May 2, 2025 • 51 mins
KEEPING KIDS SAFE ONLINE
Connect with us...
www.nextTalk.org
Facebook
Instagram
Contact Us...
admin@nextTalk.org
P.O. BOX 160111 San Antonio, TX 78280
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Next Talk podcast.
We are a nonprofit passionateabout keeping kids safe online.
We're learning together how tonavigate tech, culture and faith
with our kids.
We are back with Jamie Mershon.
She is on our advisory council.
She's a licensed professionalcounsel.
She has been on the podcastmany times.
(00:21):
Jamie, we're glad to have youback.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Thanks for having me.
I love it.
I got my coffee in hand, so I'mready to go.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
So the reason we're here today is because recently I
was contacted anonymously by apodcast listener who said seven
year old boys, friends, kissingprivate parts, and she needed
help.
And so I reached out to Jamiefor, hey, I just want to do a
podcast because this isanonymous and I want to reach
this parent and I don't know howto, and maybe other parents
(00:51):
need this resource.
So Jamie and I talked and Jamiereally was so helpful she
didn't have time to get on thepodcast at the time but she was
very helpful in that podcast.
Since then we've been contactedby other families that this is
happening and it's always likethe young boys like same age or
(01:13):
maybe one year apart.
So I have been messaging Jamieagain getting her advice on some
things and my mind has beenblown with these conversations
and so I asked Jamie.
I was like Jamie, can you comeon?
Can we just do a quick podcastfrom your office one day?
You know virtually.
And cause I want to unpack this?
(01:34):
Because I think thisinformation would be very, very
helpful to any parent who has ayoung boy especially.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Yeah, so, like you said, you're seeing the rise of
hearing more boy to boy and thatis probably someone always been
there, but I think there's justmore awareness around it.
I think parents are more intune and there's also just
cultural things that are, youknow, adding to normalizing boy
to boy abuse or boy to boy justsexual orientation things.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Well, and what's interesting to me is some of
these stories, the verbiage thatthe kids use.
They will literally say we weresucking penises, like they will
say that terminology.
And, jamie, I'm I'm just goingto tell you like I truly believe
it is the rot of porn in ourculture, because we covered on
(02:31):
that previous show, yes,sometimes the kid themselves
seen porn and they acted out, orthe kid could be
inappropriately touched bysomebody else older, like a true
abuse situation that they'reacting it out, somebody else
older, like a true abusesituation that they're acting it
out.
But but the third thing is Ithink also that we can have a
group of kids playing on theplayground and it takes one kid
(02:56):
to see a pornographic video andsay, on the slide, did you know
you can suck each other'spenises, yeah, and then we have
all this exposure of kids likethinking, well, what is this?
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Right, and I think something that you have shared,
mandy, is just on the cry outs.
You know it's getting youngerand younger, to six year olds,
to eight year olds.
Right, you know there is aninnocence at that age, right Of
like they are just saying thingsout of truly, just like hey,
(03:31):
did you know, like when you mixthese two colors?
together you get this colorright.
There's just this level wherethey're just like literally just
delaying information and somekids hear that like oh, did you
know that two boys can kiss eachother's penises, right?
Some kids hear that they'relike that's weird, that's gross,
you shouldn't do that, and theytrash that thought.
Other kids will ruminate onthat, right, and like well, what
(03:54):
does that mean, or how doesthat feel, or what would that
happen if I tried that?
So I think there is this levelof innocence because the
children's minds there's a levelof like right and wrong.
Obviously, it depends on whatthe conversation's been, have
been happening at home already,and so how equipped is this
(04:16):
child and do they know how tonavigate that?
But there's still just suchthis innocence, right, where I
don't think that kids are trulyrepeating and saying this stuff
to be malicious or to bedisruptive to other kids.
I think there is just such ayou know, nonchalantness around
this hyper sexualized culturewe're living in, and so there's
(04:39):
a lot of passing comments thatare just being thrown around.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Well, and I think I mean this is why next talk is so
important, and like the redflags, because, because any word
you don't know that's on there.
If anybody's talking about bodyparts, that's on there.
So it should create.
If you're talking to your kid,hey, these are the things I want
you to tell me about, it shouldcreate a red flag in their mind
(05:05):
to go home and tell mom or dad,hey, somebody's talking about a
penis on the slide, Like, whatdoes this mean?
And then we can prevent thisexploratory curiosity touching
that we're I mean way past,really touching that we're
seeing.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Right, and something that I think is just really
helpful for parents to instillat home and it's just quick and
simple is don't repeat it,report it, and I think it goes
along.
When you are that safe, trustedadult and the kid has a red
flag thing happen, that you justremind them.
Thank you so much for reportingthis and not repeating this,
(05:43):
because naturally kids arecurious.
They just they are right and sothat is a good thing.
You know, when we're learningin school or when we're out
exploring.
But curiosity on thishyper-sexualized culture that is
leading to a lot of exploratorythings, that I don't even think
that it's, you know,necessarily an imbalance of
(06:04):
power.
I don't think it's manipulation.
I think it's kids hearingsomething and plants a seed,
they get curious and it moves toexploratory.
And that's where it gets tricky.
When we think about theexploratory phase, it's not
necessarily always traumatic.
It really could just be.
I heard about this thing.
I was curious what that feltlike or what that looked like,
(06:28):
and me and my friend tried it.
You know, not only are kidscurious, but I would challenge
parents to get curiousthemselves, that if something
does get exposed to the light,you know we are so quick to go
to fear or shame and blame andjust kind of try to just ground
yourself and like get curious.
You know, it doesn't alwaysmean that a abusive thing is
(06:51):
happening or a traumatic thingis happening.
We just see this shift in whatthings look like sexually
because of what kids are hearingand seeing and because it's
happening younger.
There's this innocence andthere's this natural curiosity.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Okay, there's a lot to unpack there.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Yeah, I just did a lot of talking.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
First of all, don't repeat it, report it.
That should be a new phrase ineverybody's home.
That's fantastic because itlimits exposure to other kids
and it gets it to the rightadult to have a situation.
So don't repeat it, report it.
Great phrase.
So we're talking about here twoboys, because we're really
seeing the uptick with two boysand that's why we're focusing on
(07:34):
this right now.
But what you're saying issometimes in our parent brain we
go to oh my gosh, that's abuse,that's trauma.
Somebody's doing something toour kid, but oftentimes because
they're the same age, there's noimbalance of power.
There's just two innocent kidswho have taken something that
(07:55):
somebody's shown them or talkedto them about or they've seen on
a screen and they're beingcurious about it.
So this idea of exploratoryversus trauma I really want to
hone in on this, because what Iam seeing happening is the
(08:19):
parents are traumatized andthey're making it trauma in the
kid's life when it wasn't trauma.
But at the same time I want tobe really careful here.
Drama Right at the same time,but at the same time I want to
be really careful here.
It's not to be shifted andpushed under the rug either.
Exactly exactly.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
I think there's so many different angles to look at
this because we definitelydon't want to minimize it right,
it definitely needs to beaddressed but I think, if we can
keep it the right size, so it'sa cantaloupe, it's not a
watermelon, it's not a grape.
When we first find out about itit's a cantaloupe, it's not a
watermelon, it's not a grape.
When we first find out about itit's a cantaloupe.
Right, it's serious, rightBecause something is being
(08:51):
awakened and we'll talk moreabout that in a little bit.
But it's serious because youknow we don't want our child to
experience those things, toexplore those things.
You know there's a right andbest way that God has those
things to be awakened and it is,you know, in a marriage or you
know, kissing and a committedrelationship.
(09:14):
You know things like that.
There is a context around thesethings, right?
And when we start thinking thatthat context is around play
that becomes very confusing tochildren, that that context is
around play that becomes veryconfusing to children, and so
meaning, keep it the right sizeis it doesn't necessarily mean
that sexual abuse is happening,it doesn't necessarily mean that
this huge traumatic thing ishappening, but something serious
(09:36):
is happening and we have to getcurious and we have to ask the
right questions and figure outhow did we get here?
Speaker 1 (09:42):
The underlying thing is what made you think of this?
Because, because afive-year-old is not just going
to come up with the term suckingpenis out of nowhere.
So the key is where did youhear that?
And that takes very calmconversations, not I love the
phrase you use not shaming andblaming the other kid.
(10:03):
Don't assume your kid is perfectand wasn't the initiator.
And also I just want to say,just because your kid is the
initiator doesn't mean your kidis an abuser.
Absolutely this is not.
It would be very different ifit was a 17 year old kid with a
five year old.
That's an abusive situationAbsolutely.
But two friends like this wehave to be extremely careful
(10:24):
with.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
And I think the bottom line is it's like we have
to just, you know, investigatethe situation to make sure kids
are safe, Because you knowhearing, well, I got this idea
because somebody shared it onthe playground.
Compared to, oh, I have acousin who has, you know, sucked
my penis, that is verydifferent, and so we owe it to
(10:48):
these children to be curious andinvestigate in a level that we
can make sure, like, okay, isthis our culture, or is this
coming from a place where thischild is actually a victim and
is being preyed upon and theyare acting out things that have
been done to them?
Those are two very differentconversations.
But if we get defensive or weput walls up and shut down, we
(11:13):
can't get to the root of wheredid this come from?
And so the initiator is not anabuser.
We just have to make sure thatthis child is also being
protected and find out thesource of this.
Where did this idea come from?
Speaker 1 (11:28):
This pertains to any gender, like so.
If it's a girl and a boy, twofive-year-olds and they're
licking each other's privateparts, this is the same
conversation, but the reason I'mnot bringing that into it is
because I haven't even had acase like that.
All of these people that havecontacted me have been two boys,
so that's why we're reallyfocused on two boys here.
(11:49):
I really want to, you know, makesure that we are making that
disclaimer here.
I want you to give us someexamples.
If a kid is processing liketrauma, even though it may not
be abuse, it's twofive-year-olds, but they're
processing it like holy moly.
What are the signs that we needto look for?
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Yeah, I think you know, you've probably maybe
heard about check engine lightsbefore, but check engine just
lights are just things that areout of the normal, right.
And so you know if a child isgetting headaches, not just like
a one and done, but it's likeall of a sudden they're getting
headaches.
For you know, if a child isgetting headaches, not just like
a one and done, but it's likeall of a sudden they're getting
headaches for you know, a longamount of time, or weeks, or
(12:31):
days, nightmares, bedwetting, ashift in their grades, or you
just notice that they're moreanxious, or I don't want to play
with this kid anymore.
But what do you mean?
You guys are like best friends.
Why don't you want to be aroundthem anymore?
Right, just kind of get youknow to the bottom of, maybe,
what's going on here.
(12:52):
And it depends on the child too.
Some kids just have anextremely heavy conscience and
some kids are just like, oh, wejust did this thing and they
just move on, right, that thisis not just a one size fits all
and it really is kid to kid.
