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I'm David Nazar.

kids all throughout the United States are being targeted online from cyber predators and cyber bullies to marketeers and scammers stealing the lives of children in our new normal cyber world today, young people are immersing themselves online with their phones, their computers, and they're losing a lot of vital human interaction.

They're suffering from so many different mental health issues.

For example, health experts say kids are getting involved with drugs at levels never witnessed before.

The suicide rates, anxiety, depression, ADHD, ADHD, off the charts, the drug overdoses, the psych med prescriptions.

Experts say these rates are staggering.

In fact, schools all throughout the nation are now even asking for cell phone bans.

Is our new online world and lack of cyber safety partly to blame?

And joining me now to discuss all this is Doctor Alan Shapiro.

Doctor Shapiro was a representative for Mexico as part of the World Health Organization.

So Doctor Shapiro is a board certified pediatrician involved with community engagement and special programs that connect the community with health care.

Doctor Shapiro is currently a community physician, working as chief health correspondent and medical affairs officer with Ultimate Health Services in Los Angeles.

And also joining the panel is Clayton Cranford Clayton is the founder of Cyber Safety Cop.

Clayton is a former Orange County, California sheriff's sergeant who spent 20 years working in the juvenile justice system, partly as a school resource officer.

Thank you both for being here.

So greatly appreciate it.

Our pleasure to be with Clayton.

Lots to discuss.

Let's begin with you.

Obviously, all over the US.

You know, we hear the term cyber safety, cyber predator, cyber bullying.

It's being used so often.

What exactly is the definition of all of this?

Clayton.

Well, it's it's kind of just life now for, for a teen, their life is so, so woven into the digital world that, we really can't talk about their experiences of that.

We're talking about social media and these devices.

And, when I was a school resource officer back in the early 20 tens, I literally saw the transformation when we had, you know, in 2010, the iPhone four comes out with the forward facing camera, which kind of changed everything.

And by the time I was done as an SRO, we went from 20% of teens having smartphones to more than 80%.

And along with that, I just saw a lot of kids, good kids, in situations that they weren't prepared for making bad choices and, like my kids do.

And then I had parents who are like me, I'm a parent, really struggling with how to kind of manage this in their home and how to talk to their kid about really important issues, things that no one had to talk to us about.

With that, said Clayton, give our audience a background of who you are.

You mentioned the SRO officer.

What do you do exactly?

Because truth be told, there are lots of folks in, in your industry, sort of in this cyber safety, realm.

They call themselves experts.

And yet there are not a lot of folks, or at least in when I talk to folks, I've not met many who have this very comprehensive law enforcement background that you have.

I asked that because explain a bit more about that.

Why is it so vital for, someone in this realm to have this law enforcement background, to keep kids safe, play?

Yeah.

So, and I'm a parent as well, so I understand the challenges that every parent is dealing with.

But, you know, as a, as a school resource officer, as a junior detective, I was also on our county's, school threat assessment team.

So I was investigating threats of violence, which, incidentally, were all happening online.

I was talking to the victim and their family, their parents.

I was talking to the the person who said or did that inappropriate thing or maybe was involved with cyberbullying, whatever case, me usually another student, and I was talking to that family.

So I have a very like kind of a 360 degree kind of perspective of this.

And, and what's important to know is that kids, you know, don't really understand, the impact of the decisions that they're making.

It's not that they don't know about internet safety, because they kind of do.

Like we're doing a pretty good job of educating them.

The problem is, they believe that their digital world, in their real world are different.

So I go to schools throughout the United States, me and my team, and we talk to students in assemblies, and we tell stories in the stories are more than just like, do this, don't do that.

We don't we don't really talk like that.

We're telling them stories to try to impact them more on an emotional level.

And then and then we have parent talks in the evening, and we bring the parents in and we show them what's really going on.

We show them the real stories.

And so we kind of motivate them to want to make a difference and then give them the tools to do that.

The to get over that technology hurdle.

And, you know, we're doing that through our website, cyber safety.

Capcom I've written two books, on this and it's an evolving, area which, which is in a way exciting but also kind of frustrating because as soon as you think you kind of got a handle on things and I showing up, and now we have a whole new set of tools that are that can be used inappropriately.

