Patrice Badami 0:02

Hi, this is Patrice Badami, with Acorn to Tree in the Kitchen video series with Lisa Luciano. We’re going to be discussing different things that families need to be aware of that are going on on the internet. And today we’re talking about internet challenges. Good Morning, Lisa. 

Lisa Luciano 0:19

 Good morning. How are you?

 Patrice Badami 0:21

 I’m great. And I’m just just as look, we’re going to try to do our little fun portion of the of the videos. I have mushroom coffee, with oatmeal creamer right now. And I have a little peanut butter bar, which is like granola. What are you having as a little snack today? 

Lisa Luciano 0:36 

Well, I have hot chocolates perfect for a cold New England day. All right. Back is actually a family tradition. It’s pizelles. 

Patrice Badami 0:49 

And when I used to make those at my sister’s restaurant, she had a little machine that we would make the fresh pizzles with the peripherals and things.

 Lisa Luciano 0:57

 So actually, both of my grandmothers were experts at it. And they had the wonderful recipes on top back I’m going to be doing with my family in a few days. But the secret is you have to use a gas stove and an iron. It’s a metal iron. I don’t even know if you can buy these things. You probably can. But it was the wear and tear actually, that made them so interesting. Because it gave them the flavor, but you would just put it on the gas. So put the dough in, and then close it. And then open it again. And you had to do it just right. Right. Alright. But we still have family members. And now I’m trying to get into the keep the tradition.

Patrice Badami 1:34

Definitely, definitely I’m not the best cook in the world and leave that up to my sisters. But having said that, thank you for sharing that. Because you know, I just want us to have a little discussion. We’re together hanging out in our kitchens just gonna start in with this topic that’s concerning, which is online challenges. 

Lisa Luciano 1:54

 Yeah, this started years ago. And it’s one of those things that kind of flies under the radar. Because most moms and dads just don’t know what to look for. And they don’t realize their children. While they could be doing them in different places. They can do it alone in their own home, right? Do it in someone else’s home. In fact, sometimes the kids will help each other with the challenge, which is insanity. because not a single one of them had this common sense to say no, we shouldn’t be doing this. It can be done in big groups. But the scary one is that it’s it happening in their own bedrooms or basements, places like that. And the only reason the parents find out about it is when they find their child’s body. I hate to Google about this. But it has happened numbers of times. Recently, it’s been in the news, there was a 13 year old girl in South America, who decided to try it. She tried what is called the hanging game. It has many names, the choking game, the pass out challenge, it’s all the same thing. The idea is you create something that looks a little bit like a noose and hang yourself into the point where you pass out. And the idea is you you survive? We’ll see you tried it twice before. She tried it one more time. And dad found her in I believe hiding in the closet in the bedroom. Oh my gosh. And within a week of that, or two weeks of that there was another one a boy in England, same age, did virtually the same thing. But he had been like showing signs to his family that he was playing around with this idea. I don’t know why they didn’t dig a little deeper into this. But the point is, most of the time it happens when the parents don’t know they’re doing it. So they can’t stop it. And the other way is when they’re with a group of kids, and then the pressure. I mean, there’s different reasons why kids do this, they do it because they just think it’d be really cool to try something so dangerous. And of course they think they’re immortal. And nothing’s ever going to go wrong. And when I teach this in my course I talked about don’t assume it’s going to go right, assume it’s going to go wrong, and stop and think, what are the consequences if this goes badly? What could happen?, 

Patrice Badami 4:14

 I mean, it’s veryyou know, there’s something else that I think goes along with that now, based on the age of your child and how impressionable they are. If a child sees an older kid or an adult doing this or explaining this, they think that’s an authority figure. when they’re very young, they feel bowl adults are going to protect them and would never do anything to harm them because they have that innocence. So that’s why you have to be really careful and mindful of what your child is watching and be aware of what they’re subscribing to and whatnot. But back to the challenge. I remember when my son was younger, he came home one day because there’s this thing called the cinnamon challenge, okay. Now this may seem it may seem to be not as severe per se. It is though It might not be, quote, as frightening as this hanging challenge you were discussing, or the hold, you know that. But what it is, is if your child is not aware of it, anybody can have an allergic reaction when you’re when you are exposed to a tremendous quantity of something. I’ll explain why I had birds my entire life, I fed the millet, all of a sudden, as I got older, your body chemistry changes. Now I’m definitely allergic to millet, your body changes, you don’t know how your body’s gonna react and putting a sprinkle on your oatmeal is not the same thing as having an entire teaspoon. And swallowing plus, if you if some of the cinnamon becomes a powder in the air as your you’ll inhale it, and that will go on to your bronchial in your lungs, and the surfactant on the liquidity substance on the lung will become covered in that powder. And you will smother so you can either smother from the dust of the spice or whatever, where you can have an allergic reaction from having taken in too much. So again, these challenges, they’re all very dangerous in different ways. So that’s something I wanted to mention. Yeah.

