March 5, 2025 • 18 mins
When school photos become weapons through AI manipulation, how do we protect our children? From understanding why teenage boys might engage in this behaviour to knowing exactly what to do if your child is involved, learn practical steps for prevention and response. Plus, discover why biology isn't destiny and how to build empathy in an increasingly digital world.
Quote of the Episode: "The collective IQ of boys when they're in a group is significantly lower than the individual IQ of each boy when they're on their own."
Key Insights:
- AI technology creates new forms of harassment
- Biological factors influence teen boy behaviour
- Group dynamics affect decision-making
- Empathy levels change during puberty
- Traditional photo safety advice may not be enough
- Quick response is crucial if incidents occur
- Professional help may be needed
- Recovery pathways must be available
Resources Mentioned:
- eSafety Commissioner website
- Law enforcement guidelines
- School reporting procedures
- Happy Families
Action Steps for Parents:
- If Your Child is a Victim:
- Document everything
- Report to authorities
- Seek professional support
- If Your Child is a Perpetrator:
- Take immediate action
- Remove technology access
- Cooperate with authorities
- Seek professional help
- Create accountability pathway
- For All Parents:
- Have open discussions about AI risks
- Review digital safety practices
- Build empathy despite biological challenges
- Maintain open communication channels
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Just a warning ahead of today's podcast. The content that
we will share today is well listening to discretion is advised.
While not explicit, it's certainly not for young children. Parents
will want to make some decisions around whether the kids
listen to it or not. Today we're tackling something that
might make your stomach drop, just as it did for
(00:27):
dozens of families at Melbourne High School about two weeks ago.
Imagine getting a call at your daughter's school photo that
sweet picture of your teenage girl in her uniform that
sits on your desk has been transformed using AI into
explicit sexual content as being shared around the school and
the Internet. Or perhaps even harder, to imagine that your
(00:47):
son was one of the boys who created these images
of his classmates, maybe even with his classmates. No, this
is not a black mirror episode or a cautionary tale
from some distant future. This happened, like I said, two
weeks ago, at Gladston Park's Secondary College, where two year
eleven boys allegedly used artificial intelligence to create and share
(01:08):
sexually explicit images of their female classmates. It follows a
number of similar incidents over the last year or so
at various schools around the country where female students continued
to be victimized in the same way. God, I so
glad to have you along for today's Happy Families podcast,
Real Parenting Solutions. Every day on Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast,
(01:30):
we are Justin and Kylie Coulson and Kylie as parents
were navigating territory that no parent would have ever imagined
that they would have to navigate.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
I remember when we were growing up, the biggest risk
to our children was coming across a pornographic magazine or
maybe someone had a cassette video tape that.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Might have Oh, they don't have the words for anymore.
Don't a VHS like a video? Yeah, a cassette tape
thing right.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
With explicit content on it. But nowadays our kids are
literally carrying devices in their pockets that have access to
just innumerable.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
One of my favorite podcasters, he's pretty coarse and crass,
but he just is so brilliant in the way that
he speaks. Prof. G. Scott Galloway one of the world's
leading podcasters. He talks about how our kids are running
around with paleolithic brains but God like technology in their pockets,
and this is what we're really talking about, Isn't it
(02:35):
like our teenagers have access to technology that can create
incredibly convincing fake images in seconds, and unfortunately that tech
is being weaponized in school yards across the country.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
So you're writing a book on teenage boys at the
moment as we speak.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Yeah, I wasn't expecting that, but yes.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
So the question is why.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
As you boy, you don't see girls doing this, do you?
Speaker 2 (02:58):
No, It's very rare that you would find girls doing
this kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Okay, so first of all, let's just highlight this is
not quote unquote normal behavior. This is going beyond boundaries
that are acceptable, and the boys who are doing it
know that. Everybody knows that brings up issues around consent.
Obviously there's the exploitation angle on it as well, and
there's a whole lot more that we will talk about.