So, yeah, we are we're in the community talking directly to, to, to the students K through 12, talking directly to the parents.

We also do training for staff to give them a better insight of how they kind of you know, as a school administrator, what they need to be doing.

And so it's actually, exciting because I do feel like we're getting more traction as time is going on.

We're getting more parents engaged.

But but it's still we still dealing with kids who make bad choices.

So we just need more engaged adults mentoring children in their digital world.

I'm going to get to those stories in just a moment.

Just a quick question in a few seconds and then we get to Doctor Shapiro.

How bout a problem?

Is this, some might say, oh, cyber safety.

It's just overexaggerated.

It's not not a problem.

Others are going to say it's a catastrophic problem.

How bad is it?

And then we get to Doctor Shapiro.

Yeah.

Really quick.

It is catastrophic.

We look from 2010 till now, the anxiety depression of children, teens has gone up 150 to 160% when we introduced cell phones, smartphones in their life, girls who are engaging in self-harm has gone up 300%.

So their mental health, which I think is should be a parent's number one, safety issue on their mind about their child has been trending in the wrong direction and it's not getting any better.

So with that said, Doctor Shapiro, you heard what Clay is saying.

Let's begin the discussion with you about some more of these health ramifications with all of this, that Clay was beginning to mention where where the kids are concerned.

I mean, what is going on with these kids related to the phone, the the the computers, the social media, this entire dynamic.

Doctor Shapiro, baby, we need to come.

And I'm coming here the same way as Cleveland.

As a father, a pediatrician, and someone that is concerned about this.

And we need to understand that, we're we were born on a physical world.

We we did everything.

We run around, we we took our, you know, like, bicycle.

And we went around the neighborhood.

Today, our kids are living in a physical and also in a beautiful world, and they're amazingly interconnected for us.

If we had a problem at school, it ended at school.

Why?

Because we were safe at home.

Right now, with a lot of the social media, the interconnectedness that we have on our daily basis, it's harder to disconnect.

We're continuum, that the continuum of information, of bombardment, of, of feelings, of pictures, of communications, it's still there.

And also the second problem is also science.

We feel guilty because it's not the same way that we were born with at the same time.

And generation it there's a gap there where we're working 2 or 3 jobs, we're doing a lot of things, and sometimes we end up using electronics as, something that gives us a little bit of peace of mind, as a nanny, as, as a place where we can actually cook and do things.

And we have a lot of things are happening right now.

And sadly, no one told us how to give those tools to our kids.

And technology is moving so fast.

Then as a father, as a mother, as a family member, we just don't keep track of all these apps on what's happening then, even though that, you know, before it was very easy.

It was like, make sure when you're crossing the street, look to the right, look to the left, make sure that there's no cars, move forward.

Today, we do not have the same training as parents or as a community to give those tools.

Yes.

Can we walk on the street saying have an accident 100%?

The same thing can happen on the virtual world with social media and everything that we're talking about.

And that's why the interconnectedness of where we are and also the teaching opportunity and learning opportunity that we have us parents.

It's amazing because at the time that we have a teenager or youth, there is watching pictures that are not real.

They are on a moment.

They have perfect lighting, perfect everything, perfect smile.

But we do not know the context.

Then if you're like a nine year old, ten year old, 11 year old, you're starting to see that and it doesn't look like you, but you want to be like.

Then you start creating a lot of resemblance and also, mental health and constructing the way that they are perceiving themselves.

And that's where this the start of the damage starts happening, where, you know, I want to be that person, but it's impossible.

I'm I'm different.

I have different places in the world, different language, different.

Anything then trying to bring all those information in the same way that we give the kids to two teenagers, when they are ready to actually drive, we need to figure out what if our own kid, our own teenager, is ready to actually drive that part?

Because the same way that we have actually with cell phones, the cell phones are a tool.

It's not good or bad, it's a tool.

Then we need to actually make sure that they are safe, aware, and making sure that their mental health is taken care of.

Doctor Shapiro, realistically speaking, how can we be sure it's all this online social media stuff?

There was there were no cell phones.

There was no social media years ago, yet kids were still suffering from all of this.

So talk about the mental, challenge that you're seeing with the young kids.