So some kids are, you know,they're those true empaths.
Some kids are very that heavyconscious.
(13:15):
Some kids, you know, you have anext talk home.
They are well aware of likethis happened.
I should have told my mom or mysafe, trusted adult.
There's so many factors that gointo this.
So sometimes it's you knowthey're not directly saying this
happened, but they're showingus and telling us by all of
(13:35):
these things where, where didthis come from?
Like there's a baseline of howyour child was, and then now all
this stuff is happening.
That should even turn our checkengine light on and be like,
okay, something's off here.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
So one of the things is I've been trying to get these
families to go to a counselorjust so a counselor can figure
out if the kid, if parent, hastrouble.
Like how is this kid processing?
Do we just need to haveconversations about boundaries
and consent and private parts orprivate like those kinds of
conversations, or is this kidprocessing like trauma and has a
tummy ache all the time andlike there's a major problem
(14:11):
here that I need a counselor for?
But sometimes parents can'tfigure that out on their own.
Yeah, and I want to be honest,like I, I struggle because I'm
scared.
I'm going to send a kid,especially out of state lines
where I don't personally knowthe counselors, like within
Texas I've got counselors that Itrust, but outside of Texas and
(14:36):
I'm being contacted by peopleoutside of Texas now I'm scared
to send families to a counselorbecause I'm afraid it may be an
exploratory situation where weneed to talk about boundaries,
consent and have all those.
I mean not sweep it under therug, but have a major reset in
our home about what we'rereporting and all of that kind
(14:58):
of stuff versus what if the kidis just processing it like
exploratory and they go into acounselor and a counselor makes
it trauma for them, becausesometimes that happens, jamie,
and because not all counselorsare created equal and a lot of
times parents.
What I am finding is they'rescared of that they're scared of
(15:20):
.
So what do you recommend forparents and counselors to make
sure that everybody's on thesame page here with these really
young kids?
Speaker 2 (15:29):
That's a great question, mandy, and I'm glad
you asked, because I alwayssuggest that the parents do
their own session.
Um, so they may already haveestablished care with you, know
their own personal counselor,and so set up a session with
your personal counselor and say,hey, I need to process
something with you, this justhappened, right, and then they
(15:50):
may know a safe, trustedcounselor who they work with,
like, so you know, if it's themom and I'm going to my personal
counselor, right, and she'sjust working with adult women,
she most likely has connectionswith trusted counselors who do
pediatric and minors andchildren that she could refer
out to.
But that would be the firstplace to start is, if you don't
(16:14):
have a personal counselor, thenyou know, go to your church and
see if they have a list of safe,trusted, safe, trusted I'm kind
of on the kid version hereright, safe, trusted counselor
right.
But they will have a list ofvetted counselors and I would
set up a parent session withthem and say, hey, we had
(16:35):
something happen over theweekend or we discovered
something over the weekend.
We would like a session to justprocess this with you and get a
feel, for, yeah, I feel atpeace with how they're telling
us to proceed.
Or I don't know if I agree withthat.
I'm going to seek counsel onthat or pray through it, or
maybe we need to check outanother counselor.
(16:56):
And so I think that you know,again, keeping it the right size
of knowing okay, it's beenbrought into the light.
Our child is safe.
They are no longer around thatchild right now until we come up
with a plan.
So everything's just been kindof paused.
Now we are going to seek outhelp to figure out how do we
(17:16):
navigate this.
What are the next steps?
So, if you have a personalcounselor, go to them and they
may have a list of their youknow preferred counselors, of
who they refer out to.
Or if you don't have a personalcounselor, go to your church
and vet them out through settingup a counselor with them first
and just seeing how their takeor how they're processing it or
(17:40):
how they would handle it if thatmakes sense Okay.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
So if this happens, we want a counselor with mom and
dad first.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
And also too, I think that will help the counselor
see, is mom and dad processingit like trauma?
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Because the kid may not be processing it like trauma
, but we are, and then we makeit a bigger deal at home.
I mean we are like won't let itgo, right, you know what I mean
, like we can't heal from itbecause we're stuck there.
We've got to be careful thatwe're not creating trauma as
parents.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Because a lot of kids because it wasn't rooted in
like sadistic or manipulation,they really just think like, oh,
we were just trying this thingout, we were just playing it.
I mean, I definitely think itcauses confusion and it awakens
something, but that's still verydifferent than traumatic, right
, and so I think definitely, youknow, it provides the parents a
(18:37):
safe place to process it andget their head in a clear,
grounded place of how to proceed.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
I like what you said, that it awakens something
because even if your kid is notprocessing like trauma and it's
just like exploratory, I mean inmy mind I'm equating it to our
generation like playing doctor.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Yeah, right.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
You just, and we needed to have more
conversations around boundariesconsent private parts, all of
those things that we weren'thaving.
And so even if the kid is justprocessing like it's curious
exploratory, like what is this,you cannot push it under the rug
and act like it didn't happen.
I think still a kid should meetwith a counselor, but after the
(19:17):
parents have met with thatcounselor just to process and
make sure everything's okay andthat you have a right read on
your child, you need a thirdparty to kind of help with that.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Yeah, and sometimes you already have established
care with a counselor and in theideal situation it's ideal if
we have established care,whether the parents have
established care or whether thechild has established care, but
sometimes that's just not thereality, because a lot of these
kids are pretty young and theyhaven't had no reason to go to
counseling, right?
Even if it's just a check-inafter the parents have met with
(19:48):
the counselor and the child doesa check-in with that counselor,
it doesn't even mean that thatchild is going to get a session
that is centered all around whathappened.
It could just be getting agauge on.
Does this child seem anxious?
How does this child interact?
You know, if it's a play-basedsession, right.
If there's a lot of aggressionin their play or if it's just
(20:12):
like hyper fixation onorganizing and they need order
or they want to be in charge,there's lots of stuff that
counselors can seek out throughplay.
And if nothing else, that childhas just had a positive touch
point with the counselor,Meaning oh, when I go see Miss
Jamie, I get a snack, we playgames.
We laugh right.
(20:33):
And that way, if something doescome on later on in life where
they're just like you know, afew months later because kids
process very different thanadults, right, it may show up
later, it could be in a fewmonths.
Very different than adults,right, it may show up later, it
could be in a few months andthen you say, hey, remember, you
know, when we went to go seeMiss Jamie and you guys, you
know, just got to hang out andtalk would you like to go see
(20:56):
her again and talk about some ofthese things that you know that
have been keeping you up atnight?
And so that's helpful, becausethen they have this established
place that they have a positiveexperience with.
And so then they're like ohyeah, like I've already been
there, I know I like going there, I know it's safe, um, like
they feel comfortable goingthere again.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
So.
But you don't recommend justsending a five-year-old in with
a counselor that you don't know.
We don't want to do that.
We don't want to do that.
Okay, now I want to talk about.
I want to shift and talk aboutwhat it looks like with the
other family.
Yeah, because oftentimes Ithink we want to blame and we
want to accuse and we have to bereally careful here, because
(21:42):
even if one of the kidsinitiated, like you said,
there's not an imbalance inpower, it's probably not
manipulation.
If anything, it's worst casescenario here.
The kid is acting out what anolder person has done to them.
That's like worst case scenario.
Most likely it's the pornculture Either they've seen porn
(22:03):
, they've heard about it orsomething like that.
So how do we approach the otherfamily?
And I know you said earlierwhen this happens you may want
to pause the playdates for aminute until we get a solution
going forward.
But what is this conversationlook like the first time we
contact the other family?
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Yeah, I think you know, the more we can keep
things disarmed, the better.
If you're the parent reachingout, you've had time to process
this or you were the person whosaw it.
So, number one, it's so mucheasier for you to have a totally
different experience on thisbecause maybe you're the parent
that walked in on it and you'realso the parent who's had time
(22:45):
to maybe process this with yourspouse or a trusted girlfriend,
or, you know, you've had alittle more time.
So you have to remember they'rehearing this for the first time
and they didn't see it Right,cause a lot of us think our
child would never do that orwhat do you mean?
Like I've never known them tohave this side to them.
So, just a little pre you knowcontext, that that might be some
(23:06):
of the things happening in thebackground Because, again, they
didn't see it and they'rehearing it for the first time.
So if I were calling you, Imight say something like this
hey, mandy, are you in a placethat you can talk?
Right now?
I do have kids around you.
Something happened and I just Ineed your attention, attention
and just, you know, want to makesure little ears aren't around.
(23:27):
Okay, so then you're like yep,I can talk, you know.
All right, mandy, I need you tojust bring something to your
attention.
The boys were playing and I was,you know, just super alarmed by
it, and I know you're the typeof parent that would want to
know this, because we parentssimilar.
We both want to make sure theboys are safe, we both want to
make sure that they have healthyfriendships, and so when I went
(23:51):
upstairs to just check on them,I walked in on them touching
each other's penises or lickingeach other's penises.
Have you ever had an experiencelike this before?
Or, you know, I know you haveolder kids.
Have you ever had this happenbefore?
This is something new to me andI want to handle this well.
(24:12):
And so what are your thoughtson, you know, what I just walked
in on, or something along thoselines?
Make it more of a conversationis kind of what I'm getting at.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
You're not blaming, you're not, it is hey, we're in
this together.
This happened with our boys,their best friends.
What do we do?
Yeah, and I would say too, likeyou may not get the good
response, because because, thinkabout it, like you said,
they're processing this for thefirst time, right, right, so so
(24:44):
give the parent a minute givethem a minute and like, let's
say, you know it's a next talk,mom, they've been listening to
podcasts.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
They've been, you know, doing creating the next
talk home.
And not all homes are createdequally and moms have different
sources of what they'relistening to and if they're
listening to stuff, and also weall carry our own personal
stories and experiences, sosometimes it could be like, oh
no, not again.
It's like this generationalthing happening, like you know,
(25:13):
that happened to me and now it'shappening to my child, or there
could be things happening inthat home that we have no clue,
and so there's so many thingsthat we aren't even privy to
that it could be bumping upagainst.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Like don't take it personal.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Is what you're saying .
If they respond badly to you orthey hang up on you or they
start, you know, like you know,overreact, because that is
shocking news to somebody thatmaybe doesn't expect it or has
trauma in that.
Absolutely In my opinion, itdoesn't always mean that the
(25:47):
boys need to stop being friends.
Because I feel like if bothparents handle it correctly,
both talk to their kidsindividually in their own
families about boundaries andconsent, and then come up with
an action plan like like okay,we're not doing sleepovers
anymore, or from now on it'sonly outside when you're playing
, you know, in certain areas orwhatever, I think this could be
(26:09):
handled where it could be finethat the boys be friends again.
I think it could even be moretraumatic if it was just
exploratory and we needed tojust have conversations about
boundaries and stuff, and thenwe yank the friendship away
because maybe a kid, maybe theydidn't parent, didn't see it.
