April 25, 2025 • 35 mins
This mom recognized something was wrong, got curious and discovered her son was being groomed. It all started on a school-issued Chromebook. She takes us on her journey and shares how she contacted law enforcement, notified other families and walked through this with her son.
KEEPING KIDS SAFE ONLINE
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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.
I am joined by a mom today andwe're going to keep her name
anonymous to protect her kid.
But you guys, she DM'd me onInstagram a couple weeks ago and
(00:31):
the DM said something likebecause of Walker's story, I
recognized that my kid was beinggroomed online and I saved him
from a predator, like Iliterally reported it.
And we're in Kansas, thepredator's in California.
Of course I DM'd the mom backand I wanted all this
information.
I got on the phone with her andso now we're here.
She's so brave and she's decidedshe wants to come on
anonymously and just share whathappened to them in hopes that
(00:53):
it will help another family.
First I want to welcome her tothe show and then also, if you
can, just introduce kind of yourfamily makeup.
I know we're trying to stayanonymous here, but just so the
listeners out there canunderstand who you are and the
ages of your kids.
Sure, thank you so much forhaving me today.
As you said, I am a mom inKansas.
(01:15):
We have five children.
Our oldest is a young adult andwe filter down to our youngest,
who is 14 and finishing upmiddle school now, and so the
thing that happened was withyour youngest, correct?
So he's 14 now.
Yes, and how old was he whenthis happened?
Yes, this happened to him twoyears ago, so he was 12.
(01:36):
What that means for him is theend of sixth grade.
So I first want to kind of diveinto how you found Next Talk,
because when you DMed me, youwere like because of Walker's
story, and I rememberimmediately saying to you can I
share this with Brian Montgomery, walker's dad, just because I
know it helps Brian to know alittle that his story is helping
(02:00):
other kids, you know, and yougraciously said yes, and I was
able to do that.
But how did you find Next Talk?
And what do you know aboutdigital parenting?
Like, were you educated?
Like, let's talk about thatfirst, because I think sometimes
parents think well, she mayhave a degree in IT and that's
why she saw the warning signs ofgrooming, and that's not true.
(02:21):
Like neither of us aretechnical people, right, and
that's not true.
Like neither of us aretechnical people, right, yes, so
no, I am not educated inanything technology, my
background is actually so short.
I am the mom that if I want towatch something on TV, I have to
holler at one of my kids tocome to come figure that out for
(02:41):
me.
I don't want to say stumbledupon Next Talk, but found Next
Talk when my kids were youngerand the term VSCO became a thing
, and I did not have a clue whatany of that meant.
I was trying to understandtheir world and was also getting
a whole lot of like, oh, mom,so I wanted to learn about it,
and when I Googled that, nextTalk popped up because you had
(03:03):
done a show at one pointdescribing that word and what
that meant, and so in that timeI started listening to your
podcast, and then I listened toWalker's story.
I have two boys that areWalker's age, so that just hit
home for a lot of reasons for us.
Walker's story really had animpact on me because it felt
(03:23):
like gosh, this really can'thappen to anyone.
That's how I found your podcast.
Also, in that same timeframe,at our youngest school, a law
enforcement person came in, dida presentation about sexting and
just some online stuff that Ihad never heard of, didn't
understand, I think kind of insome ways live a sheltered life
(03:44):
and wanted to keep my head inthe sand.
And just piecing those thingstogether made me, I guess,
realize or see the reality of,as much as I hate evil and the
darkness in this world, that itis real.
It's cool how God led thesethings in your life to kind of
educate you a bit on stuff, tokind of have your guard up a
(04:07):
little bit more.
I want to go back to like howdid you discover this was
happening?
Because you DM to me and saidyour kid had been groomed online
.
Tell me how you found that outand what led up to it and give
us the details of that.
This happened to our youngestchild, and he is the one that
(04:29):
loves people.
His very best day is if he getsall of his siblings in the same
room.
They had done the presentationat school.
They did one for parents, theydid one for students, and then
that was at the end of theschool year.
At that time he had an oldersibling that had graduated from
high school, and so I had takenthe older child and some friends
(04:50):
on a little senior trip.
So, with mom being gone thebeginning of summer, all of his
siblings at that point were highschool or older.
That just kind of made theequation for what happened to
our family.
I had gotten home from this tripand just noticed that he was
off a little.
He is our one who, if there'ssomeone in the living room, he's
(05:12):
going to be in the living room.
He's not one to go in his roomby himself.
He's not one to want to bealone and I just noticed a
little of that off with him,especially since I had been gone
a few days.
I thought he seemed tired andit didn't really make sense for
him to be tired.
It was the beginning of summerand I could just tell like mom
guts, something was off.
(05:34):
And something that my husbandand I do is we pray, we ask God
if something's off with our kids, please show us.
And I'm a real life mom, sosometimes I'm like oh man, did
you have to show me today?
I'm tired.
I don't want to deal with hardtoday, but that is something
that we ask and I think what'scool when you ask that is God
(05:54):
does show you.
Part of that is beingintentional and knowing our kids
and knowing their hearts andjust being able to recognize
when something's off.
I love this so much, and Ithink it's such a powerful point
that one you knew your kidreally well and you have five
kids, so you're a busy mom,right, but you knew this
(06:16):
particular child really well inhis personality and you sent
something was off.
And I also love that prayer.
I think we can all be motivatedto pray that prayer Dear Lord,
show me if something's off.
And I also love that prayer.
I think we can all be motivatedto pray that prayer, dear Lord,
show me if something's off withmy kids.
It's such a beautiful prayerand we have to be ready for when
he does and he answers thatprayer.
You're right.
So you felt something was off.
(06:37):
So what was your next step?
What did you do next?
We do the whole phones on thekitchen counter at bedtime and
all of the rules that we're toldthat we're supposed to
implement, and so I did.
I checked his phone very quickly, noticed a contact that I had
never heard of before andstarted just reading through
that and very quickly it wasquite clear something terrible
(06:59):
was going on, going on and fromthat point it all happened
really fast.
Like I confronted my son, Ithink it was traumatic for him,
it was instant tears.
It was a lot of me askingquestions and him saying I don't
know, I don't know, I don'tknow.
So I guess I should also backup and say in our situation, I
(07:25):
found it on his phone, but itoriginated from his school
Chromebook.
The kids do bring theirChromebooks home for the summer.
I love the schools my kids arein.
I know they're doing the bestthey can do.
I know they filter things and Ithink I had a false sense of
security in that, like, oh, it'sa school Chromebook, so bad
things are filtered, things fallthrough the cracks, right.
(07:48):
And so I had saw it on hisphone, pulled up his Chromebook.
I'm trying to look at somethings, but I don't know how it
all works and because of theworld we live in, one of my high
school kids was like here.
Let me see that.
He pulled up the history andwhat it was for my son was a
website Omegle.