But to answer the question why I reckon, there's a
(03:24):
couple of things. Number One, this is hard to say,
but it's a reality. Boys and girls are different, and
research across decades is highlighted that boys are more sexually
interested than girls, especially when they're teenagers, and boys also
crave visual sexual stimulation more than girls on average. And
more sexual variety on average. All these things point to
(03:46):
the very real situation that boys are simply more interested
in experimenting with playing around with discovering things of a
sexual nature relative to girls. Furthermore, and this does not
excuse just because it's hardwired, doesn't mean that it's destiny. Okay,
But we know that boys are more likely to egg
(04:09):
each other on in a group setting than girls are. Like,
the collective IQ of boys when they're in a group
is significantly lower than the individual iQue of each boy
when they're on their own. Do you know what I mean?
When they're together, they just do dumb things you're throwing
as well, things like an increased propensity for sensation, seeking
higher levels of impulsivity. I mean, the average twenty four
(04:31):
year old male has the same level of impulse control
as the average ten year old girl. But my book
is going to be amazing. I love talking about this
stuff because this is what I'm writing about in the book.
So there's a hardwired reality that I guess creates Guys
are much more interested in the potential reward of a
(04:52):
behavior than the risks associated with the behavior, And when
somebody raises the risks, they say oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
but that's not going to happen to me, me, or
it's yeah, that's a risk, but it's not really that
big of a risk compared to the reward. Look at
the reward. It's going to be awesome. There's one last
thing that I do need to highlight. We could talk
about why for ages, and that is that we live
in a breathtakingly objectifying, sexualized, pornographied world and boys, I
(05:19):
don't know, boys get status for doing this sort of stuff.
They praise each other, they build each other up, not
all of them, but enough of them that some boys
have gone, this will be really good. Let's do it.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
So clearly, I'm not a teenage boy, and I have
to admit I really would not like to be inside
a teenage boy's brain right now. But I have to
ask the question, when boys do things like this, is
there an iota of thought for the impact that it
will have on the target?
Speaker 1 (05:51):
No, girl, No, No, Well I shouldn't say no, but
I think it's kind of unlikely. And let me explain why.
Researchers a number of years ago discovered that as testosterone boosts.
And let me be clear, when testosterone goes up in
boys when puberty hits. Okay, so there's three major testosterone
boosts in a boy's life. The first one is when
that child is conceived. Okay, you've got this x Y
(06:13):
chromosome and the testosterone just goes through the mother's womb
and you've got a boy brain. You've got a boy.
You've got outdoor plumbing on the boy, right as opposed
to the indoor plumbing on a female. And what happens
then is the testosterone courses through him while he is
in the womb, and that's what makes him. Testosterone is,
as Carol Hooven from Harvard says, it's the hormone that
(06:36):
dominates and divides us. It's fascinating. There's another testosterone boost
shortly after birth. Okay, it lasts for the first handful
of months post birth, maybe up to six months. And
then there's another huge testosterone boost around about puberty, where
boy's testosterone goes up twenty times maybe thirty times over
(06:56):
what girls have. I mean, it's enormous. And around this
same period.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Are you so hairy?
Speaker 1 (07:02):
That's part of it. That's why my voice is so deep,
so I'm so manly. It's because of the testosterone boost
at puberty. But there's something else that happens. Two kinds
of empathy. There's what's known as cognitive empathy and another
empathy called affective empathy. Cognitive empathy is when you say
to somebody, do you get how I feel? And they say,
I get it. I see, I understand, I get how
(07:23):
you feel. I can articulate you're feeling this and this
and this. That's cognitive empathy, the ability to understand in
your head how another person is feeling. And then there's
affective empathy, which is are you feeling what I'm feeling.
It's when it's when I'm watching Bruce Willis and Ben
Affleck on the asteroid meteor in Armageddon to save the world,
(07:45):
and Willis throws Athleic back into the space shuttle and says,
you go and marry my daughter. I'm going to stay
here and block the asteroid and save the world. I'm
here and everyone's crying, and I'm going, oh my goodness.