But what I'm hearing a lot isone of the kids confide in their
(26:30):
parents.
That's what I'm hearing.
I haven't worked any cases yetthat the parents have walked in
on the young boys, but I haveheard like my kid was telling me
this, you know kind of alludedto it I'm like what?
And then the kid, like you said, the mom, got curious and asked
her to asking questions likewhat do you mean?
Tell me more that kind of thing.
And so in this situation, youknow they're, they're exploring
(26:54):
there, and so to me it's justabout okay.
We need to reset thisfriendship, we need to look at
boundaries and we need to bothparent families get on the same
page and they could stillmaintain a friendship.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
Yeah, and I think the main thing is, both parents, or
both families, have to, youknow, be aligned with the same
plan moving forward right,because if somebody's in denial
or somebody you know is going totake something like this and
turn it into this right thenwhere?
does it become more harmful thanhelpful?
(27:27):
Because, you know, friendshipsare such a huge deal.
And so two kids who you knowhave had you know healthy play
things, take a turn toexploratory, and now I never
talked to that kid again.
That's a huge loss in theirlife.
And then also they're leftalone.
I'm like the last time I eversaw this person was when we, you
(27:47):
know we're licking each other'spenises.
I mean, really think about thelevel of shame that causes, um,
the level of blame, cause wedon't know the narrative that
that little one might becreating around it.
And so, you know, there aresome situations where, sadly,
yeah, no contact does happenbecause the two families cannot
(28:09):
align or, you know, it's notsafe, and so you have to make a
hard decision.
But if you can have two familiesthat can work through it
together, it can really be agreat example of like repair and
recover and boundaries lookdifferent, conversations look
different, how they play looksdifferent, but it doesn't mean
(28:30):
it's a total like end to it.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
Well, and I think it's so interesting how you look
at it from a counselingperspective, Like if the
friendship just ends abruptly.
You know you're thinking aboutthe shame, I'm thinking about
the families.
I've helped that if a kidconfides in their parent that
something happened and then allof a sudden the parent says you
can't be friends with that kidanymore, that kid is never going
(28:54):
to confide in that parent again.
I agree with that Right.
It's just like.
It's just like I saw porn on myphone and then they never get a
.
They get the phone yanked outof their hand.
They're never going to tell youagain when they see porn and
they get their phone yanked outof their hand.
They're never going to tell youagain when they see porn and
they're going to see it again.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Right, because it's costly, and it's costly to them
because something important istaken from them.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Yes, and I do think it could be such a beautiful
thing Like God could take acurse you know, this
porn-sexualized culture that'sbeen poured on our kids and
created these type ofenvironments.
That is the curse that we'redealing with, but God could use
that as a blessing, as a goodthing, as a launching pad to
have better conversations aboutboundaries and consent in your
(29:35):
home.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Well, I really think that lifts the shame too,
because you give this friendshipan opportunity for repair and
recover.
And it's two families thatworked really hard together to
keep their kids safe,investigate, like hey, are both
boys safe?
Did something happen to one ofthem that spurred this on?
And so I think it could evenenrich just the friendship
(29:58):
between two families of like,wow, like we worked really hard
to make sure these boys weresafe and we worked really hard
to make sure that theirfriendship safe and we worked
really hard to make sure thattheir friendship is safe and
healthy.
And so, you know, it could bethat thing that kind of makes or
breaks families and friendships, because this happens within
families and cousins and happenswithin relationships with
(30:21):
neighbors or school friends andall of that.
And so sometimes you know it'snot just we're never going to
see them again, it's okay, so Ican't talk to you, but I passed
you in the hall or I can't playwith you at this game, but we
used to always play gaga ball atrecess or whatever.
And so it really becomes thishuge stressor because the whole,
you know, this child has to nowcreate their whole life of like
(30:43):
don't talk to him, don't playwith him, can't look at them.
You know we always used to goover there.
Now we don't go over there,don't talk to the mom.
It's just very unnatural, right?
Because unless there is harmcontinuing or the other family
is just not in the place whereyou know they want to repair and
recover.
Yet that's a differentconversation.
(31:05):
But truly, if you to repair andrecover, yeah, that's a
different conversation.
But truly, if you can repairand recover, that is so
beautiful and that truly there'sa way to do that.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
Well, yes, I love that and and we're not saying
that if the other family getsdefensive and I mean they're
probably going to get defensiveat first no matter what but
that's what I mean.
Like give them a couple of daysand then say let's go to coffee
.
Like I really want to talk thisthrough, like I, you know we
(31:33):
don't want to lose yourfriendship, but we got to figure
out what happened here, why,and prevent it from happening
together.
But if you can't get to thatpoint, you may have to cut off
the friendship and you mayUnfortunately yeah.
And I think that may be aconversation, even with the
little saying hey, I want you tobe their friend again.
But we do have to talk aboutwhat happened and why it can't
(31:56):
happen again.
Not that there's like, I mean,you guys were just curious, we
get it, yeah, that is notactivity for five-year-olds, so
we have to talk about that andthey won't Right.
So it kind of leaves us in asituation where we can't play
with them until maybe we canhave those conversations.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
Right, we're going to take a time out, we're going to
pray.
You know that we can recoverand whatnot.
But, yes, just give themlanguage of like.
We have to take a time outuntil you know, know it can be
safe for y'all to play again, orwe can find an appropriate way
for you to play, and sometimesthat takes time.
So what are some other friendsthat you could play with?
Or what are some things we cando when you're sad and you're
(32:36):
missing this friend, you know,because it is a loss you know,
for them it was just, we werejust two kids having fun, and
then, you know, we tried thisthing and now all of a sudden,
yeah it, it is to theirdetriment you know?
Speaker 1 (32:51):
Okay, you said something about earlier, about
it awakening something.
Yes, I'm glad you circled backto that Even if it's just
exploratory and there's noprocessing like trauma or
anything like that, and even thetwo families are working
together and they're doing thegreat work together, yeah, it
still could awaken somethingsexually in a kid before we want
(33:14):
it to.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Right, because it awakens this curiosity and it
stirs up stuff, right?
I mean, we're all sexual beingsand that's not like, oh, when
you hit puberty, this sexualside comes to you.
There is a reason why our bodyresponds, despite our age, to
sexual touches or to, you know,exploratory things, right, and
so we want to make sure we tendto that part of our child, um,
(33:39):
because it does, you know, tapinto that arousal structure.
That is something that has beenawakened and we definitely want
to address that.
And just, you know, it's God'sbest that these things happen
within marriage or they happenwithin, you know, like kissing
in a committed relationship orwhatever you know you subscribe
(34:02):
to as a family of likeboundaries and and all of that
right and religious beliefs andyour faith.
And so the context, like Godhas a best plan and sometimes
things happen outside of God'sbest plan, but that doesn't mean
that you know we're ruined.
It just means that we have towork together to make sure that
(34:25):
your body is not wanting more ofthis or you're wanting to do
more of this, and so that'swhere mom and dad come in to
help you, because when thisstuff gets awakened, your brain
may have said huh, this is kindof confusing and weird that my
friend and I did this, but mybody said it felt good.
And so there's a level ofnormalizing and helping them
(34:45):
explain that sometimes yourbrain is confused but your body
is saying that felt good and Iwant to do that again.
Or it starts at you know, I didthis thing.
You know, touching my penis isa one, right?
Well, now I want to stroke mypenis, and now I have to do that
before I go to bed, right?
We want to make sure that itdoesn't progress into something
(35:08):
bigger and more, where it turnsinto addictions and then, when
it turns into like copingmechanisms and soothing and I do
this when nobody's around.
So we just want to keep tabs onall that and make sure that our
little ones don't feel alone inthis.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
I think you've given some very helpful points.
If this happened, how to handleit with getting your kid to a
counselor, processing with yourkid and then also dealing with
the other family.
I think you've given great tipshere.
I also kind of want to zoom outfor a minute, and you know we
talked a little bit in thebeginning about the porn culture
and we definitely believe thatit has played a role in seeing
(35:45):
these rise of cases.
I also want to talk about wedid a show a while back about
Anxious Generation.
Jonathan Jonathan Haidt trulyrespect his work that he's doing
.
I'm, you know, retweeting hisstuff like good stuff, good
stuff, yeah, great stuff.
But I do think we need to becareful because this
(36:06):
unsupervised play that he'spushing I'm for it.
Kids need to be outside.
They need to be less on screens.
But in my world, what I'mthinking about is if these kids
have unsupervised play and theyhave no next talk conversations
in their home about privateparts and boundaries and consent
and what should make a red flaggo off in their brain.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
We're going to see the things we're seeing Exactly
Because there is an emphasis,almost kind of like bringing
back to the eighties.
They talk about a time in thatbook where kids had all this
unsupervised play and I'm sure,yes, there was like exploratory
things going on.
Like you said earlier, doctor,right, that happened in a lot of
(36:48):
unsupervised play, right, and alot of us probably really do
have memories of that.
But we also aren't probably ona couch traumatized over it
either, not to minimize it, butit depends on how far that went,
right, but a lot of kids havethat exploratory play in their
memory.
But what we're seeing now is,you know, phones, tech, access
(37:12):
to porn, and even what porn islooking like.
You know, I use the wordvanilla.
It's not vanilla anymore, it'sdark, it is violent, right.
And so even how porn looks, youknow we're seeing more, you
know, man on man and just orgies, just very extreme situations
(37:35):
in porn, right.
So kids, what do they do?
They act out stuff through play.
So if they're seeing things orhearing things which takes us
back to how we started thisepisode right, it is not
uncommon for them to reenactthat stuff, especially if they
haven't had those nextconversations.
When it talks about the amountof unsupervised play, I think
(37:58):
that we have to make sure thatwe're doing the preventative
work and some of you listenersare thinking like we have the
kid house right, or once in awhile, our kids go to other
houses.
We have to start normalizingbetween parents of how do we
just talk about the expectationsand the family rules that we
hold on or have created in ourhomes, right?
(38:20):
You know, I have three, you know, small children.
Fourth, second, kinder, and sowe have, you know, those are
prime ages for kids, overplaying, all that kind of stuff.
And I have started like, whenfamilies drop their kids off,
hey, here's the rules in theRashawn house.
Or, you know, these are ourexpectations, you know, with how
(38:41):
we handle tech, closed doors,all that kind of stuff, what are
rules that you would like to behonored by your child's playing
here, right, or what are thingsthat are rules in your home?
And so it's essentially justnormalizing and starting the
conversation, because someparents have no problem dropping
them off, like and saying, hey,what's your rules for tech?
We don't do tech, like they'revery comfortable starting that
(39:03):
conversation.
Some parents are veryuncomfortable with that
conversation.
They're like, I feel so awkward.
I, like you know, feel like I'massuming that their house isn't
safe, and so I think there's alevel where again?
just make it a conversation hey,here's how we handle things in
our home.