(08:08):
Omegle, my older one was ableto show me quickly in the
history and so I was seeingthings late at night.
I was seeing.
You could just see quickly whatit was.
Along with that, I will saylike, yes, we have these rules
for our phones.
We hadn't really thoughtthrough the Chromebook thing.
It was the beginning of summer,it was brought home, but we
(08:30):
just hadn't really even thoughtabout that.
So while my kid was followingthe rule with his phone, this
other thing that we hadn't evenconsidered was in his room.
Okay, I want to talk for aminute about the website that he
went to, because it's shut downnow and you can go there and
there's kind of like a statementfrom the founder of this
(08:51):
website and they're being suedin a court of law because of a
grooming situation.
I believe that happened on thiswebsite and I don't want us to
get caught up in.
Oh, that website's notavailable anymore.
So kids are safe, because Ithink what happened with you?
I help families all the time.
(09:12):
This kind of thing withstrangers grooming kids, adults
grooming kids it happens onRoblox, it happens on the Xbox,
on the PlayStation, on schoolissue devices, and so I want to
take the lessons learned fromyour story and apply them to any
website or any device right now, as you are finding this out.
(09:35):
There's a couple things I wantto ask you.
You said you confronted yourson.
What did that look like?
Because you seem like a verylogical and calm mom, but I also
know any logical and calm mom.
In this moment, you're freakedout because you're seeing these
messages.
So can you just tell us likewhat that conversation looked
(09:56):
like with your son?
On my end, it escalated quickly.
I appreciate that you say thatI seem like a calm mom.
I mean, looking back, I wasscared, I was angry.
I wasn't angry at my son, I wasangry at the person that did
this to him.
I was mad at myself.
I felt like I dropped the ball.
What could we have donedifferent or more?
(10:18):
But in that, trying to explainto him, this is real and this is
serious, because at that pointwe didn't know where this person
was Like.
Are they in our town?
Are they on my street.
Something that I remembersaying to my son is you could be
in the trunk of his car.
Looking back now that feelsvery traumatic, but I think I
(10:38):
was so desperate to get thepoint across of this is so
serious.
We started digging through hisphone, his Chromebook, and then
piecing together his story OnceI calmed down.
Then I was able to help himcalm down, ask the questions,
and a lot of his answers were Idon't know.
(10:58):
He wasn't hiding anything fromus At that point.
He wasn't lying, he understood,but it was confusing and it was
overwhelming.
What we came to know happenedis toward the end of the school
year.
Someone at school who our sonwould have said my friend told
him about this website and theway they could explained it to
my son was it's just a place youcan go and they match you up
(11:20):
with friends and it's someone totalk to.
Well, for ours, who lovestalking and loves people, that
sounded really fun.
So he took that information.
He was put in a situation athome where things were off, a
little part of us were gone, hewas lonely and he went to this
(11:40):
website and, if I remembercorrectly, like you said, it's
been shut down.
Thank you, lord, for that.
When I went to this website, Ido remember there was like
something that you had to clickor something that said you were
18 or older, but there was noaccountability, there was no
nothing to prove, like clickthis box and you get to play
(12:02):
right In piecing together whatour son could tell us, again a
12-year-old.
This person told my son that hewas 19 years old.
It turns out he is in his 60s.
He did tell.
I think the one truth is hetold my son he was from
California and that is true.
He told him he loved Star Warsand Legos.
(12:24):
But now, looking back, I thinkhe had asked my son questions to
get to know what mattered in myson's life, because the profile
I guess that he gave to my sonabout himself very much
resembled our oldest child, whois my son's hero.
So I think there was a quicktrust because it started to feel
(12:47):
like this guy's, like mybrother.
So you think, as you're piecingthis together, you think your
son went to this website which,as you were saying that to me,
that's like all online chatfeatures of any app.
Is that this social place wherekids can gather and make
friends, right, the appeal ofthat, especially to extroverted
(13:09):
kids.
But you think your kid went tothis website, started chatting
with this person and this personprobably asked tell me about
your family.
Yes, and your little12-year-old is just spouting off
about all his brothers andsisters and what they like, and
probably you guys, and then heposed himself as these are the
things I like, which lined upwith his older brother's
(13:31):
interest.
Yes, okay, I think this is animportant point to note because,
again, this lets your kidsguard down.
If he sees his brother in thisgroomer, it makes him feel like
a safe person, and that's atactic that we need to take note
of right now that you'reteaching us about your story,
and I think that's really,really important.
(13:53):
Okay, so go ahead.
So now you're piecing this alltogether.
What do you do next?
Because now you know he's apredator and he's in his 60s in
California, but at this time youdidn't know any of this.
You're piecing it together andyou're like, oh my gosh, this
person likes the same things myolder kid likes.
And who is this person?
Like you said, is he down thestreet, street, whatever?
(14:16):
So what was your next step asyou were gathering all this
information.
What was the next step?
Well, one thing that I think isimportant is this person
started building a little bit ofa relationship on this online
platform but then asked my sonfor his cell phone number so if
they got cut off, he couldcontact him that way.
And some little boy okay,here's my phone number.
(14:36):
He's just innocent and thisisn't his new friend.
So, parents listening, thiscould be a red flag.
If anybody online ask for yourdirect number, red flag alert.
Just tell me before you givethat out.
Let's vet that out together.
I mean, at that point I wasstill like go lock the doors,
shut the blinds.
We just don't know what I did.
At that point I was still likego lock the doors, shut the
(14:56):
blinds, like we just don't knowwhat I did.
It was summer, things wereclosed down as far as the school
goes, but one of our schoolsecretaries was kind of a friend
of mine.
I had her phone number, so Idid contact her and ask her if
she could give me the contactinformation for the law
enforcement person that hadpresented at our school a few
(15:18):
weeks prior to, and so Icontacted him.
We talked through some things.
He was like yes, this needs tobe looked at From there.
I contacted our school resourceofficer because I just didn't
know what to do.
We're kind of in a trickysituation because we live on the
edge of a town, so we live inone town, our school is in
(15:40):
another town.
So our school resource officerdirected me to call law
enforcement according to myaddress, so the town I live in,
so they gave me a phone numberfor that and so in talking to
them they wanted to send somepeople out to visit with us to
get information to see where togo from here.
(16:01):
They told me the day they weregoing to be here, so I had
shared with my kids there isgoing to be a police officer
come today Ended up being threepeople came three police
officers, which, to a12-year-old boy and his mom,
that's really overwhelming forthat to come show up on your
porch.
(16:22):
What I really appreciated isthey were clear with our son.
You didn't do anything wrongand this is very dangerous and
this is real.
So they asked him questions,they talked through any details
he could remember and then theytook his Chromebook and his
phone to scrub and to try andget any information they could.
(16:44):
At that point our 12 year oldwas like yes, please take it.
I never want to see any of thisagain.
I do have a couple of questions.