And then is it really this, cyber world that we live in, or is this sort of, you know, something that is sort of trendy to say these days?

David, can I assure that all the problems are related to an electronic device, to social media?

No, I can't, but it's not helping right now.

We know about all the the struggles that we have with mental health, depression, anxiety, self awareness.

You know, we have a lot of, teenagers that are actually suffering from bulimia and also anorexia that actually are not getting the tools that they need, on social media that we know and we are aware of all this things.

And of course, we also know that a lot of teenagers actually find a refuge here where they can actually be heard.

Then as a parent, we we need to actually start balancing stuff that we do not know, that this part of technology and talking about social media, mental health that's actually new for all of us, then it's an ongoing thing, but we already know how to protect them, how to create barriers, filters.

That way we get them safely to the other side of the street with less probability of having an accident.

And that's the most important part of this conversation, making sure that we are aware of where our kids are with their mental health.

If we're seeing and noticing changes in their behavior, if there's something different from them, and making sure that we create that line of communication to the physical world, to us, and also for us to actually learn what they are doing, because that actually give us the tools to help them in a better way.

Clayton, you mentioned earlier some of the stories, I can only imagine the stories that are out there.

Can you share with our audience?

I mean, listen to your credit.

You are in the trenches.

You have been for years.

You deal with kids, you deal with the bad guys, the predators, anyone and everyone talk about the stories.

What the heck is going on with all of this?

Yeah.

I mean, I mean, we can kind of stay in the mental health, area.

So I, I do recognize that social media does allow children to connect to communities in ways that I, that I think can be positive, especially if you, even if you if you feel like you're, you're not really being accepted for who you are in the community that you're actually in, that you might be able to find someone line who's, who's willing to communicate with you.

And that might be helpful.

But the problem is, is that, sometimes, you know, you don't know if you're in a safe space, right?

You could be talking to them online.

Who is there to manipulate you or maybe not give you the best information?

We had a seventh grader, 12 year old girl who was struggling with her mental health.

She was depressed and anxious, very anxious.

And she didn't.

And she didn't feel like she could go to her mom and dad.

She was afraid of like, hey, Mom and Dad, I'm having these thoughts that she's going to, you know, disappoint her parents or concern them or freak them out.

So she goes online and she finds, inevitably, someone just like her who's also dealing with those feelings.

And she said, you know, how do you deal with your feelings?

And this girl says, I do it by by cutting myself and burning myself.

And so she's like, okay, I'll give that a try.

And, and she did.

And she was posting on her Instagram to about 50 kids at the school on an ongoing basis, talking about this kind of journey that she was on to kind of struggling with her anxiety, but nothing very, nothing beyond what I talked to.

So it was it was kind of normative, like a lot of kids are talking about these types of edgy things online.

And so it wasn't it wasn't out of bounds per se.

But finally one night, she posted an image of her arm that she had a after cutting it quite badly.

And thankfully, one of those kids at that school grabbed a screenshot of that and shared it with me the next day to school because I was their school resource officer.

She said, you know, Deputy Cranford, please help my friend.

So we call in the mom and we, you know, talk to her outside and we're like, look, this is what's going on with your daughter.

And and the mom just like, was, you know, just I did not know this was going on just just really at a loss.

And I'm very scared.

She's shaking.

She goes in that room, but her daughter pulls back her sleeve and reveals, fresh wounds on top of scars.

This has been going on for a while, and that mom broke down in that room and it shattered every person in there, including me.

Because.

Because everybody in there was a parent and and and it was just so heartbreaking.

And what was so heartbreaking is that that mom then realized that she'd been talking about this for months, and, and she's like, if I just looked at my child's Instagram for even a moment, I would have known.

I would have known who she was talking to.

I would know what she was talking about.

I would have had an opportunity.

And she didn't blame her dad.

I was like, I totally get why she wouldn't feel comfortable telling me.

I totally get it.

She goes, I just didn't have an opportunity to help my kid.

And so that story is I have many versions of that story, or a kid who's minding their own business on Snapchat, for instance, a very popular app for teens, and gets, you know, direct message from a guy who's selling, prescription medication and this and this dude, it's not a regular drug user, but actually, he's also coincidentally, also struggling with his mental health.