How do you handle things inyour home?
Great, and if something arisesI'll call you and fill you in,
(39:26):
you know, and you can tweakthose as they get older or
whatnot.
But I think that is a reallysafe and honorable way to do
preventative.
And also, like, if you're goingto have the kid house, you know
, if you have a two-story house,maybe it's like, hey, we, you
know, until you really get toknow somebody you might say we
just are doing downstairs todayit's a downstairs play day,
maybe when they're older,upstairs, or maybe when they're
(39:49):
younger it's upstairs and whenthey're older it's downstairs.
You know your kids, you know thedynamics, but you have to be
very in tune with your ages, thetype of kids are hanging out
with.
What are the other friendsvalues, how is their house set
up?
You know, in regard to rulesand stuff, because some parents
drop them off and they're likeoh, we trust you, like they're
good, you know we'll pick themup at five or whatnot, and they
(40:12):
aren't really interested in therules or they haven't really
thought about what their familyrules are, and so that might be
a child that's not superequipped in the next talk lingo,
right.
And as a parent, it's okay tosay hey, johnny, we're so glad
you're here.
You know, here's just kind ofsome rules at our house that we,
when kids come over, likehere's a rundown of our house.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
I love the practical things that you said, because
because also you said that youkind of have set up your house
to think about this in mind,like you have a clubhouse in the
backyard and you didn't putwalls in it.
You want to get open, likethings like that just be
intentional, yeah and.
And I also love just like yourpractical list.
Like we're not going to gobehind closed doors with anybody
.
You know if you got to go tothe bathroom it's one person at
(41:00):
a time.
Um, you had mentioned that tome off camera.
I love the first story andsecond story, cause we see a lot
of it going upstairs, yeah,right, and and I think you're
also right with the.
You know you said with theJonathan Hyatt stuff, you're
like we want to go back to theeighties kind of thing and and
that's great and I think it'sneeded with kids and outdoor
(41:21):
play needed.
But we don't live in an eightiesculture anymore.
The porn has changed whatthey're hearing and thinking
about.
So if we just send kids outinto the backyard and we're
locking them outside for eighthours like in the eighties,
there's going to be linescrossed because we're not
(41:42):
talking to them about what theporn culture has really done to
their world and we don't tellthem what the porn culture is
and we implement the red flags.
You know, in every situationthat I've recently worked, I
thought, man, if they, if we hadimplemented red flags here,
they would have caught it.
Because one is any dating,marriage, kissing, you're going
(42:02):
to tell me, and the other one onthat list is any body parts, if
you, and if you see anyone in aswimsuit or less, you're going
to tell me.
Whether that's on a screen orin person, you're going to tell
me.
Yeah.
So if we had been implementingthese lists, these red flag
reporting list, with our kids,the red flag would have gone off
(42:24):
, right.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
And I think you know, when it's talking about the
unsupervised play, it's kind oflike, oh good, I'm off duty.
When it's like, no, you stillhave to do those check-ins,
right, every 15 minutes, you allneed something to drink.
You doing, okay, in here, youwant a snack, it doesn't mean
you're hovering and you're just,like you know, hanging out on
the bed and being like what'sthe tea?
What are we talking about?
Right, but it's just theselittle pop-ins that there's a
presence of a parent and it canjust come across as just you
(42:48):
know, do you need something todrink or eat?
Right, and it's not disruptive,it's not interrupting, you're
not trying to, like you know,take over their time, but I
think those check-ins are reallyimportant.
Or even, you know, just whenyou have kids in your house and
you see things that you really,like you know, compliment them
on that, like, hey, you're sogood about just every time you
(43:10):
go to the bathroom, making sureyou close the door.
I've noticed that about you.
Thank you for just, you know,keeping yourself and others safe
.
Or you're really good about,you know, we have a younger one
in our house.
You're really good about beinga good role model for, you know,
our six-year-old Thank you.
And so, even when you have thoseage differences too, it's
figuring it out what to do withthat of.
(43:32):
Just like, you know, I have asixth grader and we have a
five-year-old like, how do wenavigate that kind of stuff?
And so the I mean we can have awhole podcast on play dates
right, and how do we handle allthat.
But a lot of that is, you know,conversations to figure out.
Yeah, how do we want that tolook in our home?
And it's going to lookdifferent for everyone.
But these are just things thatwe have to think about because
(43:55):
I'm learning that too.
You know it's like not allthree girls are having friends
over at the same time.
How do we include each other?
Do we include each other?
You know how do we navigatethis stuff, because there's lots
of different ages and thingsthat are appropriate for one age
and not another.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
Well and definitely, you know, tackle the screens
thing, because I see a lot ofkids going to playdates, getting
exposed to porn through thatway and, like you said, we just
don't I mean they're just putaway there's no screens.
It's a playdate.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
We're going to interact with each other and you
know, there is a level ofinvolvement where I think
parents, it doesn't mean thatyou have to, and the book even
advises against this right, like, have the kids create what they
want to do, right, but you alsohave to have available things
like you know games in a closet,crafts in a closet, or you know
things that they can come upwith and play with too.
(44:49):
You know, and because boardkids you know they sometimes get
creative in the wrong kind ofway and so just have
opportunities for them to havefree play, but things are like
resources for them to have.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
Is there anything else we missed or anything else
you want to say, as we're, youknow, speaking to parents who
are really we really honed inhere on the two boys and kissing
private parts and really Ithink every parent of a young
boy needs to be educated aboutthis, that this is happening
more and more.
Yeah, they need to be veryintentional about the red flags
(45:24):
and talking to their kids aboutboundaries and consent.
Speaker 2 (45:26):
Yes, you know, I was just looking over my list of
just things that I wanted tomake sure we got through today
and we really did get to themall.
I mean, there was a lot ofstuff to unpack here.
As I'm looking, you know we'realmost at an hour, but I think,
as a whole, these are thingsthat I truly believe will be
super impactful and keep kidssafe.
(45:48):
And we're all learning together.
I mean, amanda, you have olderkids, I have younger kids, and
so I'm learning, with a lot ofthe listeners out there, of
figuring out what works and howto have these conversations with
parents, and so I think that isthe biggest thing that the Lord
is teaching me is having apartnership with other parents
and just kind of normalizing ofhow do we honor each other's you
(46:13):
know rules in each other'shomes.
How do we work together to keepkids safe and really just keep
those walls down, because Ithink a lot of parents maybe
haven't done their own work andso it becomes one of those
things where they put up a wallor it's like no contact, and I
think my heart behind all ofthis is just really parents
(46:35):
working together, because that'skingdom work right.
All kids deserve to be protected.
All kids deserve to be, youknow, advocated for and fought
for.
And just the word that mytakeaway from all of this is get
curious, like what?
What are these behaviors rootedin?
Get curious on how otherfamilies like their rules, their
(46:56):
values, all that.
How are they raising them?
Um, and even when having thosehard conversations, you know,
just get curious.
Hey, this happened.
I'm curious how your thoughtson all of this, or have you
experienced this before?
Speaker 1 (47:10):
Right, I think those are very disarming words.
I think that's all goodtakeaways.
I would also add and we wemaybe should have covered this
earlier on to parents, like donot jump to labeling your kid a
certain sexuality or anythinglike that.
I probably should have saidthat from the beginning,
especially at this young age,they're exploring.
(47:32):
It's just like they heard it,they're curious, whatever.
And also like don't, don't makethat a watermelon.
Like, don't make, they're notthinking about sexuality or
their identity or they're notthinking about anything.
They're thinking.
They heard it and then they didit and it felt good, right?
Speaker 2 (47:48):
And so it's kind of like a little girl who loves to
wear blue and a baseball, abackwards baseball hat, right,
like she's still a girl.
Right, like it's just we cansometimes we get fear-based
around this, like what does thatmean?
Or you know, why is he doingthis with another boy?
And it's just like kids,they're just figuring it out,
(48:08):
right, and so do not label themand do not put that on them.
Speaker 1 (48:13):
Yes, like you said.
Well, it's like the parentsmaking it out bigger than it
needed to be, and we just needto make sure we're not doing
that.
And then you also mentioned offcamera, and I didn't think we
covered this.
But I just want to say this too.
You know we say this don't makeit a big deal, you know, make
it too much.
But I do just want to reiterateand we said this several times
(48:36):
do not brush it under the rugeither, because this could
happen in an exploratory agebetween peers, and then 10 years
later it'd be in a more abusivetype situation and the kid is
confused that that wasn't a bigdeal with my five-year-old
friend, so why is this a bigdeal with?
(48:57):
Now?
It's uncle and me, right, andso we always want to like, never
sweep it under the rug.
Just, we just don't want tomake it a traumatic experience
if it, if it's an exploratory.
Speaker 2 (49:08):
Absolutely, and I think too, like you're saying,
in that situation, absolutelyLike something is awakened and
we, you know, kind of coveredthe degrees of what that can
look like, you know, exploratory, awakening to lines getting
crossed, very differentawakenings, but they still both
deserve to be honored, talkedabout and taken seriously.
(49:31):
And it's going to lookdifferent how we treat you know
those situations, but they bothdeserve to be talked about,
honored and, yes, Amen, jamie,I'm so thankful for you that you
have helped me navigate this.
Speaker 1 (49:45):
This is something new calls that I've been getting
that I've haven't gotten in 11years young boys kissing their
private parts I've.
These are new calls for me,yeah, and I think therapists
we're.
Speaker 2 (50:00):
We're seeing the rise of this too, and so I've just
really been processing it a lot,and so, if there's a little
clunkiness on my end, I'm even,as a therapist, like really, you
know, figuring out how do wenavigate this wisely and how do
we partner with parents to, youknow, navigate this shift that
(50:21):
we're seeing.
Speaker 1 (50:22):
Well, I mean part of being on the front lines, like
we both are, is we're seeing newthings and we're trying to warn
parents, and we may not alwaysget the exact right solution,
but we're saying you've got tohave your guard up here.
This is happening, and so we'recoming alongside and giving you
the steps we think are good,but we're still learning too.
Every day.
Every day, culture's shiftingand new things are happening
(50:43):
with our kids.
Thank you for your partnership.
Jamie, appreciate you and Iwant to say parents, if this is
something that has happened inyour home, don't freak out,
pause.
It just doesn't mean your kidsare bad.
It doesn't mean you're a badfamily.
It means your kids are growingup in a highly sexualized
culture and you just need toprocess with them and so come
(51:06):
alongside of them, reach out.
If you need prayer or help orwant to talk it through with us.
We are here for you at NextTalk.
Speaker 3 (51:19):
Next Talk is a 501c3 nonprofit keeping kids safe
online.
To support our work, make adonation at nexttalkorg.
Next Talk resources are notintended to replace the advice
of a trained healthcare or legalprofessional, or to diagnose,
treat or otherwise render expertadvice regarding any type of
medical, psychological, legal,financial or other problem.