I'm so glad you reported it.
Did your son want you to reportit?
Was there any like please don'tcall them mom.
Or was like, how did that go?
Because sometimes that becomes atopic of conversation in a home
(17:06):
, where a kid doesn't want it togo to that level and a parent
is kind of pushing and saying,no, we have to do this.
Can you walk us through whatthat looked like, kind of
pushing and saying, no, we haveto do this.
Can you walk us through whatthat looked like?
That was not a conversationbecause truly at that point, his
opinion didn't matter.
(17:26):
It was real and it wasdangerous.
And there was no conversationabout contacting or not
contacting.
That just wasn't even part ofit.
I did also contact.
By looking through his phone, Icould see who of his friends
were either knowledgeable.
This was happening or a part ofthis happening.
And in our story, part of it toowas this person had offered to
(17:50):
my son to add his friends totheir conversation.
Okay, I want to stop therebecause that again could be
another grooming tactic.
A lot of times we tell kids ifan adult or anybody online tries
to get you by yourself, it's ared flag.
But this predator did it alittle different.
He got your son's phone numberso he could privately chat with
(18:13):
your son.
But he also said to your sonhey, invite your friends also,
we can have a group chat as well.
So again it makes the kid feellike, well, this is all of our
friends, we're all friends,we're all friends.
Yes, I just had no idea.
And then it was brought to light.
So I wanted to contact my son'sfriends' parents, and so what
(18:37):
that looked like is I made himsit beside me while I called
each of these parents.
I wanted him to hear andhopefully be able to recognize
this is real.
Mom is real upset.
This isn't okay.
And so he sat with me while Icontacted these other parents.
Interesting enough, the oneparent I did not contact is when
(19:03):
he told us he had learned ofthis website from a friend at
school.
When he said that friend's name, I had never heard it in my
life.
This was not a kid that camearound our house.
This wasn't anyone I knew.
I wanted that kid's parents toknow, because if he had told my
son about the website.
He knew about the website.
So what I did with that was,again with the school resource
(19:24):
officer.
Say, here's the names involved,here's the people in the text.
I have contacted this one, thisone and this one Can you look
into this one?
And then I don't know what hedid with that or where it went
from there, but that was my wayof trying to reach out to a
family involved.
I love that you're sharing thislevel of detail, because I think
(19:45):
sometimes parents do see otherkids involved in something and
they're scared to contact theother family because they don't
know them, or maybe they do andthey're scared of the reaction.
So I think you, using thestudent resource officer as hey,
can you help me warn theseother parents, I think is
brilliant and I think is a goodpoint for parents.
(20:07):
You may not be the one to geton the phone with these parents
and tell them what happened withtheir kid.
How did you get so smart?
You're doing all the rightthings in this situation, god's
grace, and tripping over my ownfeet a lot, I would say Amen.
(20:27):
He gives you wisdom.
I mean he really does.
It sounds cliche sometimes, buthe gives you wisdom on steps to
take and keeps you calm throughthe process.
Yeah, I do love also that theofficers gave you the time of
day, even though it was a littlescary when they came.
But you knew and you could prepyour kids and we're going to
have this.
So what happens next?
They take the phone, they takethe Chromebook.
They're doing all the scrubbing.
(20:48):
Your kid's fine with it.
He wants nothing at all.
I think we all just wantsomething to tell us what to do.
I think, even in the amount oftime that my husband and I have
been parents, what technologylooked like when our oldest was
12 and what technology lookedlike when our youngest was 12
was two different worlds, andboth of those are way different
(21:11):
than growing up in the 80s and90s.
So we really, as his parentsgrowing up in the 80s and 90s,
so we really, as his parents,didn't know like what.
Now we knew law enforcement hadtaken this, they were working
on that, and we knew it had allbeen shut down, like as far as
communication between our sonand this person.
Because of my background insocial work and just life, you
(21:33):
know, I instantly thought likedoes he need therapy, do we need
to get counselors involved, andwe were by no means opposed to
that.
In talking through it with him,we never felt like that was
necessary, but we kept our guardup in considering that with our
son and this was something thatwas really confusing to my high
(21:56):
school kids that was watchingthis happen.
Something I considered with himis he is social, like we got
here because he loves people,and so I knew for him to take
away all you know.
I wanted to like run over allthe phones and laptops and
everything with my car.
(22:16):
I wanted to shut it down andlock my kids in my basement
forever, but we just knew that'snot reality.
And so we live in a really greatcommunity with really great
families and we just consideredand I ended up contacting I
think it was six or seven momstelling them what we were going
(22:39):
through.
Many of them were a part ofthis, so they were people that I
had initially contacted whenthis happened, and so that
summer we were just superintentional of getting our son
and his little group of friendstogether to do something.
So it wasn't an onlinefriendship, it was a real life.
(23:00):
We're going swimming, we'regoing to have s'mores in the
backyard, we're going to go playpickleball, which I think was
harder for my older kids.
Like he messed up and now hegets to have friends over every
week.
That didn't really make sensein their brain.
But just knowing this kid, theworst thing we could have done
is take all communication fromhim.
(23:21):
That just wouldn't work for him.
Walking through that lots ofconversations, lots of things in
place, guards in place we got aphone call from the initial law
enforcement person that hadspoke at his school, contacted
me I think it was like a monthor so later and let me know this
(23:43):
person was not 19.
He was in his 60s.
So the two things that heactually didn't lie about is he
was in California and his namewas Winston.
Those things were true andthose were things that he did
tell our son.
His age was not true andprobably lots of other things.
So what they shared with us bytheir investigating was this was
(24:05):
caught early for our son.
Again, going back to Walker'sstory and how so much happened
so quickly.
This feels like a long time,but I think our situation was
two to three days.
They believed this was caughtduring the grooming phase.
So trying to build relationship, build trust before next steps.
(24:31):
Now, in talking to our son, Iasked like, did he ask you for
pictures?
Did he talk about yucky things?
And he did not.
So it really was just gettingstarted and building some kind
of foundation there.
What we were told and I'm not alaw enforcement professional,
but what we were told is therewas not enough evidence to press
charges against this person.
But our local law enforcementperson that I was communicating
(24:55):
with actually did make contactwith him, had a conversation
with him, told him we know whatyou're doing, we know what
you've done, what you've said,we are watching you and you are
on a watch list.
Now I can't tell you what thatmeans, but as a mom I just
appreciate someone took itserious, hunted this person down
(25:18):
and confronted like this isdisgusting.
And I see you, I have suchmixed emotions about it because
I'm so glad they made contactwith him and told him.
But at the same time it's like,oh, it's just in phases one of
two of grooming, so we can't doanything.
That frustrates me to no endand I get it.
I mean I get it.
(25:38):
It's just so frustrating thatwe can see this happening and
not be able to do anything aboutit until something terrible
happens.