And this person is offering Xanax.

He's like, well, maybe I'll, you know, maybe I'll just buy a couple Xanax from this guy and maybe that'll make me feel better.

And he does.

The person literally drives it to his home because he's nearby.

He's in the area on Snapchat, hands him the baggie of pills over the doorstep.

He hands in back, cash door closes.

This teenage boy decides, well, you know, I don't know how much I should take.

I will just break one in half.

And he does.

And it wasn't actually it wasn't, Xanax.

It was a counterfeit pill that had fentanyl in it.

And thankfully, he didn't take enough fentanyl to kill him.

But his parents had the ability to to call the ambulance, get him to the hospital, and saved his life.

So I tell parents, you don't have you got a good kid.

You don't.

You don't have to be a kid looking for problems.

They will find you online.

And what's really and what's really kind of difficult about this.

Like I said earlier, these kids believe that they're real world.

In their digital world are two different worlds.

They don't believe, like the the things happening online has like the same kind of real world consequences for them as something face to face, because it just doesn't feel the same because, you know, they're the they're they're young, they're prefrontal cortex isn't fully developed.

They're not making great choices.

And so parents look at their kid like, I have a good kid, my kid smart.

They're getting straight A's, maybe I don't know, but they're staying out of trouble.

But your kid online is in a completely different world.

And now what we have is, year after year, younger and younger kids are getting phones.

I seen it happening.

We do K through 12.

I mean, they're talking to the littles and almost half of them have phones.

And if you ask a parent why are you doing this?

They say, well, because of safety, that my kid needs a phone.

It's safety.

Well, I don't think they understand that the world that they're introducing to their child that that is, fundamentally not safe, you know, and I think what Doctor Shapiro said was kind of brilliant.

He's, you know, it's like handing them keys to a car.

A car's an adult product.

Phones are an adult product.

They're not they're not made for kids.

When Steve Jobs held up the first show in 2008, he was not thinking this was for kids.

His kids didn't have a phone, an iPhone.

It's an adult product that we're trying to kind of retro fit for kids, and it's never going to quite work well.

And I think if we kind of look at this differently and say, hey, the earlier we give phones to kids, the worse off their mental health is.

If we can wait a little longer, like we can't make it all go away, but maybe we can kind of change how we're doing this.

Maybe we give them smartphones when they're in high school.

Now, before maybe we introduce social media, maybe halfway through high school, maybe when they're 16 or older, like these kinds of things aren't impossible.

Getting rid of phones and all the technology, that's impossible.

But how we do it in our home and and one of the things that we do in our, in our presentation to parents is we tell them, this is how you talk to your kid about it.

This is how you open up the conversation.

So you don't have a kid who's immediately defensive and fights you every step of the way.

Another thing I did was I was, I was a crisis negotiator for the sheriff's department.

I talked to people who are barricaded inside of a building right.

I learned a lot of great techniques about how to get someone to be on your side.

In almost every case, when we had someone who came out of that building, they said, I just wanted someone to listen to me.

You got to listen to your kid and be and be truly curious about what's going on in their digital world.

And then you do the good things that all parents do.

You, you talk to them, you mentor them, and you try to make better choices based on the data and the data, saying that we should probably wait longer before we give them phones and social media.

And Doctor Shapiro, what Clay is saying is, is is so correct.

What is your opinion, Doctor Shapiro, of the solution to all this quote?

Because one could say, well, listen, we don't want to start a third world war in the House.

You don't want to just take the phone away from Little Johnny or little Sally.

You don't want to get rid of their social media yet.

On the other hand, Doctor Shapiro, you've got to keep the kids safe.

What is a solution, in your opinion?

There are actually evidence based, guidance.

One of them is that from the American eye coming up, pediatrics.

We're trying hard to make sure that parents actually know about it, because on that questionnaire, it's a self questionnaire for their parents and also for the child where we evaluate maturity, we evaluate certain things and traits that would reflect kind of, where we are.

We that the same way.

And following the example of the keys, of a car, you know, you want to give that license and that opportunity to, to a driver that knows how to take care of himself and everybody else on the road.

Same thing happens with cell phones.