You are advised to consult aqualified expert for your
personal treatment plan.
Welcome to the Next Talk podcast.
We are a nonprofit passionateabout keeping kids safe online.
We're learning together how tonavigate tech, culture and faith
with our kids.
We are back with Jamie Mershon.
She is on our advisory council.
She's a licensed professionalcounsel.
She has been on the podcastmany times.
(00:21):
Jamie, we're glad to have youback.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Thanks for having me.
I love it.
I got my coffee in hand, so I'mready to go.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
So the reason we're here today is because recently I
was contacted anonymously by apodcast listener who said seven
year old boys, friends, kissingprivate parts, and she needed
help.
And so I reached out to Jamiefor, hey, I just want to do a
podcast because this isanonymous and I want to reach
this parent and I don't know howto, and maybe other parents
(00:51):
need this resource.
So Jamie and I talked and Jamiereally was so helpful she
didn't have time to get on thepodcast at the time but she was
very helpful in that podcast.
Since then we've been contactedby other families that this is
happening and it's always likethe young boys like same age or
(01:13):
maybe one year apart.
So I have been messaging Jamieagain getting her advice on some
things and my mind has beenblown with these conversations
and so I asked Jamie.
I was like Jamie, can you comeon?
Can we just do a quick podcastfrom your office one day?
You know virtually.
And cause I want to unpack this?
(01:34):
Because I think thisinformation would be very, very
helpful to any parent who has ayoung boy especially.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Yeah, so, like you said, you're seeing the rise of
hearing more boy to boy and thatis probably someone always been
there, but I think there's justmore awareness around it.
I think parents are more intune and there's also just
cultural things that are, youknow, adding to normalizing boy
to boy abuse or boy to boy justsexual orientation things.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Well, and what's interesting to me is some of
these stories, the verbiage thatthe kids use.
They will literally say we weresucking penises, like they will
say that terminology.
And, jamie, I'm I'm just goingto tell you like I truly believe
it is the rot of porn in ourculture, because we covered on
(02:31):
that previous show, yes,sometimes the kid themselves
seen porn and they acted out, orthe kid could be
inappropriately touched bysomebody else older, like a true
abuse situation that they'reacting it out, somebody else
older, like a true abusesituation that they're acting it
out.
But but the third thing is Ithink also that we can have a
group of kids playing on theplayground and it takes one kid
(02:56):
to see a pornographic video andsay, on the slide, did you know
you can suck each other'spenises, yeah, and then we have
all this exposure of kids likethinking, well, what is this?
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Right, and I think something that you have shared,
mandy, is just on the cry outs.
You know it's getting youngerand younger, to six year olds,
to eight year olds.
Right, you know there is aninnocence at that age, right Of
like they are just saying thingsout of truly, just like hey,
(03:31):
did you know, like when you mixthese two colors?
together you get this colorright.
There's just this level wherethey're just like literally just
delaying information and somekids hear that like oh, did you
know that two boys can kiss eachother's penises, right?
Some kids hear that they'relike that's weird, that's gross,
you shouldn't do that, and theytrash that thought.
Other kids will ruminate onthat, right, and like well, what
(03:54):
does that mean, or how doesthat feel, or what would that
happen if I tried that?
So I think there is this levelof innocence because the
children's minds there's a levelof like right and wrong.
Obviously, it depends on whatthe conversation's been, have
been happening at home already,and so how equipped is this
(04:16):
child and do they know how tonavigate that?
But there's still just suchthis innocence, right, where I
don't think that kids are trulyrepeating and saying this stuff
to be malicious or to bedisruptive to other kids.
I think there is just such ayou know, nonchalantness around
this hyper sexualized culturewe're living in, and so there's
(04:39):
a lot of passing comments thatare just being thrown around.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Well, and I think I mean this is why next talk is so
important, and like the redflags, because, because any word
you don't know that's on there.
If anybody's talking about bodyparts, that's on there.
So it should create.
If you're talking to your kid,hey, these are the things I want
you to tell me about, it shouldcreate a red flag in their mind
(05:05):
to go home and tell mom or dad,hey, somebody's talking about a
penis on the slide, Like, whatdoes this mean?
And then we can prevent thisexploratory curiosity touching
that we're I mean way past,really touching that we're
seeing.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Right, and something that I think is just really
helpful for parents to instillat home and it's just quick and
simple is don't repeat it,report it, and I think it goes
along.
When you are that safe, trustedadult and the kid has a red
flag thing happen, that you justremind them.
Thank you so much for reportingthis and not repeating this,
(05:43):
because naturally kids arecurious.
They just they are right and sothat is a good thing.
You know, when we're learningin school or when we're out
exploring.
But curiosity on thishyper-sexualized culture that is
leading to a lot of exploratorythings, that I don't even think
that it's, you know,necessarily an imbalance of
(06:04):
power.
I don't think it's manipulation.
I think it's kids hearingsomething and plants a seed,
they get curious and it moves toexploratory.
And that's where it gets tricky.
When we think about theexploratory phase, it's not
necessarily always traumatic.
It really could just be.
I heard about this thing.
I was curious what that feltlike or what that looked like,
(06:28):
and me and my friend tried it.
You know, not only are kidscurious, but I would challenge
parents to get curiousthemselves, that if something
does get exposed to the light,you know we are so quick to go
to fear or shame and blame andjust kind of try to just ground
yourself and like get curious.
You know, it doesn't alwaysmean that a abusive thing is
(06:51):
happening or a traumatic thingis happening.
We just see this shift in whatthings look like sexually
because of what kids are hearingand seeing and because it's
happening younger.
There's this innocence andthere's this natural curiosity.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Okay, there's a lot to unpack there.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Yeah, I just did a lot of talking.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
First of all, don't repeat it, report it.
That should be a new phrase ineverybody's home.
That's fantastic because itlimits exposure to other kids
and it gets it to the rightadult to have a situation.
So don't repeat it, report it.
Great phrase.
So we're talking about here twoboys, because we're really
seeing the uptick with two boysand that's why we're focusing on
(07:34):
this right now.
But what you're saying issometimes in our parent brain we
go to oh my gosh, that's abuse,that's trauma.
Somebody's doing something toour kid, but oftentimes because
they're the same age, there's noimbalance of power.
There's just two innocent kidswho have taken something that
(07:55):
somebody's shown them or talkedto them about or they've seen on
a screen and they're beingcurious about it.
So this idea of exploratoryversus trauma I really want to
hone in on this, because what Iam seeing happening is the
(08:19):
parents are traumatized andthey're making it trauma in the
kid's life when it wasn't trauma.
But at the same time I want tobe really careful here.
Drama Right at the same time,but at the same time I want to
be really careful here.
It's not to be shifted andpushed under the rug either.
Exactly exactly.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
I think there's so many different angles to look at
this because we definitelydon't want to minimize it right,
it definitely needs to beaddressed but I think, if we can
keep it the right size, so it'sa cantaloupe, it's not a
watermelon, it's not a grape.
When we first find out about itit's a cantaloupe, it's not a
watermelon, it's not a grape.
When we first find out about itit's a cantaloupe.
Right, it's serious, rightBecause something is being
(08:51):
awakened and we'll talk moreabout that in a little bit.
But it's serious because youknow we don't want our child to
experience those things, toexplore those things.
You know there's a right andbest way that God has those
things to be awakened and it is,you know, in a marriage or you
know, kissing and a committedrelationship.
(09:14):
You know things like that.
There is a context around thesethings, right?
And when we start thinking thatthat context is around play
that becomes very confusing tochildren, that that context is
around play that becomes veryconfusing to children, and so
meaning, keep it the right sizeis it doesn't necessarily mean
that sexual abuse is happening,it doesn't necessarily mean that
this huge traumatic thing ishappening, but something serious
(09:36):
is happening and we have to getcurious and we have to ask the
right questions and figure outhow did we get here?
Speaker 1 (09:42):
The underlying thing is what made you think of this?
Because, because afive-year-old is not just going
to come up with the term suckingpenis out of nowhere.
So the key is where did youhear that?
And that takes very calmconversations, not I love the
phrase you use not shaming andblaming the other kid.
(10:03):
Don't assume your kid is perfectand wasn't the initiator.
And also I just want to say,just because your kid is the
initiator doesn't mean your kidis an abuser.
Absolutely this is not.
It would be very different ifit was a 17 year old kid with a
five year old.
That's an abusive situationAbsolutely.
But two friends like this wehave to be extremely careful
(10:24):
with.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
And I think the bottom line is it's like we have
to just, you know, investigatethe situation to make sure kids
are safe, Because you knowhearing, well, I got this idea
because somebody shared it onthe playground.
Compared to, oh, I have acousin who has, you know, sucked
my penis, that is verydifferent, and so we owe it to
(10:48):
these children to be curious andinvestigate in a level that we
can make sure, like, okay, isthis our culture, or is this
coming from a place where thischild is actually a victim and
is being preyed upon and theyare acting out things that have
been done to them?
Those are two very differentconversations.
But if we get defensive or weput walls up and shut down, we
(11:13):
can't get to the root of wheredid this come from?
And so the initiator is not anabuser.
We just have to make sure thatthis child is also being
protected and find out thesource of this.
Where did this idea come from?
Speaker 1 (11:28):
This pertains to any gender, like so.
If it's a girl and a boy, twofive-year-olds and they're
licking each other's privateparts, this is the same
conversation, but the reason I'mnot bringing that into it is
because I haven't even had acase like that.
All of these people that havecontacted me have been two boys,
so that's why we're reallyfocused on two boys here.
(11:49):
I really want to, you know, makesure that we are making that
disclaimer here.
I want you to give us someexamples.
If a kid is processing liketrauma, even though it may not
be abuse, it's twofive-year-olds, but they're
processing it like holy moly.
What are the signs that we needto look for?
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Yeah, I think you know, you've probably maybe
heard about check engine lightsbefore, but check engine just
lights are just things that areout of the normal, right.
And so you know if a child isgetting headaches, not just like
a one and done, but it's likeall of a sudden they're getting
headaches.
For you know, if a child isgetting headaches, not just like
a one and done, but it's likeall of a sudden they're getting
headaches for you know, a longamount of time, or weeks, or
(12:31):
days, nightmares, bedwetting, ashift in their grades, or you
just notice that they're moreanxious, or I don't want to play
with this kid anymore.
But what do you mean?
You guys are like best friends.
Why don't you want to be aroundthem anymore?
Right, just kind of get youknow to the bottom of, maybe,
what's going on here.
(12:52):
And it depends on the child too.
Some kids just have anextremely heavy conscience and
some kids are just like, oh, wejust did this thing and they
just move on, right, that thisis not just a one size fits all
and it really is kid to kid.
So some kids are, you know,they're those true empaths.
Some kids are very that heavyconscious.