And I will say, as a mom and formy husband as a dad, at that
point we were really thankfulthat there's several states
between Kansas and California,because, as a parent, when
(25:59):
someone's messing with one ofyour greatest joys, that's just
a feeling that I wish parentsdidn't have to know.
There's so much evil in theworld and your story really,
truly does remind us that.
You know it's on us right nowwe don't have a lot of laws and
legislator backing us Like it'son us to see these signs and I
(26:24):
just commend you having thecourage to ask your kid when you
knew something was wrong,because how many times, I mean I
, I've been there where you feellike something's off but you're
busy and so it's like Surelyyou talk yourself out of it,
like surely everything's fine,he's just tired or he's had a
stressful week or whatever, andyou didn't do that.
(26:46):
You were like something is offand it was a gut feeling that
would not leave you, and I thinkthat's important to encourage
parents to follow that too.
To follow that too.
I call it mom gut, right,sometimes you just know, and I
think sometimes our kids don'teven know and it's still mom
(27:07):
being like you good what's goingon?
Actually, you're not goodwhat's happening, and sometimes
they don't even know.
In his situation, I don't evenknow if he knew what he was
doing was wrong at the pointthat it all came to light.
I am so thankful that it cameto light when it did and that he
is okay.
I think for us, for my husbandand I, a big thing is again.
(27:30):
The world we're raising ourkids in is so different than the
world we grew up in when all ofthis came to light.
I do still do feel like one ofmy biggest weaknesses or
downfalls as a parent istechnology and social media and
how to navigate that.
And I really appreciate whenthe police officers came to our
(27:51):
house.
Something they said to me wasyou can have all of the filters,
everything in place beyond,like as soon as you have it all
figured out.
Evil is two steps ahead of that.
And it was just good for me tohear, because as a mom, I felt a
weight of what did I miss if Iknew better, if I understood
(28:15):
more, if I had different filters.
You know, like that was myinstant when it happened like
tell us what filters?
Is there something we can payfor Is there something, just
something to protect our kid?
And I think one thing we reallylearned in that but also it can
overlay lots of places inparenting is I can't control
(28:38):
technology.
I can't know it all.
That's not how my brain worksand my brain doesn't have space
to hold all of that.
But what I have a say in is mykid's heart, and I feel like
that's something we learned inthis is you can have all the
rules in place.
You can do all of the rightthings.
(28:59):
Your kids can know thedifference between right and
wrong and evil is still real.
There is still people out thereafter our kids' hearts, after
their minds, after their souls,after their bodies, and we can't
control it.
But what we can go after istheir hearts and I think when
our kids can be something youtalk about often, if our kids
(29:22):
can just know.
I got to go to mom and dad NotI need to hide this, I don't
want to get in trouble, but thisis scary.
I got to go to mom and dad.
So well said, so well said.
How is your boy now?
And how are you guys?
How's your family?
What have you learned from this?
I mean, this was two years ago.
Yeah, it's something.
(29:43):
It's something in the beginning, with any trauma in the
beginning.
It's all day, every day.
This is what you're thinkingabout.
Who is that guy in targetlooking at?
You know all of that.
Our son's still with that.
He's just as social as ever andhe has not asked one time for
social media.
He does have a phone set up ina way that contacts can't be
(30:05):
added about mom and dad.
You know all the things.
And also still, even today,it's about his heart.
I can't control all of thephone, all of the things.
When this opportunity came, whenyou asked about sharing our
story, it was important to me tohave his permission, because
it's his story and he's just nowin eighth grade, so he has a
(30:28):
whole lot of hard ahead of him.
But what he saw in this was anopportunity to help other people
.
He knows now how serious it isand how scary it was and how
real it is.
He'll be safer online nowbecause of this experience.
And that's hard to acceptbecause you wish he didn't have
(30:50):
to walk through it.
But isn't that life?
When we walk through hardthings, we learn so much through
them.
That's interesting.
You say that because that'ssomething that we talk about a
lot in our family is that we cando hard things, and I think
it's true.
What happened was pure evil.
That person was not innocentlywanting to be friends with my
(31:11):
son Although anyone that meetsmy son wants to be his friend
but it was intended for evil andI do appreciate that we have
the opportunity to use it forgood.
You know right now he's at anage that things are easily
embarrassing, and so I do wantto protect who he is and follow
(31:33):
what he has asked.
But I also think the day willcome that he'll be ready to
share his story, and right nowhe says he wants to be a teacher
, so I can also see him one daybeing the guy at school.
That's that's protecting theyoung kids.
I hope one day I get to meetyour son and interview him and
he comes on our podcast.
(31:54):
That would be amazing.
He has terrible dad jokes.
It's the jokes are awful, buthe sure appreciates his own
humor.
What a brave kid.
He has, really brave parents.
We all want to be you if thishappens in our home.
(32:14):
You've handled this so well andI'm just so thankful that you
reached out and you were willingto share, because I truly do
think that it's going to helpother families.
I just think it's important toconsider it really can happen to
anyone.
We by no means have it figuredout, by no means do it all right
(32:38):
.
We are far from perfect.
I think at the end of the day,my husband and I are just two
parents who love Jesus and loveour kids.
I think we try really hard tonot be scared to do hard things.
Truly, going back to what Isaid at the beginning, a lot of
times I would really rather havemy head in the sand, but when
(33:01):
we ask God to show us he does,and then, once he shows us,
we're kind of responsible to dosomething.
Well, I think it was importantto note that this was your
youngest.
I mean you had four otherchildren that were well-rounded.
You've got a couple that areflown and grown and doing
amazing things in the worldright.
And so you do have some thingsfigured out as parents, you do
(33:23):
have a good connection and agood relationship with your kids
, and so that home life was afoundation there and it still
happened in your home.
And it reminds me so much ofWalker and his family because
they were such a good family andthey talked and had great
relationships with their kids.
And so we can just never saynever and let our guard down
(33:44):
Absolutely.
15 years ago or our oldest is21.
So let's say 22 years ago therewould have been a lot of things
that I would have said never inmy house.
And here we are, and sometimesnow our oldest gets frustrated
with like and sometimes now ouroldest gets frustrated with like
(34:05):
oh, you would have never let me.
And he's right.
You know, mom and dad are alittle older, a little wiser,
maybe a little more tired, andwe've just learned along the way
from the many, many, many, manymistakes.
Well, thank you for being here.
Is there anything else you wantto share with other parents?
If your guts are telling yousomething's up with your kid,
(34:27):
something's up with your kid,you've got to trust that.
I say guts.
The older I get, I realize likeoh, that's the Holy Spirit.
Well, and pray that prayer Lord, show me.
Lord, show me what's wrong,open, let's bring this into the
light.
I love that prayer that youmentioned.
Well, thank you for being hereand thank you for sharing your
story.
You're welcome.
Thank you for the opportunity.
(34:48):
I hope.
I hope someone can getsomething good from it.