And now that's affective empathy, when I'm feeling in my
heart what you're feeling in yours. The data shows that
when it comes to girls, they see a steady increase
in both those kinds of empathy throughout their life and
(08:07):
even through those puberty years. Okay, they become increasingly able
to understand and feel what other people are feeling. For boys, though,
it's the opposite. The testosterone boost goes and empathy plummets.
It goes down, which means that when you say to
your teenage son, don't you understand how that makes your
(08:29):
brother feel? No, he goes muh, and you say, but
can't you feel that? And he goes muh, and he'll
sometimes him say I don't care. No. Again, genetics and
biology are not destiny. We can teach empathy, and boys can.
If they're raised in the right environment, with the right circumstances,
(08:51):
they can elevate their empathy. But there is a decline.
So when you say to them, don't they think about
how the girl must feel? The reality is, unfortunately that
the majority of them don't. They're just thinking, she's going
to look so hot when I do this, And I'm
going to get so much status from the boys. You're
the boys. Hey, bro, I'm going to get so much
(09:12):
status from the boys when I showed them what I
did because I'm so clever on my computer with my
dad's credit card.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
So this might be completely hijacking the conversation, but.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
You already have. I've got all these notes and we
haven't touched them yet.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
The acronym SNAG sensitive new age guy was a big
thing when nineties, when I was a kid. Yes, and
I'm thinking about everything that you're talking to me about
and marrying that up with my experience with a handful
of boys who I had really close relationships with and
I felt were very empathetic. How does that wigh up
(09:53):
in this conversation.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
There are two things here. Number one, we're talking about averages.
Nobody is actually average. Everybody falls somewhere around the average.
But if you've got a bunch of dimensions, like dimensions
of masculinity, for example, you're never going to get a
boy who is completely average on the all of those
interseix we sort of spread out across that. So you
get some really blokey blokes, and you also get some
(10:16):
really I'm going to use a term that some people
will be uncomfortable with, but you get some really effeminate blokes. Okay,
And that doesn't mean that they're not men or that
they're less manly men. It just means that they carry
their masculinity differently. They're more comfortable potentially in themselves.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Well, how much is that as nurtural or nature.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Or it's nature and nurture. It really is both. Like
I said, though destiny is not in your biology. Recently,
I caught an aeroplane home after traveling to a regional
Queensland location and when I got on the plane, it
was full of miners blokes that were doing fly in
(10:54):
fly out, and number one, I was intimidated, But number two,
the way that they behaved in public, the way that
they spoke, the way that they I just was like,
they are the blokiest blokey blokes that I've ever bloked around.
I was so uncomfortable because I just thought, any one
of them, they don't do emotions, They don't do any
of the things that I feel really good about. And
(11:17):
so that you've got the averages. So you've got somebody
who's emotionally secure and happy to talk about that sort
of stuff at one end, and then you've got this
blokey bloke who would never mention an emotion at the
other end. And on average, where we're both sort of
somewhat emotional when we need to be, but we're not
(11:37):
even close to it. So your experience with some boys,
there's one more thing here. When that boy is one
on one with somebody, when he's having contact with that person,
he's much more likely to be human, to be much
more sensitive to him, a much more kind And.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
So it goes back to that comment you made that
their IQ of a bunch of boys, right, doesn't come
close to the IQ of one boy.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Correct. Yeah, Okay, So after the break, let's talk about
what to do if your son or daughter is involved
in this, and just a couple of general discussion points
for parents so that you can talk to your kids
about it even if they're not involved. Okay, Kylie, a
(12:20):
couple of things to discuss. First off, some discussion points
for parents when it comes to what we're talking about here.