(13:15):
Some kids, you know, you have anext talk home.
They are well aware of likethis happened.
I should have told my mom or mysafe, trusted adult.
There's so many factors that gointo this.
So sometimes it's you knowthey're not directly saying this
happened, but they're showingus and telling us by all of
(13:35):
these things where, where didthis come from?
Like there's a baseline of howyour child was, and then now all
this stuff is happening.
That should even turn our checkengine light on and be like,
okay, something's off here.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
So one of the things is I've been trying to get these
families to go to a counselorjust so a counselor can figure
out if the kid, if parent, hastrouble.
Like how is this kid processing?
Do we just need to haveconversations about boundaries
and consent and private parts orprivate like those kinds of
conversations, or is this kidprocessing like trauma and has a
tummy ache all the time andlike there's a major problem
(14:11):
here that I need a counselor for?
But sometimes parents can'tfigure that out on their own.
Yeah, and I want to be honest,like I, I struggle because I'm
scared.
I'm going to send a kid,especially out of state lines
where I don't personally knowthe counselors, like within
Texas I've got counselors that Itrust, but outside of Texas and
(14:36):
I'm being contacted by peopleoutside of Texas now I'm scared
to send families to a counselorbecause I'm afraid it may be an
exploratory situation where weneed to talk about boundaries,
consent and have all those.
I mean not sweep it under therug, but have a major reset in
our home about what we'rereporting and all of that kind
(14:58):
of stuff versus what if the kidis just processing it like
exploratory and they go into acounselor and a counselor makes
it trauma for them, becausesometimes that happens, jamie,
and because not all counselorsare created equal and a lot of
times parents.
What I am finding is they'rescared of that they're scared of
(15:20):
.
So what do you recommend forparents and counselors to make
sure that everybody's on thesame page here with these really
young kids?
Speaker 2 (15:29):
That's a great question, mandy, and I'm glad
you asked, because I alwayssuggest that the parents do
their own session.
Um, so they may already haveestablished care with you, know
their own personal counselor,and so set up a session with
your personal counselor and say,hey, I need to process
something with you, this justhappened, right, and then they
(15:50):
may know a safe, trustedcounselor who they work with,
like, so you know, if it's themom and I'm going to my personal
counselor, right, and she'sjust working with adult women,
she most likely has connectionswith trusted counselors who do
pediatric and minors andchildren that she could refer
out to.
But that would be the firstplace to start is, if you don't
(16:14):
have a personal counselor, thenyou know, go to your church and
see if they have a list of safe,trusted, safe, trusted I'm kind
of on the kid version hereright, safe, trusted counselor
right.
But they will have a list ofvetted counselors and I would
set up a parent session withthem and say, hey, we had
(16:35):
something happen over theweekend or we discovered
something over the weekend.
We would like a session to justprocess this with you and get a
feel, for, yeah, I feel atpeace with how they're telling
us to proceed.
Or I don't know if I agree withthat.
I'm going to seek counsel onthat or pray through it, or
maybe we need to check outanother counselor.
(16:56):
And so I think that you know,again, keeping it the right size
of knowing okay, it's beenbrought into the light.
Our child is safe.
They are no longer around thatchild right now until we come up
with a plan.
So everything's just been kindof paused.
Now we are going to seek outhelp to figure out how do we
(17:16):
navigate this.
What are the next steps?
So, if you have a personalcounselor, go to them and they
may have a list of their youknow preferred counselors, of
who they refer out to.
Or if you don't have a personalcounselor, go to your church
and vet them out through settingup a counselor with them first
and just seeing how their takeor how they're processing it or
(17:40):
how they would handle it if thatmakes sense Okay.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
So if this happens, we want a counselor with mom and
dad first.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
And also too, I think that will help the counselor
see, is mom and dad processingit like trauma?
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Because the kid may not be processing it like trauma
, but we are, and then we makeit a bigger deal at home.
I mean we are like won't let itgo, right, you know what I mean
, like we can't heal from itbecause we're stuck there.
We've got to be careful thatwe're not creating trauma as
parents.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Because a lot of kids because it wasn't rooted in
like sadistic or manipulation,they really just think like, oh,
we were just trying this thingout, we were just playing it.
I mean, I definitely think itcauses confusion and it awakens
something, but that's still verydifferent than traumatic, right
, and so I think definitely, youknow, it provides the parents a
(18:37):
safe place to process it andget their head in a clear,
grounded place of how to proceed.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
I like what you said, that it awakens something
because even if your kid is notprocessing like trauma and it's
just like exploratory, I mean inmy mind I'm equating it to our
generation like playing doctor.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Yeah, right.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
You just, and we needed to have more
conversations around boundariesconsent private parts, all of
those things that we weren'thaving.
And so even if the kid is justprocessing like it's curious
exploratory, like what is this,you cannot push it under the rug
and act like it didn't happen.
I think still a kid should meetwith a counselor, but after the
(19:17):
parents have met with thatcounselor just to process and
make sure everything's okay andthat you have a right read on
your child, you need a thirdparty to kind of help with that.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Yeah, and sometimes you already have established
care with a counselor and in theideal situation it's ideal if
we have established care,whether the parents have
established care or whether thechild has established care, but
sometimes that's just not thereality, because a lot of these
kids are pretty young and theyhaven't had no reason to go to
counseling, right?
Even if it's just a check-inafter the parents have met with
(19:48):
the counselor and the child doesa check-in with that counselor,
it doesn't even mean that thatchild is going to get a session
that is centered all around whathappened.
It could just be getting agauge on.
Does this child seem anxious?
How does this child interact?
You know, if it's a play-basedsession, right.
If there's a lot of aggressionin their play or if it's just
(20:12):
like hyper fixation onorganizing and they need order
or they want to be in charge,there's lots of stuff that
counselors can seek out throughplay.
And if nothing else, that childhas just had a positive touch
point with the counselor,Meaning oh, when I go see Miss
Jamie, I get a snack, we playgames.
We laugh right.
(20:33):
And that way, if something doescome on later on in life where
they're just like you know, afew months later because kids
process very different thanadults, right, it may show up
later, it could be in a fewmonths.
Very different than adults,right, it may show up later, it
could be in a few months andthen you say, hey, remember, you
know, when we went to go seeMiss Jamie and you guys, you
know, just got to hang out andtalk would you like to go see
(20:56):
her again and talk about some ofthese things that you know that
have been keeping you up atnight?
And so that's helpful, becausethen they have this established
place that they have a positiveexperience with.
And so then they're like ohyeah, like I've already been
there, I know I like going there, I know it's safe, um, like
they feel comfortable goingthere again.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
So.
But you don't recommend justsending a five-year-old in with
a counselor that you don't know.
We don't want to do that.
We don't want to do that.
Okay, now I want to talk about.
I want to shift and talk aboutwhat it looks like with the
other family.
Yeah, because oftentimes Ithink we want to blame and we
want to accuse and we have to bereally careful here, because
(21:42):
even if one of the kidsinitiated, like you said,
there's not an imbalance inpower, it's probably not
manipulation.
If anything, it's worst casescenario here.
The kid is acting out what anolder person has done to them.
That's like worst case scenario.
Most likely it's the pornculture Either they've seen porn
(22:03):
, they've heard about it orsomething like that.
So how do we approach the otherfamily?
And I know you said earlierwhen this happens you may want
to pause the playdates for aminute until we get a solution
going forward.
But what is this conversationlook like the first time we
contact the other family?
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Yeah, I think you know, the more we can keep
things disarmed, the better.
If you're the parent reachingout, you've had time to process
this or you were the person whosaw it.
So, number one, it's so mucheasier for you to have a totally
different experience on thisbecause maybe you're the parent
that walked in on it and you'realso the parent who's had time
(22:45):
to maybe process this with yourspouse or a trusted girlfriend,
or, you know, you've had alittle more time.
So you have to remember they'rehearing this for the first time
and they didn't see it Right,cause a lot of us think our
child would never do that orwhat do you mean?
Like I've never known them tohave this side to them.
So, just a little pre you knowcontext, that that might be some
(23:06):
of the things happening in thebackground Because, again, they
didn't see it and they'rehearing it for the first time.
So if I were calling you, Imight say something like this
hey, mandy, are you in a placethat you can talk?
Right now?
I do have kids around you.
Something happened and I just Ineed your attention, attention
and just, you know, want to makesure little ears aren't around.
(23:27):
Okay, so then you're like yep,I can talk, you know.
All right, mandy, I need you tojust bring something to your
attention.
The boys were playing and I was,you know, just super alarmed by
it, and I know you're the typeof parent that would want to
know this, because we parentssimilar.
We both want to make sure theboys are safe, we both want to
make sure that they have healthyfriendships, and so when I went
(23:51):
upstairs to just check on them,I walked in on them touching
each other's penises or lickingeach other's penises.
Have you ever had an experiencelike this before?
Or, you know, I know you haveolder kids.
Have you ever had this happenbefore?
This is something new to me andI want to handle this well.
(24:12):
And so what are your thoughtson, you know, what I just walked
in on, or something along thoselines?
Make it more of a conversationis kind of what I'm getting at.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
You're not blaming, you're not, it is hey, we're in
this together.
This happened with our boys,their best friends.
What do we do?
Yeah, and I would say too, likeyou may not get the good
response, because because, thinkabout it, like you said,
they're processing this for thefirst time, right, right, so so
(24:44):
give the parent a minute givethem a minute and like, let's
say, you know it's a next talk,mom, they've been listening to
podcasts.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
They've been, you know, doing creating the next
talk home.
And not all homes are createdequally and moms have different
sources of what they'relistening to and if they're
listening to stuff, and also weall carry our own personal
stories and experiences, sosometimes it could be like, oh
no, not again.
It's like this generationalthing happening, like you know,
(25:13):
that happened to me and now it'shappening to my child, or there
could be things happening inthat home that we have no clue,
and so there's so many thingsthat we aren't even privy to
that it could be bumping upagainst.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Like don't take it personal.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Is what you're saying .
If they respond badly to you orthey hang up on you or they
start, you know, like you know,overreact, because that is
shocking news to somebody thatmaybe doesn't expect it or has
trauma in that.
Absolutely In my opinion, itdoesn't always mean that the
(25:47):
boys need to stop being friends.
Because I feel like if bothparents handle it correctly,
both talk to their kidsindividually in their own
families about boundaries andconsent, and then come up with
an action plan like like okay,we're not doing sleepovers
anymore, or from now on it'sonly outside when you're playing
, you know, in certain areas orwhatever, I think this could be
(26:09):
handled where it could be finethat the boys be friends again.
I think it could even be moretraumatic if it was just
exploratory and we needed tojust have conversations about
boundaries and stuff, and thenwe yank the friendship away
because maybe a kid, maybe theydidn't parent, didn't see it.
But what I'm hearing a lot isone of the kids confide in their
(26:30):
parents.
