per week to buy herself something, you know? So he controlled the money. He controlled the, he, she never had a license. You know, like that's how his grandparents grew up that old school. And when we got together and we got married about a week after we got married or after our honeymoon, he said, right.
I expect dinner on the table at six o'clock when I get home. And I just looked at him and went. And it's a joke now. I just went. You married the wrong woman. If you think that's going to happen, I said, cook dinner yourself. And it's quite funny because he became the family cook and he's the cleaner most of the time because he loves to do it.
And I'm just sitting back going, well done, Christy. But you know, [00:54:00] there this battle. And I think people don't think about these things. They don't talk about these things before they get in relationships. They don't, they don't, Talk about values and beliefs and stuff. So if I was up, well, I've talked about it with my teenager, but if I was a parent of a young, of a young family, and I would be talking about this stuff.
Shannon: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Kristi: It's important because it, it, it creates the foundations for their whole belief system of their life. Well, Shannon, this has been really interesting. Last, last thing that I wanted to bring up was again, something that we talked about prior to pressing record was about sextortion and how we, it's seen as a predominantly male issue, young male issue in Australia and in the world, actually, like we talk about, it's about 97 percent of young men are being targeted for their sextortion schemes.
So what's your experience and what's your thoughts on that? Because you did say something [00:55:00] and I was like, whoa, okay, I haven't really considered that.
Shannon: Yeah, sure. Tell me
Kristi: about it.
Shannon: Yeah, no worry. I, I would say that the stats there are very, very, very misleading. And, and, you know, what we see, I, you know, I do, I do quite a bit of work in research over the years.
You know, and, and when, when the stats so one sided in one way, you sort of got to sit back and go, well, why is that? And why are we seeing those stats? Rather than just looking at the number. So, and I, I did make this comment after I listened to your previous podcast. So what I would say is that because mental health is severely overdiagnosed in, in young girls and severely underdiagnosed in young boys I would say they'll look at the sextortion and say, well, the boy had no you know, there's no other issues there.
So this, you know, death by suicide in those cases has been a result of that sextortion. Whereas when often when they're looking at the death by suicide for young girls, they will go straight to the mental health. They'll go, you know, did you have [00:56:00] anxiety, depression? Did you have any psychiatric disorders?
Rather than looking at Yeah, that's extortion. We all think it's masks and, you know, maybe and also, you know, cyber bullying, all that sort of stuff that might be occurring on their social media. That's not known, but it just sort of gets palmed on the mental health for young girls. And we see it all the time.
You know, I, I actually was on a different another podcast recently where I talked about coerced suicide and particularly in children and, and teenage girls and severely underreported there in a child protection system, because when they see, you know, that death by suicide, whatever method and what have they done, and they automatically go to, you know, the mental health of them, whether they were seeing counselling, you know, depression, anxiety whether that's, you know, BIPOC or And all that rather than looking at, well, what was the cause of that mental health in the first place?
What's the contributing factors? Yeah. Yeah, so I'd say the you know, obviously sex torture is, is getting a lot of traction in the media at the moment. There's people [00:57:00] doing some amazing work there, but I'd say the the amount of young girls that are being victims of these, these schemes and other cyber bullying and, and, and abuse online is severely underreported because there's too much stigma around the mental health of young girls.
Kristi: Yeah. Okay. So a few things popped up in my brain while you were talking. One of them was I guess with, with suicide for young people, we're seeing, we see a lot more young men suicide than young women. So when young teen girls suicide it's, it's seen as, yeah, I can see where the, the mental health direction is, whereas young men suicide a lot more.
And so they're, then they're. Pinpointing one particular incident versus a history of incidents with young women and the other thing that popped up for me when we saw sextortion, which is also considered child exploitation material because it's We, it, for a long time, even when I was in [00:58:00] the police before, you know, the first lot of child exploitation I ever dealt with was maybe a year or two into the job.
And I saw an 11 year old, 12 year old sending nudes, right? And that was back, and that was seen back in, I don't know, 2012. Yeah, 2012. So, We've seen girls, it's an expectation or a, again, a gendered thing where expectation that girls send nudes to boys, it's, you know, girls being promiscuous, girls, you know, doing this, etc.
Whereas we haven't seen as many, you know, the unsolicited dick pic or the, or it doesn't get as much. coverage. It's not seen as them doing the wrong thing. It's seen as them, you know, that's just boys being boys. There's some real, there's some real now that you brought it up and now that I'm thinking about it, there's some real gendered biases towards girls versus boys.
Shannon: Yep. Would
Kristi: you say, would you say that and that's not okay. [00:59:00] Like if we want to help young people, we need to take all gender bias away and just go, you know, first of all, if they're coerced and there's a lot more coercion online these days, you know, there's a lot more pressure online too. And there's a lot of beliefs where young people think that they have to, that everyone else is doing it, that you know, it's if, yeah, there's a lot of pressure online for young people.
And that That, that, that, that's not even being considered in their suicides and in their mental health is really a, a real big. blind spot.
Shannon: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I'd say, yeah, and just add on to that, I'd say the two themes that jump out to me in those, a lot of these cases are, you know, how society teaches young girls of, you know, this is what, how you need to dress.
This is what you need to do to, to get the guy or, you know, to adhere to his, his demands and and to his control. And for boys, it's, it's really that you know, that, that gender role, so, you know, what's your choice to be in charge or what kind of man you, if you're not having sex with her, that sort [01:00:00] of thing.
You don't even have needs of her, just tell her what she needs to do. And that, that real idea of, you know, that coercion control, that role of power over, over women, that young boys being taught, that's really driving those sort of behaviors.
Kristi: I have seen it go the other way once or twice where a young, like a, a 12, 13 year old boy came and saw me when I was at a school talking about, you know.
Online safety and he said, I'm being pressured by a 14 year old girl to send her, send her dick pics. And he was like, I don't know what to do. I like her, but at the same time, she's pressuring me and it makes me really uncomfortable. And, you know, so if, if any, if parents listening, and there's anything we can say about this is that we need to be having these conversations with our kids way before we think they need to have them.
We need to be talking about how, you know, the, because we're there behind a screen. That people say and do things that they wouldn't do to your face, you know, it's, there's, there will be pressure to conform, there will be [01:01:00] pressure to you know, do things that maybe, you know, aren't right. And, you know, hence why we have to have these conversations so that we can embolden them and give them the confidence to say no.
Shannon: Yeah, absolutely. I'd say boys and girls and all children need to be learning about these concepts long before they even know what the phone is
Kristi: long before they're long before they even start. I mean, unfortunately, I make a joke with parent talks that, you know, kids are coming out of the womb with an iPhone in their hand you know, so if we're giving them a device, we need to be having these conversations.
If you think they're not ready for these conversations, then they don't need the device.
Shannon: Yeah. That's
Kristi: basically it. Isn't it?
Well, thank you, Shannon. It's been really informative and, and like, I haven't had anyone like yourself on the podcast yet. I mean, we've had lots of conversations about different, but we haven't really gotten into the nitty gritty of what's going on.
And the fact that it comes from you as well, like an, a male who's working in this. [01:02:00] You know, we see a lot of female advocates and a lot of females working in this space. And it's nice to hear from a male who, who's obviously got so much experience and, and an expert in this area. So my
Shannon: pleasure.
Kristi: 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 McVie or 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 [01:03:00] group called Operation KidSafe Parenting Group. 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.