I know God's going to take thiscurse and use it for a blessing
.
I love that Bible verse.
Only God can do that.
That is right.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
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
(35:20):
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.
I am joined by a mom today andwe're going to keep her name
anonymous to protect her kid.
But you guys, she DM'd me onInstagram a couple weeks ago and
(00:31):
the DM said something likebecause of Walker's story, I
recognized that my kid was beinggroomed online and I saved him
from a predator, like Iliterally reported it.
And we're in Kansas, thepredator's in California.
Of course I DM'd the mom backand I wanted all this
information.
I got on the phone with her andso now we're here.
She's so brave and she's decidedshe wants to come on
anonymously and just share whathappened to them in hopes that
(00:53):
it will help another family.
First I want to welcome her tothe show and then also, if you
can, just introduce kind of yourfamily makeup.
I know we're trying to stayanonymous here, but just so the
listeners out there canunderstand who you are and the
ages of your kids.
Sure, thank you so much forhaving me today.
As you said, I am a mom inKansas.
(01:15):
We have five children.
Our oldest is a young adult andwe filter down to our youngest,
who is 14 and finishing upmiddle school now, and so the
thing that happened was withyour youngest, correct?
So he's 14 now.
Yes, and how old was he whenthis happened?
Yes, this happened to him twoyears ago, so he was 12.
(01:36):
What that means for him is theend of sixth grade.
So I first want to kind of diveinto how you found Next Talk,
because when you DMed me, youwere like because of Walker's
story, and I rememberimmediately saying to you can I
share this with Brian Montgomery, walker's dad, just because I
know it helps Brian to know alittle that his story is helping
(02:00):
other kids, you know, and yougraciously said yes, and I was
able to do that.
But how did you find Next Talk?
And what do you know aboutdigital parenting?
Like, were you educated?
Like, let's talk about thatfirst, because I think sometimes
parents think well, she mayhave a degree in IT and that's
why she saw the warning signs ofgrooming, and that's not true.
(02:21):
Like neither of us aretechnical people, right, and
that's not true.
Like neither of us aretechnical people, right, yes, so
no, I am not educated inanything technology, my
background is actually so short.
I am the mom that if I want towatch something on TV, I have to
holler at one of my kids tocome to come figure that out for
(02:41):
me.
I don't want to say stumbledupon Next Talk, but found Next
Talk when my kids were youngerand the term VSCO became a thing
, and I did not have a clue whatany of that meant.
I was trying to understandtheir world and was also getting
a whole lot of like, oh, mom,so I wanted to learn about it,
and when I Googled that, nextTalk popped up because you had
(03:03):
done a show at one pointdescribing that word and what
that meant, and so in that timeI started listening to your
podcast, and then I listened toWalker's story.
I have two boys that areWalker's age, so that just hit
home for a lot of reasons for us.
Walker's story really had animpact on me because it felt
(03:23):
like gosh, this really can'thappen to anyone.
That's how I found your podcast.
Also, in that same timeframe,at our youngest school, a law
enforcement person came in, dida presentation about sexting and
just some online stuff that Ihad never heard of, didn't
understand, I think kind of insome ways live a sheltered life
(03:44):
and wanted to keep my head inthe sand.
And just piecing those thingstogether made me, I guess,
realize or see the reality of,as much as I hate evil and the
darkness in this world, that itis real.
It's cool how God led thesethings in your life to kind of
educate you a bit on stuff, tokind of have your guard up a
(04:07):
little bit more.
I want to go back to like howdid you discover this was
happening?
Because you DM to me and saidyour kid had been groomed online
.
Tell me how you found that outand what led up to it and give
us the details of that.
This happened to our youngestchild, and he is the one that
(04:29):
loves people.
His very best day is if he getsall of his siblings in the same
room.
They had done the presentationat school.
They did one for parents, theydid one for students, and then
that was at the end of theschool year.
At that time he had an oldersibling that had graduated from
high school, and so I had takenthe older child and some friends
(04:50):
on a little senior trip.
So, with mom being gone thebeginning of summer, all of his
siblings at that point were highschool or older.
That just kind of made theequation for what happened to
our family.
I had gotten home from this tripand just noticed that he was
off a little.
He is our one who, if there'ssomeone in the living room, he's
(05:12):
going to be in the living room.
He's not one to go in his roomby himself.
He's not one to want to bealone and I just noticed a
little of that off with him,especially since I had been gone
a few days.
I thought he seemed tired andit didn't really make sense for
him to be tired.
It was the beginning of summerand I could just tell like mom
guts, something was off.
(05:34):
And something that my husbandand I do is we pray, we ask God
if something's off with our kids, please show us.
And I'm a real life mom, sosometimes I'm like oh man, did
you have to show me today?
I'm tired.
I don't want to deal with hardtoday, but that is something
that we ask and I think what'scool when you ask that is God
(05:54):
does show you.
Part of that is beingintentional and knowing our kids
and knowing their hearts andjust being able to recognize
when something's off.
I love this so much, and Ithink it's such a powerful point
that one you knew your kidreally well and you have five
kids, so you're a busy mom,right, but you knew this
(06:16):
particular child really well inhis personality and you sent
something was off.
And I also love that prayer.
I think we can all be motivatedto pray that prayer Dear Lord,
show me if something's off.
And I also love that prayer.
I think we can all be motivatedto pray that prayer, dear Lord,
show me if something's off withmy kids.
It's such a beautiful prayerand we have to be ready for when
he does and he answers thatprayer.
You're right.
So you felt something was off.
(06:37):
So what was your next step?
What did you do next?
We do the whole phones on thekitchen counter at bedtime and
all of the rules that we're toldthat we're supposed to
implement, and so I did.
I checked his phone very quickly, noticed a contact that I had
never heard of before andstarted just reading through
that and very quickly it wasquite clear something terrible
(06:59):
was going on, going on and fromthat point it all happened
really fast.
Like I confronted my son, Ithink it was traumatic for him,
it was instant tears.
It was a lot of me askingquestions and him saying I don't
know, I don't know, I don'tknow.
So I guess I should also backup and say in our situation, I
(07:25):
found it on his phone, but itoriginated from his school
Chromebook.
The kids do bring theirChromebooks home for the summer.
I love the schools my kids arein.
I know they're doing the bestthey can do.
I know they filter things and Ithink I had a false sense of
security in that, like, oh, it'sa school Chromebook, so bad
things are filtered, things fallthrough the cracks, right.
(07:48):
And so I had saw it on hisphone, pulled up his Chromebook.
I'm trying to look at somethings, but I don't know how it
all works and because of theworld we live in, one of my high
school kids was like here.
Let me see that.
He pulled up the history andwhat it was for my son was a
website Omegle.
(08:08):
Omegle, my older one was ableto show me quickly in the
history and so I was seeingthings late at night.
I was seeing.
You could just see quickly whatit was.