The first thing that I want to mention is this,
if you want to talk to your kids about it,
and I recommend that you do this Sunday morning, sit
down and say, hey, there was this news story we
heard about. You might even discuss it with them and
ask them what they know about it? Have they heard
(12:40):
of it happening? How would they respond? What's the discussion
in the school. Do you think that this sort of
thing's happening that in and of itself is going to
be useful Whether you've got sons or daughters, just start
off the conversation, But I'd want to say something like this.
I would want to say that the accessibility and the
misuse of AI and technology generally pecifically AI among teens
(13:03):
is creating new forms of harassment, new forms of bullying
that most people aren't aware of, and most people don't
know what to do with. And so I'd be having
a chat with my kids about what photos they've got available,
where the photos are, and what the likelihood is that
anything that they've shared could make them a target. Bearing
in mind, but this is not on our kids if
they're victims, Okay, this is not about victim blaming, but
(13:26):
this is about trying to minimize the risk that they
may end up being one.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
I know, based on this particular story, it's not safe
to share anything. They literally used yearbook photo.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
I know. I recognize that what I'm saying could sound like,
well what was she wearing? That's not what I'm getting at.
But rather, who's got access to your content? What can
you do to lock it down? In this situation, based
on what we know from the news stories, there's nothing
you can do. This is a yearbook photo, so well,
and on.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Top of that, it was kids she knew, so it's
not even like it's a friend of a friend of
a friend. These are kids that she goes to school with.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
So that's the least important of all the things that
I'm going to share. But I guess what I'm trying
to do is help kids to be less likely to
be both perpetrators and victims. Second thing, I think we've
got to talk to our kids, especially our boys but
also our girls, about the psychological impact on victims, how
severe it can be because these images, once they are
(14:23):
spread online and it happens very very fast, these people
feel traumatized, they feel violated, even though the images aren't real.
And for parents, we need to remember as well that
the fake images being spread is not going to diminish
any emotional or trauma or social consequences. Like the kid's
going to be really affected by this, So having the
(14:45):
open conversation matters. I reckon that we should talk to
our kids about whether or not they should or should
not be on social media. I think that should be
on the table as a discussion point. As you just said, though,
this is something that wasn't even on social media, like
these are yearbook photos, so there's limited value in doing that.
I just think we've got to review digital safety, have
(15:05):
open conversations, and make sure the kids know that they've
got someone to turn to if they either witness it
or become a victim.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
You hear a story like this and you just want
to bubble out your kids up, don't you?
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Goodness unbelievable. We are way out of time, But can
I just share a couple of things to do if
you find out that your son's done something like this.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
I think we really need to talk about it.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
All right, Just three action steps for parents if you're
worried about it being your boy. First off, don't dismiss
this as just a prank, just kids boys being boys. Please,
Just that is in twenty twenty five. That is not
an acceptable response. If you do that, you're doing a
disservice to everyone who's a victim. But you're also doing
a disservice to your son. Yeah, it's just not okay.
(15:49):
So take immediate action, don't dismiss it, take their technology away.
I'm not big on being punitive, but in something like this,
you take the tech off them and just say, mate,
you can't touch this until we've got this out. I
would also say this, law enforcement are going to find
out about it. School authorities are going to find out
about it. It's all but guaranteed. Cooperate, don't try to
(16:11):
minimize it, don't try to pretend, oh, he was only
doing it because just own it and get professional help. Okay,
that's the immediate action that you take. Beyond that, I
think that there's got to be it's got to be
addressed head on. This would be my second key point.
Address it head on. Talk about the heart of the victims.
(16:32):
This is where the focus on empathy has to come in.
Even if it's not biologically normal for boys to be
focused on empathy. This is where you help them to
understand how the victims and the families feel and talk
about the long term consequences, the legal ramifications, the digital footprint,
the impact on their future, the impact on the future
of the girls who have been involved. And I think
(16:53):
you've got to explore where to come from. Was this
pressure from the boys, like do they understand the severity?
And lastly, You've got to create a pathway forward because
while this is reprehensible behavior that crosses so many bright lines,
boys need to know that there is always a way back.