That's what I'm hearing.
I haven't worked any cases yetthat the parents have walked in
on the young boys, but I haveheard like my kid was telling me
this, you know kind of alludedto it I'm like what?
And then the kid, like you said, the mom, got curious and asked
her to asking questions likewhat do you mean?
Tell me more that kind of thing.
And so in this situation, youknow they're, they're exploring
(26:54):
there, and so to me it's justabout okay.
We need to reset thisfriendship, we need to look at
boundaries and we need to bothparent families get on the same
page and they could stillmaintain a friendship.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
Yeah, and I think the main thing is, both parents, or
both families, have to, youknow, be aligned with the same
plan moving forward right,because if somebody's in denial
or somebody you know is going totake something like this and
turn it into this right thenwhere?
does it become more harmful thanhelpful?
(27:27):
Because, you know, friendshipsare such a huge deal.
And so two kids who you knowhave had you know healthy play
things, take a turn toexploratory, and now I never
talked to that kid again.
That's a huge loss in theirlife.
And then also they're leftalone.
I'm like the last time I eversaw this person was when we, you
(27:47):
know we're licking each other'spenises.
I mean, really think about thelevel of shame that causes, um,
the level of blame, cause wedon't know the narrative that
that little one might becreating around it.
And so, you know, there aresome situations where, sadly,
yeah, no contact does happenbecause the two families cannot
(28:09):
align or, you know, it's notsafe, and so you have to make a
hard decision.
But if you can have two familiesthat can work through it
together, it can really be agreat example of like repair and
recover and boundaries lookdifferent, conversations look
different, how they play looksdifferent, but it doesn't mean
(28:30):
it's a total like end to it.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
Well, and I think it's so interesting how you look
at it from a counselingperspective, Like if the
friendship just ends abruptly.
You know you're thinking aboutthe shame, I'm thinking about
the families.
I've helped that if a kidconfides in their parent that
something happened and then allof a sudden the parent says you
can't be friends with that kidanymore, that kid is never going
(28:54):
to confide in that parent again.
I agree with that Right.
It's just like.
It's just like I saw porn on myphone and then they never get a
.
They get the phone yanked outof their hand.
They're never going to tell youagain when they see porn and
they get their phone yanked outof their hand.
They're never going to tell youagain when they see porn and
they're going to see it again.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Right, because it's costly, and it's costly to them
because something important istaken from them.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Yes, and I do think it could be such a beautiful
thing Like God could take acurse you know, this
porn-sexualized culture that'sbeen poured on our kids and
created these type ofenvironments.
That is the curse that we'redealing with, but God could use
that as a blessing, as a goodthing, as a launching pad to
have better conversations aboutboundaries and consent in your
(29:35):
home.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Well, I really think that lifts the shame too,
because you give this friendshipan opportunity for repair and
recover.
And it's two families thatworked really hard together to
keep their kids safe,investigate, like hey, are both
boys safe?
Did something happen to one ofthem that spurred this on?
And so I think it could evenenrich just the friendship
(29:58):
between two families of like,wow, like we worked really hard
to make sure these boys weresafe and we worked really hard
to make sure that theirfriendship safe and we worked
really hard to make sure thattheir friendship is safe and
healthy.
And so, you know, it could bethat thing that kind of makes or
breaks families and friendships, because this happens within
families and cousins and happenswithin relationships with
(30:21):
neighbors or school friends andall of that.
And so sometimes you know it'snot just we're never going to
see them again, it's okay, so Ican't talk to you, but I passed
you in the hall or I can't playwith you at this game, but we
used to always play gaga ball atrecess or whatever.
And so it really becomes thishuge stressor because the whole,
you know, this child has to nowcreate their whole life of like
(30:43):
don't talk to him, don't playwith him, can't look at them.
You know we always used to goover there.
Now we don't go over there,don't talk to the mom.
It's just very unnatural, right?
Because unless there is harmcontinuing or the other family
is just not in the place whereyou know they want to repair and
recover.
Yet that's a differentconversation.
(31:05):
But truly, if you to repair andrecover, yeah, that's a
different conversation.
But truly, if you can repairand recover, that is so
beautiful and that truly there'sa way to do that.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
Well, yes, I love that and and we're not saying
that if the other family getsdefensive and I mean they're
probably going to get defensiveat first no matter what but
that's what I mean.
Like give them a couple of daysand then say let's go to coffee
.
Like I really want to talk thisthrough, like I, you know we
(31:33):
don't want to lose yourfriendship, but we got to figure
out what happened here, why,and prevent it from happening
together.
But if you can't get to thatpoint, you may have to cut off
the friendship and you mayUnfortunately yeah.
And I think that may be aconversation, even with the
little saying hey, I want you tobe their friend again.
But we do have to talk aboutwhat happened and why it can't
(31:56):
happen again.
Not that there's like, I mean,you guys were just curious, we
get it, yeah, that is notactivity for five-year-olds, so
we have to talk about that andthey won't Right.
So it kind of leaves us in asituation where we can't play
with them until maybe we canhave those conversations.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
Right, we're going to take a time out, we're going to
pray.
You know that we can recoverand whatnot.
But, yes, just give themlanguage of like.
We have to take a time outuntil you know, know it can be
safe for y'all to play again, orwe can find an appropriate way
for you to play, and sometimesthat takes time.
So what are some other friendsthat you could play with?
Or what are some things we cando when you're sad and you're
(32:36):
missing this friend, you know,because it is a loss you know,
for them it was just, we werejust two kids having fun, and
then, you know, we tried thisthing and now all of a sudden,
yeah it, it is to theirdetriment you know?
Speaker 1 (32:51):
Okay, you said something about earlier, about
it awakening something.
Yes, I'm glad you circled backto that Even if it's just
exploratory and there's noprocessing like trauma or
anything like that, and even thetwo families are working
together and they're doing thegreat work together, yeah, it
still could awaken somethingsexually in a kid before we want
(33:14):
it to.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Right, because it awakens this curiosity and it
stirs up stuff, right?
I mean, we're all sexual beingsand that's not like, oh, when
you hit puberty, this sexualside comes to you.
There is a reason why our bodyresponds, despite our age, to
sexual touches or to, you know,exploratory things, right, and
so we want to make sure we tendto that part of our child, um,
(33:39):
because it does, you know, tapinto that arousal structure.
That is something that has beenawakened and we definitely want
to address that.
And just, you know, it's God'sbest that these things happen
within marriage or they happenwithin, you know, like kissing
in a committed relationship orwhatever you know you subscribe
(34:02):
to as a family of likeboundaries and and all of that
right and religious beliefs andyour faith.
And so the context, like Godhas a best plan and sometimes
things happen outside of God'sbest plan, but that doesn't mean
that you know we're ruined.
It just means that we have towork together to make sure that
(34:25):
your body is not wanting more ofthis or you're wanting to do
more of this, and so that'swhere mom and dad come in to
help you, because when thisstuff gets awakened, your brain
may have said huh, this is kindof confusing and weird that my
friend and I did this, but mybody said it felt good.
And so there's a level ofnormalizing and helping them
(34:45):
explain that sometimes yourbrain is confused but your body
is saying that felt good and Iwant to do that again.
Or it starts at you know, I didthis thing.
You know, touching my penis isa one, right?
Well, now I want to stroke mypenis, and now I have to do that
before I go to bed, right?
We want to make sure that itdoesn't progress into something
(35:08):
bigger and more, where it turnsinto addictions and then, when
it turns into like copingmechanisms and soothing and I do
this when nobody's around.
So we just want to keep tabs onall that and make sure that our
little ones don't feel alone inthis.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
I think you've given some very helpful points.
If this happened, how to handleit with getting your kid to a
counselor, processing with yourkid and then also dealing with
the other family.
I think you've given great tipshere.
I also kind of want to zoom outfor a minute, and you know we
talked a little bit in thebeginning about the porn culture
and we definitely believe thatit has played a role in seeing
(35:45):
these rise of cases.
I also want to talk about wedid a show a while back about
Anxious Generation.
Jonathan Jonathan Haidt trulyrespect his work that he's doing
.
I'm, you know, retweeting hisstuff like good stuff, good
stuff, yeah, great stuff.
But I do think we need to becareful because this
(36:06):
unsupervised play that he'spushing I'm for it.
Kids need to be outside.
They need to be less on screens.
But in my world, what I'mthinking about is if these kids
have unsupervised play and theyhave no next talk conversations
in their home about privateparts and boundaries and consent
and what should make a red flaggo off in their brain.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
We're going to see the things we're seeing Exactly
Because there is an emphasis,almost kind of like bringing
back to the eighties.
They talk about a time in thatbook where kids had all this
unsupervised play and I'm sure,yes, there was like exploratory
things going on.
Like you said earlier, doctor,right, that happened in a lot of
(36:48):
unsupervised play, right, and alot of us probably really do
have memories of that.
But we also aren't probably ona couch traumatized over it
either, not to minimize it, butit depends on how far that went,
right, but a lot of kids havethat exploratory play in their
memory.
But what we're seeing now is,you know, phones, tech, access
(37:12):
to porn, and even what porn islooking like.
You know, I use the wordvanilla.
It's not vanilla anymore, it'sdark, it is violent, right.
And so even how porn looks, youknow we're seeing more, you
know, man on man and just orgies, just very extreme situations
(37:35):
in porn, right.
So kids, what do they do?
They act out stuff through play.
So if they're seeing things orhearing things which takes us
back to how we started thisepisode right, it is not
uncommon for them to reenactthat stuff, especially if they
haven't had those nextconversations.
When it talks about the amountof unsupervised play, I think
(37:58):
that we have to make sure thatwe're doing the preventative
work and some of you listenersare thinking like we have the
kid house right, or once in awhile, our kids go to other
houses.
We have to start normalizingbetween parents of how do we
just talk about the expectationsand the family rules that we
hold on or have created in ourhomes, right?
(38:20):
You know, I have three, you know, small children.
Fourth, second, kinder, and sowe have, you know, those are
prime ages for kids, overplaying, all that kind of stuff.
And I have started like, whenfamilies drop their kids off,
hey, here's the rules in theRashawn house.
Or, you know, these are ourexpectations, you know, with how
(38:41):
we handle tech, closed doors,all that kind of stuff, what are
rules that you would like to behonored by your child's playing
here, right, or what are thingsthat are rules in your home?
And so it's essentially justnormalizing and starting the
conversation, because someparents have no problem dropping
them off, like and saying, hey,what's your rules for tech?
We don't do tech, like they'revery comfortable starting that
(39:03):
conversation.
Some parents are veryuncomfortable with that
conversation.
They're like, I feel so awkward.
I, like you know, feel like I'massuming that their house isn't
safe, and so I think there's alevel where again?
just make it a conversation hey,here's how we handle things in
our home.
How do you handle things inyour home?