Along with that, I will saylike, yes, we have these rules
for our phones.
We hadn't really thoughtthrough the Chromebook thing.
It was the beginning of summer,it was brought home, but we
(08:30):
just hadn't really even thoughtabout that.
So while my kid was followingthe rule with his phone, this
other thing that we hadn't evenconsidered was in his room.
Okay, I want to talk for aminute about the website that he
went to, because it's shut downnow and you can go there and
there's kind of like a statementfrom the founder of this
(08:51):
website and they're being suedin a court of law because of a
grooming situation.
I believe that happened on thiswebsite and I don't want us to
get caught up in.
Oh, that website's notavailable anymore.
So kids are safe, because Ithink what happened with you?
I help families all the time.
(09:12):
This kind of thing withstrangers grooming kids, adults
grooming kids it happens onRoblox, it happens on the Xbox,
on the PlayStation, on schoolissue devices, and so I want to
take the lessons learned fromyour story and apply them to any
website or any device right now, as you are finding this out.
(09:35):
There's a couple things I wantto ask you.
You said you confronted yourson.
What did that look like?
Because you seem like a verylogical and calm mom, but I also
know any logical and calm mom.
In this moment, you're freakedout because you're seeing these
messages.
So can you just tell us likewhat that conversation looked
(09:56):
like with your son?
On my end, it escalated quickly.
I appreciate that you say thatI seem like a calm mom.
I mean, looking back, I wasscared, I was angry.
I wasn't angry at my son, I wasangry at the person that did
this to him.
I was mad at myself.
I felt like I dropped the ball.
What could we have donedifferent or more?
(10:18):
But in that, trying to explainto him, this is real and this is
serious, because at that pointwe didn't know where this person
was Like.
Are they in our town?
Are they on my street.
Something that I remembersaying to my son is you could be
in the trunk of his car.
Looking back now that feelsvery traumatic, but I think I
(10:38):
was so desperate to get thepoint across of this is so
serious.
We started digging through hisphone, his Chromebook, and then
piecing together his story OnceI calmed down.
Then I was able to help himcalm down, ask the questions,
and a lot of his answers were Idon't know.
(10:58):
He wasn't hiding anything fromus At that point.
He wasn't lying, he understood,but it was confusing and it was
overwhelming.
What we came to know happenedis toward the end of the school
year.
Someone at school who our sonwould have said my friend told
him about this website and theway they could explained it to
my son was it's just a place youcan go and they match you up
(11:20):
with friends and it's someone totalk to.
Well, for ours, who lovestalking and loves people, that
sounded really fun.
So he took that information.
He was put in a situation athome where things were off, a
little part of us were gone, hewas lonely and he went to this
(11:40):
website and, if I remembercorrectly, like you said, it's
been shut down.
Thank you, lord, for that.
When I went to this website, Ido remember there was like
something that you had to clickor something that said you were
18 or older, but there was noaccountability, there was no
nothing to prove, like clickthis box and you get to play
(12:02):
right In piecing together whatour son could tell us, again a
12-year-old.
This person told my son that hewas 19 years old.
It turns out he is in his 60s.
He did tell.
I think the one truth is hetold my son he was from
California and that is true.
He told him he loved Star Warsand Legos.
(12:24):
But now, looking back, I thinkhe had asked my son questions to
get to know what mattered in myson's life, because the profile
I guess that he gave to my sonabout himself very much
resembled our oldest child, whois my son's hero.
So I think there was a quicktrust because it started to feel
(12:47):
like this guy's, like mybrother.
So you think, as you're piecingthis together, you think your
son went to this website which,as you were saying that to me,
that's like all online chatfeatures of any app.
Is that this social place wherekids can gather and make
friends, right, the appeal ofthat, especially to extroverted
(13:09):
kids.
But you think your kid went tothis website, started chatting
with this person and this personprobably asked tell me about
your family.
Yes, and your little12-year-old is just spouting off
about all his brothers andsisters and what they like, and
probably you guys, and then heposed himself as these are the
things I like, which lined upwith his older brother's
(13:31):
interest.
Yes, okay, I think this is animportant point to note because,
again, this lets your kidsguard down.
If he sees his brother in thisgroomer, it makes him feel like
a safe person, and that's atactic that we need to take note
of right now that you'reteaching us about your story,
and I think that's really,really important.
(13:53):
Okay, so go ahead.
So now you're piecing this alltogether.
What do you do next?
Because now you know he's apredator and he's in his 60s in
California, but at this time youdidn't know any of this.
You're piecing it together andyou're like, oh my gosh, this
person likes the same things myolder kid likes.
And who is this person?
Like you said, is he down thestreet, street, whatever?
(14:16):
So what was your next step asyou were gathering all this
information.
What was the next step?
Well, one thing that I think isimportant is this person
started building a little bit ofa relationship on this online
platform but then asked my sonfor his cell phone number so if
they got cut off, he couldcontact him that way.
And some little boy okay,here's my phone number.
(14:36):
He's just innocent and thisisn't his new friend.
So, parents listening, thiscould be a red flag.
If anybody online ask for yourdirect number, red flag alert.
Just tell me before you givethat out.
Let's vet that out together.
I mean, at that point I wasstill like go lock the doors,
shut the blinds.
We just don't know what I did.
At that point I was still likego lock the doors, shut the
(14:56):
blinds, like we just don't knowwhat I did.
It was summer, things wereclosed down as far as the school
goes, but one of our schoolsecretaries was kind of a friend
of mine.
I had her phone number, so Idid contact her and ask her if
she could give me the contactinformation for the law
enforcement person that hadpresented at our school a few
(15:18):
weeks prior to, and so Icontacted him.
We talked through some things.
He was like yes, this needs tobe looked at From there.
I contacted our school resourceofficer because I just didn't
know what to do.
We're kind of in a trickysituation because we live on the
edge of a town, so we live inone town, our school is in
(15:40):
another town.
So our school resource officerdirected me to call law
enforcement according to myaddress, so the town I live in,
so they gave me a phone numberfor that and so in talking to
them they wanted to send somepeople out to visit with us to
get information to see where togo from here.
(16:01):
They told me the day they weregoing to be here, so I had
shared with my kids there isgoing to be a police officer
come today Ended up being threepeople came three police
officers, which, to a12-year-old boy and his mom,
that's really overwhelming forthat to come show up on your
porch.
(16:22):
What I really appreciated isthey were clear with our son.
You didn't do anything wrongand this is very dangerous and
this is real.
So they asked him questions,they talked through any details
he could remember and then theytook his Chromebook and his
phone to scrub and to try andget any information they could.
(16:44):
At that point our 12 year oldwas like yes, please take it.
I never want to see any of thisagain.
I do have a couple of questions.
I'm so glad you reported it.
Did your son want you to reportit?
Was there any like please don'tcall them mom.
Or was like, how did that go?