But the way back is through ownership, it's through accountability,
(17:16):
it's through responsibility, it's through learning to be a better boy.
As a result of this experience, you can help him
to move on in a positive way from a very
very bad situation.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
We just we have to have these conversations in spite
of how challenging they are. It's so imperative for us
to help our kids recognize the ramifications of their actions
and help them to be hopeful about the future.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Heavy content, heavy discussion, so important as technology becomes increasingly
tricky to navigate. Thank you so much for listening. We
welcome your feedback podcasts at happy families dot com dot
I you. The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin
Roulant from Bridge Media. More information and more resources are
available at the e Safety website e safety dot gov
(18:11):
dot au or Happy families dot com dot AU.
Just a warning ahead of today's podcast. The content that
we will share today is well listening to discretion is advised.
While not explicit, it's certainly not for young children. Parents
will want to make some decisions around whether the kids
listen to it or not. Today we're tackling something that
might make your stomach drop, just as it did for
(00:27):
dozens of families at Melbourne High School about two weeks ago.
Imagine getting a call at your daughter's school photo that
sweet picture of your teenage girl in her uniform that
sits on your desk has been transformed using AI into
explicit sexual content as being shared around the school and
the Internet. Or perhaps even harder, to imagine that your
(00:47):
son was one of the boys who created these images
of his classmates, maybe even with his classmates. No, this
is not a black mirror episode or a cautionary tale
from some distant future. This happened, like I said, two
weeks ago, at Gladston Park's Secondary College, where two year
eleven boys allegedly used artificial intelligence to create and share
(01:08):
sexually explicit images of their female classmates. It follows a
number of similar incidents over the last year or so
at various schools around the country where female students continued
to be victimized in the same way. God, I so
glad to have you along for today's Happy Families podcast,
Real Parenting Solutions. Every day on Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast,
(01:30):
we are Justin and Kylie Coulson and Kylie as parents
were navigating territory that no parent would have ever imagined
that they would have to navigate.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
I remember when we were growing up, the biggest risk
to our children was coming across a pornographic magazine or
maybe someone had a cassette video tape that.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Might have Oh, they don't have the words for anymore.
Don't a VHS like a video? Yeah, a cassette tape
thing right.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
With explicit content on it. But nowadays our kids are
literally carrying devices in their pockets that have access to
just innumerable.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
One of my favorite podcasters, he's pretty coarse and crass,
but he just is so brilliant in the way that
he speaks. Prof. G. Scott Galloway one of the world's
leading podcasters. He talks about how our kids are running
around with paleolithic brains but God like technology in their pockets,
and this is what we're really talking about, Isn't it
(02:35):
like our teenagers have access to technology that can create
incredibly convincing fake images in seconds, and unfortunately that tech
is being weaponized in school yards across the country.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
So you're writing a book on teenage boys at the
moment as we speak.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Yeah, I wasn't expecting that, but yes.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
So the question is why.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
As you boy, you don't see girls doing this, do you?
Speaker 2 (02:58):
No, It's very rare that you would find girls doing
this kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Okay, so first of all, let's just highlight this is
not quote unquote normal behavior. This is going beyond boundaries
that are acceptable, and the boys who are doing it
know that. Everybody knows that brings up issues around consent.
Obviously there's the exploitation angle on it as well, and
there's a whole lot more that we will talk about.
But to answer the question why I reckon, there's a
(03:24):
couple of things. Number One, this is hard to say,
but it's a reality. Boys and girls are different, and
research across decades is highlighted that boys are more sexually
interested than girls, especially when they're teenagers, and boys also
crave visual sexual stimulation more than girls on average. And
more sexual variety on average. All these things point to
(03:46):
the very real situation that boys are simply more interested
in experimenting with playing around with discovering things of a
sexual nature relative to girls. Furthermore, and this does not
excuse just because it's hardwired, doesn't mean that it's destiny. Okay,
But we know that boys are more likely to egg
(04:09):
each other on in a group setting than girls are. Like,
the collective IQ of boys when they're in a group
is significantly lower than the individual iQue of each boy
when they're on their own. Do you know what I mean?