Great, and if something arisesI'll call you and fill you in,
(39:26):
you know, and you can tweakthose as they get older or
whatnot.
But I think that is a reallysafe and honorable way to do
preventative.
And also, like, if you're goingto have the kid house, you know
, if you have a two-story house,maybe it's like, hey, we, you
know, until you really get toknow somebody you might say we
just are doing downstairs todayit's a downstairs play day,
maybe when they're older,upstairs, or maybe when they're
(39:49):
younger it's upstairs and whenthey're older it's downstairs.
You know your kids, you know thedynamics, but you have to be
very in tune with your ages, thetype of kids are hanging out
with.
What are the other friendsvalues, how is their house set
up?
You know, in regard to rulesand stuff, because some parents
drop them off and they're likeoh, we trust you, like they're
good, you know we'll pick themup at five or whatnot, and they
(40:12):
aren't really interested in therules or they haven't really
thought about what their familyrules are, and so that might be
a child that's not superequipped in the next talk lingo,
right.
And as a parent, it's okay tosay hey, johnny, we're so glad
you're here.
You know, here's just kind ofsome rules at our house that we,
when kids come over, likehere's a rundown of our house.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
I love the practical things that you said, because
because also you said that youkind of have set up your house
to think about this in mind,like you have a clubhouse in the
backyard and you didn't putwalls in it.
You want to get open, likethings like that just be
intentional, yeah and.
And I also love just like yourpractical list.
Like we're not going to gobehind closed doors with anybody
.
You know if you got to go tothe bathroom it's one person at
(41:00):
a time.
Um, you had mentioned that tome off camera.
I love the first story andsecond story, cause we see a lot
of it going upstairs, yeah,right, and and I think you're
also right with the.
You know you said with theJonathan Hyatt stuff, you're
like we want to go back to theeighties kind of thing and and
that's great and I think it'sneeded with kids and outdoor
(41:21):
play needed.
But we don't live in an eightiesculture anymore.
The porn has changed whatthey're hearing and thinking
about.
So if we just send kids outinto the backyard and we're
locking them outside for eighthours like in the eighties,
there's going to be linescrossed because we're not
(41:42):
talking to them about what theporn culture has really done to
their world and we don't tellthem what the porn culture is
and we implement the red flags.
You know, in every situationthat I've recently worked, I
thought, man, if they, if we hadimplemented red flags here,
they would have caught it.
Because one is any dating,marriage, kissing, you're going
(42:02):
to tell me, and the other one onthat list is any body parts, if
you, and if you see anyone in aswimsuit or less, you're going
to tell me.
Whether that's on a screen orin person, you're going to tell
me.
Yeah.
So if we had been implementingthese lists, these red flag
reporting list, with our kids,the red flag would have gone off
(42:24):
, right.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
And I think you know, when it's talking about the
unsupervised play, it's kind oflike, oh good, I'm off duty.
When it's like, no, you stillhave to do those check-ins,
right, every 15 minutes, you allneed something to drink.
You doing, okay, in here, youwant a snack, it doesn't mean
you're hovering and you're just,like you know, hanging out on
the bed and being like what'sthe tea?
What are we talking about?
Right, but it's just theselittle pop-ins that there's a
presence of a parent and it canjust come across as just you
(42:48):
know, do you need something todrink or eat?
Right, and it's not disruptive,it's not interrupting, you're
not trying to, like you know,take over their time, but I
think those check-ins are reallyimportant.
Or even, you know, just whenyou have kids in your house and
you see things that you really,like you know, compliment them
on that, like, hey, you're sogood about just every time you
(43:10):
go to the bathroom, making sureyou close the door.
I've noticed that about you.
Thank you for just, you know,keeping yourself and others safe
.
Or you're really good about,you know, we have a younger one
in our house.
You're really good about beinga good role model for, you know,
our six-year-old Thank you.
And so, even when you have thoseage differences too, it's
figuring it out what to do withthat of.
(43:32):
Just like, you know, I have asixth grader and we have a
five-year-old like, how do wenavigate that kind of stuff?
And so the I mean we can have awhole podcast on play dates
right, and how do we handle allthat.
But a lot of that is, you know,conversations to figure out.
Yeah, how do we want that tolook in our home?
And it's going to lookdifferent for everyone.
But these are just things thatwe have to think about because
(43:55):
I'm learning that too.
You know it's like not allthree girls are having friends
over at the same time.
How do we include each other?
Do we include each other?
You know how do we navigatethis stuff, because there's lots
of different ages and thingsthat are appropriate for one age
and not another.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
Well and definitely, you know, tackle the screens
thing, because I see a lot ofkids going to playdates, getting
exposed to porn through thatway and, like you said, we just
don't I mean they're just putaway there's no screens.
It's a playdate.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
We're going to interact with each other and you
know, there is a level ofinvolvement where I think
parents, it doesn't mean thatyou have to, and the book even
advises against this right, like, have the kids create what they
want to do, right, but you alsohave to have available things
like you know games in a closet,crafts in a closet, or you know
things that they can come upwith and play with too.
(44:49):
You know, and because boardkids you know they sometimes get
creative in the wrong kind ofway and so just have
opportunities for them to havefree play, but things are like
resources for them to have.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
Is there anything else we missed or anything else
you want to say, as we're, youknow, speaking to parents who
are really we really honed inhere on the two boys and kissing
private parts and really Ithink every parent of a young
boy needs to be educated aboutthis, that this is happening
more and more.
Yeah, they need to be veryintentional about the red flags
(45:24):
and talking to their kids aboutboundaries and consent.
Speaker 2 (45:26):
Yes, you know, I was just looking over my list of
just things that I wanted tomake sure we got through today
and we really did get to themall.
I mean, there was a lot ofstuff to unpack here.
As I'm looking, you know we'realmost at an hour, but I think,
as a whole, these are thingsthat I truly believe will be
super impactful and keep kidssafe.
(45:48):
And we're all learning together.
I mean, amanda, you have olderkids, I have younger kids, and
so I'm learning, with a lot ofthe listeners out there, of
figuring out what works and howto have these conversations with
parents, and so I think that isthe biggest thing that the Lord
is teaching me is having apartnership with other parents
and just kind of normalizing ofhow do we honor each other's you
(46:13):
know rules in each other'shomes.
How do we work together to keepkids safe and really just keep
those walls down, because Ithink a lot of parents maybe
haven't done their own work andso it becomes one of those
things where they put up a wallor it's like no contact, and I
think my heart behind all ofthis is just really parents
(46:35):
working together, because that'skingdom work right.
All kids deserve to be protected.
All kids deserve to be, youknow, advocated for and fought
for.
And just the word that mytakeaway from all of this is get
curious, like what?
What are these behaviors rootedin?
Get curious on how otherfamilies like their rules, their
(46:56):
values, all that.
How are they raising them?
Um, and even when having thosehard conversations, you know,
just get curious.
Hey, this happened.
I'm curious how your thoughtson all of this, or have you
experienced this before?
Speaker 1 (47:10):
Right, I think those are very disarming words.
I think that's all goodtakeaways.
I would also add and we wemaybe should have covered this
earlier on to parents, like donot jump to labeling your kid a
certain sexuality or anythinglike that.
I probably should have saidthat from the beginning,
especially at this young age,they're exploring.
(47:32):
It's just like they heard it,they're curious, whatever.
And also like don't, don't makethat a watermelon.
Like, don't make, they're notthinking about sexuality or
their identity or they're notthinking about anything.
They're thinking.
They heard it and then they didit and it felt good, right?
Speaker 2 (47:48):
And so it's kind of like a little girl who loves to
wear blue and a baseball, abackwards baseball hat, right,
like she's still a girl.
Right, like it's just we cansometimes we get fear-based
around this, like what does thatmean?
Or you know, why is he doingthis with another boy?
And it's just like kids,they're just figuring it out,
(48:08):
right, and so do not label themand do not put that on them.
Speaker 1 (48:13):
Yes, like you said.
Well, it's like the parentsmaking it out bigger than it
needed to be, and we just needto make sure we're not doing
that.
And then you also mentioned offcamera, and I didn't think we
covered this.
But I just want to say this too.
You know we say this don't makeit a big deal, you know, make
it too much.
But I do just want to reiterateand we said this several times
(48:36):
do not brush it under the rugeither, because this could
happen in an exploratory agebetween peers, and then 10 years
later it'd be in a more abusivetype situation and the kid is
confused that that wasn't a bigdeal with my five-year-old
friend, so why is this a bigdeal with?
(48:57):
Now?
It's uncle and me, right, andso we always want to like, never
sweep it under the rug.
Just, we just don't want tomake it a traumatic experience
if it, if it's an exploratory.
Speaker 2 (49:08):
Absolutely, and I think too, like you're saying,
in that situation, absolutelyLike something is awakened and
we, you know, kind of coveredthe degrees of what that can
look like, you know, exploratory, awakening to lines getting
crossed, very differentawakenings, but they still both
deserve to be honored, talkedabout and taken seriously.
(49:31):
And it's going to lookdifferent how we treat you know
those situations, but they bothdeserve to be talked about,
honored and, yes, Amen, jamie,I'm so thankful for you that you
have helped me navigate this.
Speaker 1 (49:45):
This is something new calls that I've been getting
that I've haven't gotten in 11years young boys kissing their
private parts I've.
These are new calls for me,yeah, and I think therapists
we're.
Speaker 2 (50:00):
We're seeing the rise of this too, and so I've just
really been processing it a lot,and so, if there's a little
clunkiness on my end, I'm even,as a therapist, like really, you
know, figuring out how do wenavigate this wisely and how do
we partner with parents to, youknow, navigate this shift that
(50:21):
we're seeing.
Speaker 1 (50:22):
Well, I mean part of being on the front lines, like
we both are, is we're seeing newthings and we're trying to warn
parents, and we may not alwaysget the exact right solution,
but we're saying you've got tohave your guard up here.
This is happening, and so we'recoming alongside and giving you
the steps we think are good,but we're still learning too.
Every day.
Every day, culture's shiftingand new things are happening
(50:43):
with our kids.
Thank you for your partnership.
Jamie, appreciate you and Iwant to say parents, if this is
something that has happened inyour home, don't freak out,
pause.
It just doesn't mean your kidsare bad.
It doesn't mean you're a badfamily.
It means your kids are growingup in a highly sexualized
culture and you just need toprocess with them and so come
(51:06):
alongside of them, reach out.
If you need prayer or help orwant to talk it through with us.
We are here for you at NextTalk.
Speaker 3 (51:19):
Next Talk is a 501c3 nonprofit keeping kids safe
online.
To support our work, make adonation at nexttalkorg.
Next Talk resources are notintended to replace the advice
of a trained healthcare or legalprofessional, or to diagnose,
treat or otherwise render expertadvice regarding any type of
medical, psychological, legal,financial or other problem.
You are advised to consult aqualified expert for your
personal treatment plan.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!