Then there could be a 21 year old that do not me.

You know, doesn't deserve a cell phone.

And there could be probably a 12 year old that already is mature enough that can actually have it.

Then do we know what the sweet spot?

Not yet.

We do not know what the sweet spot.

But I agree completely with Clayton that the more we wait, the the more, tools we have to take care of our mental health, our, physical and B12 safety, then, those tools are already part of the things that we have at the Center of excellence, of social media from the American Academy of Pediatrics.

I invite anybody to actually, go there.

There's the tools there you can actually do.

They are actually fun.

All the things that we can actually do, David, is making sure that us as parents, we are actually mirroring what our kids need to do the worst thing, and probably we are kind of guilty on this part, is telling our kids don't use your cell phone, that we are in the table playing with our cell phone, or, you know, we're having a conversation with our kid and something vibrates and we take the phone in front of our kid and we call the conversation.

Then we need to be also aware of spines.

What are we showing to our kids?

Because they learn more on what they see than what we actually tell them.

We can tell them mass, the Bible in the Koran, and absolutely everything, but they actually learn more on our actions then getting the tools, getting our own, environment as parents and family members to mirror what we want them to do will be extremely helpful and also be completely realistic.

You know, right now I have a 12 year old, and it was a process for the conversion of a cell phone.

It was a process regarding the barriers that we can actually have inside of the cell phone.

What apps would be there in the same way that we do the safety talk of don't talk to strangers.

We need to have that conversation on the virtual world.

What are the red flags?

We have complete access, you know, having certain rules and regulations and on what it's expected of that device and putting everything together and the longer we wait, the better.

And most importantly, we cannot use a cell phone as the pacifier.

We cannot use the cell phone as the mental health counselor.

We cannot use it.

We still need to be there as par In my remaining minute or so, I'm going to leave, Clayton to have the final word.

I'm curious, after listening to both of you, because you both have such a great argument.

Clay, how can folks like you in the law enforcement world sort of work with people like Doctor Shapiro in the medical field?

To sort of collaborate together?

Is is something possible to keep kids safe with the with the relation to cyber safety?

Yeah, I think so.

I think the more, the kind of mental health law enforcement, stakeholders in the, in the community that are together, I think if we have a cohesive message and to empower parents, to, to be more engaged in their child's in the world, I think, I think we're just going to have better outcomes.

Private, probably.

I would also encourage parents, you know, if you're in a school, maybe you have a parent teacher organization, maybe get together and say, hey, you know, all the parents here at this elementary school, you know, maybe as a group, we just say we're not going to give our kids, smartphones until high school.

You know, let's just wait.

Let's at least wait till middle school.

And I think if all parents do that kind of collectively, there's going to be a lot less social pressure when you're because your kid will come home and say, everybody has it but me, but even still, you still got to make a good you got to make a good choice for your kid.

And, the conversations, there's a lot of them.

Because, you know, it's not just mental health, it's predators online.

It's bullying.

It's all those kinds of things.

What?

Looking at inappropriate material that's not appropriate for children.

All those conversations are, a little bit difficult.

So I would encourage parents to visit my website.

Cyber Safety cop.com I have free, resources for you to help you on those conversations.

My book, parenting in the Digital World.

I tell you my stories as a law enforcement officer and as a parent help you through that.

But it's it's something that parents just can't, punt on.

We we we have to engage, because our children, on average, teens are spending 8.4 hours online, not doing schoolwork, but just being online.

And that's a lot of conversation with the internet.

And if you're not including yourself in that, your child may be going in directions that maybe don't align with your with your values as a family.

What can I say?

Clayton Cranford, doctor along.

Shapiro I'm definitely having both of you back on for a part two of this, because we have to get into the whole cyber predators and what they're doing to kids and the suicides.

There's so much more we're going to talk about in part two.

I promise you that.

I thank you both so much for this interview.

I can't tell you how much I appreciated this discussion.

Oh, thank you, David.

Thank you both.

Now for more information about our program just click on calcs.org and then click contact Us to send us your questions or comments, even your story ideas so we can hear from you.

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Contact me there and be sure to catch our program here on PBS or catch us on the PBS app.

Thank you all so much for joining us.

I'm David Nazar.