When they're together, they just do dumb things you're throwing
as well, things like an increased propensity for sensation, seeking
higher levels of impulsivity. I mean, the average twenty four
(04:31):
year old male has the same level of impulse control
as the average ten year old girl. But my book
is going to be amazing. I love talking about this
stuff because this is what I'm writing about in the book.
So there's a hardwired reality that I guess creates Guys
are much more interested in the potential reward of a
(04:52):
behavior than the risks associated with the behavior, And when
somebody raises the risks, they say oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
but that's not going to happen to me, me, or
it's yeah, that's a risk, but it's not really that
big of a risk compared to the reward. Look at
the reward. It's going to be awesome. There's one last
thing that I do need to highlight. We could talk
about why for ages, and that is that we live
in a breathtakingly objectifying, sexualized, pornographied world and boys, I
(05:19):
don't know, boys get status for doing this sort of stuff.
They praise each other, they build each other up, not
all of them, but enough of them that some boys
have gone, this will be really good. Let's do it.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
So clearly, I'm not a teenage boy, and I have
to admit I really would not like to be inside
a teenage boy's brain right now. But I have to
ask the question, when boys do things like this, is
there an iota of thought for the impact that it
will have on the target?
Speaker 1 (05:51):
No, girl, No, No, Well I shouldn't say no, but
I think it's kind of unlikely. And let me explain why.
Researchers a number of years ago discovered that as testosterone boosts.
And let me be clear, when testosterone goes up in
boys when puberty hits. Okay, so there's three major testosterone
boosts in a boy's life. The first one is when
that child is conceived. Okay, you've got this x Y
(06:13):
chromosome and the testosterone just goes through the mother's womb
and you've got a boy brain. You've got a boy.
You've got outdoor plumbing on the boy, right as opposed
to the indoor plumbing on a female. And what happens
then is the testosterone courses through him while he is
in the womb, and that's what makes him. Testosterone is,
as Carol Hooven from Harvard says, it's the hormone that
(06:36):
dominates and divides us. It's fascinating. There's another testosterone boost
shortly after birth. Okay, it lasts for the first handful
of months post birth, maybe up to six months. And
then there's another huge testosterone boost around about puberty, where
boy's testosterone goes up twenty times maybe thirty times over
(06:56):
what girls have. I mean, it's enormous. And around this
same period.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Are you so hairy?
Speaker 1 (07:02):
That's part of it. That's why my voice is so deep,
so I'm so manly. It's because of the testosterone boost
at puberty. But there's something else that happens. Two kinds
of empathy. There's what's known as cognitive empathy and another
empathy called affective empathy. Cognitive empathy is when you say
to somebody, do you get how I feel? And they say,
I get it. I see, I understand, I get how
(07:23):
you feel. I can articulate you're feeling this and this
and this. That's cognitive empathy, the ability to understand in
your head how another person is feeling. And then there's
affective empathy, which is are you feeling what I'm feeling.
It's when it's when I'm watching Bruce Willis and Ben
Affleck on the asteroid meteor in Armageddon to save the world,
(07:45):
and Willis throws Athleic back into the space shuttle and says,
you go and marry my daughter. I'm going to stay
here and block the asteroid and save the world. I'm
here and everyone's crying, and I'm going, oh my goodness.
And now that's affective empathy, when I'm feeling in my
heart what you're feeling in yours. The data shows that
when it comes to girls, they see a steady increase
in both those kinds of empathy throughout their life and
(08:07):
even through those puberty years. Okay, they become increasingly able
to understand and feel what other people are feeling. For boys, though,
it's the opposite. The testosterone boost goes and empathy plummets.
It goes down, which means that when you say to
your teenage son, don't you understand how that makes your
(08:29):
brother feel? No, he goes muh, and you say, but
can't you feel that? And he goes muh, and he'll
sometimes him say I don't care. No. Again, genetics and
biology are not destiny. We can teach empathy, and boys can.