Because sometimes that becomes atopic of conversation in a home
(17:06):
, where a kid doesn't want it togo to that level and a parent
is kind of pushing and saying,no, we have to do this.
Can you walk us through whatthat looked like, kind of
pushing and saying, no, we haveto do this.
Can you walk us through whatthat looked like?
That was not a conversationbecause truly at that point, his
opinion didn't matter.
(17:26):
It was real and it wasdangerous.
And there was no conversationabout contacting or not
contacting.
That just wasn't even part ofit.
I did also contact.
By looking through his phone, Icould see who of his friends
were either knowledgeable.
This was happening or a part ofthis happening.
And in our story, part of it toowas this person had offered to
(17:50):
my son to add his friends totheir conversation.
Okay, I want to stop therebecause that again could be
another grooming tactic.
A lot of times we tell kids ifan adult or anybody online tries
to get you by yourself, it's ared flag.
But this predator did it alittle different.
He got your son's phone numberso he could privately chat with
(18:13):
your son.
But he also said to your sonhey, invite your friends also,
we can have a group chat as well.
So again it makes the kid feellike, well, this is all of our
friends, we're all friends,we're all friends.
Yes, I just had no idea.
And then it was brought to light.
So I wanted to contact my son'sfriends' parents, and so what
(18:37):
that looked like is I made himsit beside me while I called
each of these parents.
I wanted him to hear andhopefully be able to recognize
this is real.
Mom is real upset.
This isn't okay.
And so he sat with me while Icontacted these other parents.
Interesting enough, the oneparent I did not contact is when
(19:03):
he told us he had learned ofthis website from a friend at
school.
When he said that friend's name, I had never heard it in my
life.
This was not a kid that camearound our house.
This wasn't anyone I knew.
I wanted that kid's parents toknow, because if he had told my
son about the website.
He knew about the website.
So what I did with that was,again with the school resource
(19:24):
officer.
Say, here's the names involved,here's the people in the text.
I have contacted this one, thisone and this one Can you look
into this one?
And then I don't know what hedid with that or where it went
from there, but that was my wayof trying to reach out to a
family involved.
I love that you're sharing thislevel of detail, because I think
(19:45):
sometimes parents do see otherkids involved in something and
they're scared to contact theother family because they don't
know them, or maybe they do andthey're scared of the reaction.
So I think you, using thestudent resource officer as hey,
can you help me warn theseother parents, I think is
brilliant and I think is a goodpoint for parents.
(20:07):
You may not be the one to geton the phone with these parents
and tell them what happened withtheir kid.
How did you get so smart?
You're doing all the rightthings in this situation, god's
grace, and tripping over my ownfeet a lot, I would say Amen.
(20:27):
He gives you wisdom.
I mean he really does.
It sounds cliche sometimes, buthe gives you wisdom on steps to
take and keeps you calm throughthe process.
Yeah, I do love also that theofficers gave you the time of
day, even though it was a littlescary when they came.
But you knew and you could prepyour kids and we're going to
have this.
So what happens next?
They take the phone, they takethe Chromebook.
They're doing all the scrubbing.
(20:48):
Your kid's fine with it.
He wants nothing at all.
I think we all just wantsomething to tell us what to do.
I think, even in the amount oftime that my husband and I have
been parents, what technologylooked like when our oldest was
12 and what technology lookedlike when our youngest was 12
was two different worlds, andboth of those are way different
(21:11):
than growing up in the 80s and90s.
So we really, as his parentsgrowing up in the 80s and 90s,
so we really, as his parents,didn't know like what.
Now we knew law enforcement hadtaken this, they were working
on that, and we knew it had allbeen shut down, like as far as
communication between our sonand this person.
Because of my background insocial work and just life, you
(21:33):
know, I instantly thought likedoes he need therapy, do we need
to get counselors involved, andwe were by no means opposed to
that.
In talking through it with him,we never felt like that was
necessary, but we kept our guardup in considering that with our
son and this was something thatwas really confusing to my high
(21:56):
school kids that was watchingthis happen.
Something I considered with himis he is social, like we got
here because he loves people,and so I knew for him to take
away all you know.
I wanted to like run over allthe phones and laptops and
everything with my car.
(22:16):
I wanted to shut it down andlock my kids in my basement
forever, but we just knew that'snot reality.
And so we live in a really greatcommunity with really great
families and we just consideredand I ended up contacting I
think it was six or seven momstelling them what we were going
(22:39):
through.
Many of them were a part ofthis, so they were people that I
had initially contacted whenthis happened, and so that
summer we were just superintentional of getting our son
and his little group of friendstogether to do something.
So it wasn't an onlinefriendship, it was a real life.
(23:00):
We're going swimming, we'regoing to have s'mores in the
backyard, we're going to go playpickleball, which I think was
harder for my older kids.
Like he messed up and now hegets to have friends over every
week.
That didn't really make sensein their brain.
But just knowing this kid, theworst thing we could have done
is take all communication fromhim.
(23:21):
That just wouldn't work for him.
Walking through that lots ofconversations, lots of things in
place, guards in place we got aphone call from the initial law
enforcement person that hadspoke at his school, contacted
me I think it was like a monthor so later and let me know this
(23:43):
person was not 19.
He was in his 60s.
So the two things that heactually didn't lie about is he
was in California and his namewas Winston.
Those things were true andthose were things that he did
tell our son.
His age was not true andprobably lots of other things.
So what they shared with us bytheir investigating was this was
(24:05):
caught early for our son.
Again, going back to Walker'sstory and how so much happened
so quickly.
This feels like a long time,but I think our situation was
two to three days.
They believed this was caughtduring the grooming phase.
So trying to build relationship, build trust before next steps.
(24:31):
Now, in talking to our son, Iasked like, did he ask you for
pictures?
Did he talk about yucky things?
And he did not.
So it really was just gettingstarted and building some kind
of foundation there.
What we were told and I'm not alaw enforcement professional,
but what we were told is therewas not enough evidence to press
charges against this person.
But our local law enforcementperson that I was communicating
(24:55):
with actually did make contactwith him, had a conversation
with him, told him we know whatyou're doing, we know what
you've done, what you've said,we are watching you and you are
on a watch list.
Now I can't tell you what thatmeans, but as a mom I just
appreciate someone took itserious, hunted this person down
(25:18):
and confronted like this isdisgusting.
And I see you, I have suchmixed emotions about it because
I'm so glad they made contactwith him and told him.
But at the same time it's like,oh, it's just in phases one of
two of grooming, so we can't doanything.
That frustrates me to no endand I get it.
I mean I get it.
(25:38):
It's just so frustrating thatwe can see this happening and
not be able to do anything aboutit until something terrible
happens.
And I will say, as a mom and formy husband as a dad, at that
point we were really thankfulthat there's several states
between Kansas and California,because, as a parent, when
(25:59):
someone's messing with one ofyour greatest joys, that's just
a feeling that I wish parentsdidn't have to know.