If they're raised in the right environment, with the right circumstances,
(08:51):
they can elevate their empathy. But there is a decline.
So when you say to them, don't they think about
how the girl must feel? The reality is, unfortunately that
the majority of them don't. They're just thinking, she's going
to look so hot when I do this, And I'm
going to get so much status from the boys. You're
the boys. Hey, bro, I'm going to get so much
(09:12):
status from the boys when I showed them what I
did because I'm so clever on my computer with my
dad's credit card.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
So this might be completely hijacking the conversation, but.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
You already have. I've got all these notes and we
haven't touched them yet.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
The acronym SNAG sensitive new age guy was a big
thing when nineties, when I was a kid. Yes, and
I'm thinking about everything that you're talking to me about
and marrying that up with my experience with a handful
of boys who I had really close relationships with and
I felt were very empathetic. How does that wigh up
(09:53):
in this conversation.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
There are two things here. Number one, we're talking about averages.
Nobody is actually average. Everybody falls somewhere around the average.
But if you've got a bunch of dimensions, like dimensions
of masculinity, for example, you're never going to get a
boy who is completely average on the all of those
interseix we sort of spread out across that. So you
get some really blokey blokes, and you also get some
(10:16):
really I'm going to use a term that some people
will be uncomfortable with, but you get some really effeminate blokes. Okay,
And that doesn't mean that they're not men or that
they're less manly men. It just means that they carry
their masculinity differently. They're more comfortable potentially in themselves.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Well, how much is that as nurtural or nature.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Or it's nature and nurture. It really is both. Like
I said, though destiny is not in your biology. Recently,
I caught an aeroplane home after traveling to a regional
Queensland location and when I got on the plane, it
was full of miners blokes that were doing fly in
(10:54):
fly out, and number one, I was intimidated, But number two,
the way that they behaved in public, the way that
they spoke, the way that they I just was like,
they are the blokiest blokey blokes that I've ever bloked around.
I was so uncomfortable because I just thought, any one
of them, they don't do emotions, They don't do any
of the things that I feel really good about. And
(11:17):
so that you've got the averages. So you've got somebody
who's emotionally secure and happy to talk about that sort
of stuff at one end, and then you've got this
blokey bloke who would never mention an emotion at the
other end. And on average, where we're both sort of
somewhat emotional when we need to be, but we're not
(11:37):
even close to it. So your experience with some boys,
there's one more thing here. When that boy is one
on one with somebody, when he's having contact with that person,
he's much more likely to be human, to be much
more sensitive to him, a much more kind And.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
So it goes back to that comment you made that
their IQ of a bunch of boys, right, doesn't come
close to the IQ of one boy.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Correct. Yeah, Okay, So after the break, let's talk about
what to do if your son or daughter is involved
in this, and just a couple of general discussion points
for parents so that you can talk to your kids
about it even if they're not involved. Okay, Kylie, a
(12:20):
couple of things to discuss. First off, some discussion points
for parents when it comes to what we're talking about here.
The first thing that I want to mention is this,
if you want to talk to your kids about it,
and I recommend that you do this Sunday morning, sit
down and say, hey, there was this news story we
heard about. You might even discuss it with them and
ask them what they know about it? Have they heard
(12:40):
of it happening? How would they respond? What's the discussion
in the school. Do you think that this sort of
thing's happening that in and of itself is going to
be useful Whether you've got sons or daughters, just start
off the conversation, But I'd want to say something like this.
I would want to say that the accessibility and the
misuse of AI and technology generally pecifically AI among teens
(13:03):
is creating new forms of harassment, new forms of bullying
that most people aren't aware of, and most people don't
know what to do with. And so I'd be having
a chat with my kids about what photos they've got available,
where the photos are, and what the likelihood is that
anything that they've shared could make them a target. Bearing
in mind, but this is not on our kids if
they're victims, Okay, this is not about victim blaming, but
(13:26):
this is about trying to minimize the risk that they
may end up being one.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
I know, based on this particular story, it's not safe
to share anything. They literally used yearbook photo.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
I know. I recognize that what I'm saying could sound like,
well what was she wearing? That's not what I'm getting at.
But rather, who's got access to your content? What can
you do to lock it down? In this situation, based
on what we know from the news stories, there's nothing
you can do. This is a yearbook photo, so well,
and on.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Top of that, it was kids she knew, so it's
not even like it's a friend of a friend of
a friend. These are kids that she goes to school with.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
So that's the least important of all the things that
I'm going to share. But I guess what I'm trying
to do is help kids to be less likely to
be both perpetrators and victims. Second thing, I think we've
got to talk to our kids, especially our boys but
also our girls, about the psychological impact on victims, how
severe it can be because these images, once they are
(14:23):
spread online and it happens very very fast, these people
feel traumatized, they feel violated, even though the images aren't real.
And for parents, we need to remember as well that
the fake images being spread is not going to diminish
any emotional or trauma or social consequences. Like the kid's
going to be really affected by this, So having the
(14:45):
open conversation matters. I reckon that we should talk to
our kids about whether or not they should or should
not be on social media. I think that should be
on the table as a discussion point. As you just said, though,
this is something that wasn't even on social media, like
these are yearbook photos, so there's limited value in doing that.
I just think we've got to review digital safety, have
(15:05):
open conversations, and make sure the kids know that they've
got someone to turn to if they either witness it
or become a victim.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
You hear a story like this and you just want
to bubble out your kids up, don't you?
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Goodness unbelievable. We are way out of time, But can
I just share a couple of things to do if
you find out that your son's done something like this.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
I think we really need to talk about it.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
All right, Just three action steps for parents if you're
worried about it being your boy. First off, don't dismiss
this as just a prank, just kids boys being boys. Please,
Just that is in twenty twenty five. That is not
an acceptable response. If you do that, you're doing a
disservice to everyone who's a victim. But you're also doing
a disservice to your son. Yeah, it's just not okay.
(15:49):
So take immediate action, don't dismiss it, take their technology away.
I'm not big on being punitive, but in something like this,
you take the tech off them and just say, mate,
you can't touch this until we've got this out. I
would also say this, law enforcement are going to find
out about it. School authorities are going to find out
about it. It's all but guaranteed. Cooperate, don't try to
(16:11):
minimize it, don't try to pretend, oh, he was only
doing it because just own it and get professional help. Okay,
that's the immediate action that you take. Beyond that, I
think that there's got to be it's got to be
addressed head on. This would be my second key point.
Address it head on. Talk about the heart of the victims.
(16:32):
This is where the focus on empathy has to come in.
Even if it's not biologically normal for boys to be
focused on empathy. This is where you help them to
understand how the victims and the families feel and talk
about the long term consequences, the legal ramifications, the digital footprint,
the impact on their future, the impact on the future
of the girls who have been involved. And I think
(16:53):
you've got to explore where to come from. Was this
pressure from the boys, like do they understand the severity?
And lastly, You've got to create a pathway forward because
while this is reprehensible behavior that crosses so many bright lines,
boys need to know that there is always a way back.
But the way back is through ownership, it's through accountability,
(17:16):
it's through responsibility, it's through learning to be a better boy.
As a result of this experience, you can help him
to move on in a positive way from a very
very bad situation.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
We just we have to have these conversations in spite
of how challenging they are. It's so imperative for us
to help our kids recognize the ramifications of their actions
and help them to be hopeful about the future.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Heavy content, heavy discussion, so important as technology becomes increasingly
tricky to navigate. Thank you so much for listening. We
welcome your feedback podcasts at happy families dot com dot
I you. The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin
Roulant from Bridge Media. More information and more resources are
available at the e Safety website e safety dot gov
(18:11):
dot au or Happy families dot com dot AU.
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