There's so much evil in theworld and your story really,
truly does remind us that.
You know it's on us right nowwe don't have a lot of laws and
legislator backing us Like it'son us to see these signs and I
(26:24):
just commend you having thecourage to ask your kid when you
knew something was wrong,because how many times, I mean I
, I've been there where you feellike something's off but you're
busy and so it's like Surelyyou talk yourself out of it,
like surely everything's fine,he's just tired or he's had a
stressful week or whatever, andyou didn't do that.
(26:46):
You were like something is offand it was a gut feeling that
would not leave you, and I thinkthat's important to encourage
parents to follow that too.
To follow that too.
I call it mom gut, right,sometimes you just know, and I
think sometimes our kids don'teven know and it's still mom
(27:07):
being like you good what's goingon?
Actually, you're not goodwhat's happening, and sometimes
they don't even know.
In his situation, I don't evenknow if he knew what he was
doing was wrong at the pointthat it all came to light.
I am so thankful that it cameto light when it did and that he
is okay.
I think for us, for my husbandand I, a big thing is again.
(27:30):
The world we're raising ourkids in is so different than the
world we grew up in when all ofthis came to light.
I do still do feel like one ofmy biggest weaknesses or
downfalls as a parent istechnology and social media and
how to navigate that.
And I really appreciate whenthe police officers came to our
(27:51):
house.
Something they said to me wasyou can have all of the filters,
everything in place beyond,like as soon as you have it all
figured out.
Evil is two steps ahead of that.
And it was just good for me tohear, because as a mom, I felt a
weight of what did I miss if Iknew better, if I understood
(28:15):
more, if I had different filters.
You know, like that was myinstant when it happened like
tell us what filters?
Is there something we can payfor Is there something, just
something to protect our kid?
And I think one thing we reallylearned in that but also it can
overlay lots of places inparenting is I can't control
(28:38):
technology.
I can't know it all.
That's not how my brain worksand my brain doesn't have space
to hold all of that.
But what I have a say in is mykid's heart, and I feel like
that's something we learned inthis is you can have all the
rules in place.
You can do all of the rightthings.
(28:59):
Your kids can know thedifference between right and
wrong and evil is still real.
There is still people out thereafter our kids' hearts, after
their minds, after their souls,after their bodies, and we can't
control it.
But what we can go after istheir hearts and I think when
our kids can be something youtalk about often, if our kids
(29:22):
can just know.
I got to go to mom and dad NotI need to hide this, I don't
want to get in trouble, but thisis scary.
I got to go to mom and dad.
So well said, so well said.
How is your boy now?
And how are you guys?
How's your family?
What have you learned from this?
I mean, this was two years ago.
Yeah, it's something.
(29:43):
It's something in the beginning, with any trauma in the
beginning.
It's all day, every day.
This is what you're thinkingabout.
Who is that guy in targetlooking at?
You know all of that.
Our son's still with that.
He's just as social as ever andhe has not asked one time for
social media.
He does have a phone set up ina way that contacts can't be
(30:05):
added about mom and dad.
You know all the things.
And also still, even today,it's about his heart.
I can't control all of thephone, all of the things.
When this opportunity came, whenyou asked about sharing our
story, it was important to me tohave his permission, because
it's his story and he's just nowin eighth grade, so he has a
(30:28):
whole lot of hard ahead of him.
But what he saw in this was anopportunity to help other people
.
He knows now how serious it isand how scary it was and how
real it is.
He'll be safer online nowbecause of this experience.
And that's hard to acceptbecause you wish he didn't have
(30:50):
to walk through it.
But isn't that life?
When we walk through hardthings, we learn so much through
them.
That's interesting.
You say that because that'ssomething that we talk about a
lot in our family is that we cando hard things, and I think
it's true.
What happened was pure evil.
That person was not innocentlywanting to be friends with my
(31:11):
son Although anyone that meetsmy son wants to be his friend
but it was intended for evil andI do appreciate that we have
the opportunity to use it forgood.
You know right now he's at anage that things are easily
embarrassing, and so I do wantto protect who he is and follow
(31:33):
what he has asked.
But I also think the day willcome that he'll be ready to
share his story, and right nowhe says he wants to be a teacher
, so I can also see him one daybeing the guy at school.
That's that's protecting theyoung kids.
I hope one day I get to meetyour son and interview him and
he comes on our podcast.
(31:54):
That would be amazing.
He has terrible dad jokes.
It's the jokes are awful, buthe sure appreciates his own
humor.
What a brave kid.
He has, really brave parents.
We all want to be you if thishappens in our home.
(32:14):
You've handled this so well andI'm just so thankful that you
reached out and you were willingto share, because I truly do
think that it's going to helpother families.
I just think it's important toconsider it really can happen to
anyone.
We by no means have it figuredout, by no means do it all right
(32:38):
.
We are far from perfect.
I think at the end of the day,my husband and I are just two
parents who love Jesus and loveour kids.
I think we try really hard tonot be scared to do hard things.
Truly, going back to what Isaid at the beginning, a lot of
times I would really rather havemy head in the sand, but when
(33:01):
we ask God to show us he does,and then, once he shows us,
we're kind of responsible to dosomething.
Well, I think it was importantto note that this was your
youngest.
I mean you had four otherchildren that were well-rounded.
You've got a couple that areflown and grown and doing
amazing things in the worldright.
And so you do have some thingsfigured out as parents, you do
(33:23):
have a good connection and agood relationship with your kids
, and so that home life was afoundation there and it still
happened in your home.
And it reminds me so much ofWalker and his family because
they were such a good family andthey talked and had great
relationships with their kids.
And so we can just never saynever and let our guard down
(33:44):
Absolutely.
15 years ago or our oldest is21.
So let's say 22 years ago therewould have been a lot of things
that I would have said never inmy house.
And here we are, and sometimesnow our oldest gets frustrated
with like and sometimes now ouroldest gets frustrated with like
(34:05):
oh, you would have never let me.
And he's right.
You know, mom and dad are alittle older, a little wiser,
maybe a little more tired, andwe've just learned along the way
from the many, many, many, manymistakes.
Well, thank you for being here.
Is there anything else you wantto share with other parents?
If your guts are telling yousomething's up with your kid,
(34:27):
something's up with your kid,you've got to trust that.
I say guts.
The older I get, I realize likeoh, that's the Holy Spirit.
Well, and pray that prayer Lord, show me.
Lord, show me what's wrong,open, let's bring this into the
light.
I love that prayer that youmentioned.
Well, thank you for being hereand thank you for sharing your
story.
You're welcome.
Thank you for the opportunity.
(34:48):
I hope.
I hope someone can getsomething good from it.
I know God's going to take thiscurse and use it for a blessing
.
I love that Bible verse.
Only God can do that.
That is right.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
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
(35:20):
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