 Lisa Luciano 6:07 

Yeah. Well, you described it very accurately about why this was so bad. But also part of the challenge was you could not drink any water. So it was stuck in your mouth, and your throat and your lungs, and then your natural reaction would be to spit it out or to inhale it and aspirate it into your lungs, as you describe. Horrible, but it seems so simple. But the challenges are getting crazier and crazier. Like during COVID. There was a challenge. And they called it the COVID challenge. I heard about that. Yeah, well, you went around and you were supposed to lick objects in your environment. In other words, not your home somewhere else where you think someone might have touched it. And see if you could get COVID.  

Patrice Badami 6:54 

I mean, and so did I remember reading in the news or in the newspaper, there was a person who was young, he was in their 30s? I believe he was he actually did it. And when he was dying, he said, I did this and it was crazy thing to do. Right. Right. 

Lisa Luciano 7:09

 Well, and you also mentioned about being influenced by what they see from an adult, right? That’s the problem with these challenges. First of all, parents should know they’re all over YouTube and Tiktok. You don’t even have to look for them. You just go on there. Even if you ask, like you search for online challenges, you will find them. But on tick tock, I tried it one day, I don’t go on for any other reason, except for my research purposes. Right, I was just scrolling. And there they were, you didn’t even have to search for them. And just recently, again, it happened. There was a boy nine years old. And I’m sorry, the girl was nine years old, the sister and the boy, his her brother was five, or something on Tiktok. She decided to try it. And she hung herself. And when they asked the boy, what happened? And they said, Oh, well, we saw this video, so we thought we would try it. It’s that simple. And that easy for it to happen. So things parents really can do is start looking around. I mean, you hate to have to snoop. But it’s that or pay the consequences later, you may see something in your child’s room or something hidden somewhere that looks like it could be used as a noose. Although the girl who hung herself, the nine year old, she has the towel from the bathroom. So you really can’t can’t hide everything. But you see anything like ropes, or belts or things like that, that really don’t really belong in that room. Also, if you see substances like cinnamon, or different things that they’ve used in these challenges, and you’re like, what’s a bottle of cinnamon doing in the room? That’s a place to start. But really, you have to check their devices. And what they’ve done it there’s a history in every device. And if the history is gone, because some kids are smart enough to erase it, yes, you have the conversation immediately saying What did you erase everything you just did, so I can’t see it. And just don’t allow them to do it. Right? 

Patrice Badami 9:11

You want to check the histories in computers, it’s easy to do, it’s just a little thing at the top, we go to  settings, you scroll down, actually you go into settings, then you select whatever browser, Safari, Firefox, whatever it is. So you go settings, go into the browser, scroll all the way down. And it says clear history. And if you notice that when you look at the history, if it’s nothing there, you know that they must have easily done that.

 Lisa Luciano 9:32

 Right? And you can prevent it by just basically saying, Look, I pay for this equipment, I pay for the Wi Fi to get you on the internet, my equipment, my rules. And what are they going to do? I mean, yes, it could cause a conflict and the way you approach it is very important that it’s from the point of view of I want to save you I want to protect you. I can even be anybody can be fooled into doing something dangerous online. I’m trying to help you that’s my job as your heron. So you have to try to establish that bond of trust, the younger they are, the more control you’re going to have over the situation. And I was talking to a parent the other day, and she wasn’t sure she had very young children. And she asked me, she said, Well, when should they go on the internet? Or when should I allow them to go on a device, and she said, somebody had told her psychologist had told her four years old. And I said, that is absolute insanity. Um, it’s not that they can’t be online. But you have to have everything in place. There are child safe browsers, like DuckDuckGo, and some others that already filter everything. And the child would never know if that’s all they’ve seen from a young age. But her children were on Google. And she said, and I am seeing what’s coming up at them. And I’m very disturbed by it. So I told her, there’s ways you can set Google or any other browser, but it’s not perfect, because another parent told me recently that they used something I recommended, which is YouTube has a child’s version. Yes, well protected. There’s ways around it.

Patrice Badami 11:07 

Yes, there is because a person, and I’ll tell you why I told you this in the other, I’m just gonna mention it again. In case people didn’t see the other or hear the other podcast. I was in a classroom, I was in a preschool classroom, I was working, the head teacher was went to do something, she says, Oh, they they’re allowed to have rest time and watch a video. So we picked pocket roll, which is a cartoon. So she picked something left the room. And then there was what happens on YouTube as they scroll into the same topic. But another video. In other words, it’s like a chain, the videos keep going on that same. So somebody had posted it was an adult male with around six little paw patrol stuffed animals. He was diapering, all of these little dogs, and there was poop on the pretend boo. And it was not appropriate because it was just something very, so you can get around it. When you create a video on YouTube, you can say is this for children? Is it not for children, they can say that they can pick something as simple that you might think frozen, and then they can create a morphed inappropriate video, but it’s still under frozen. And it’s still gearing the people who are doing it intentionally. That’s what their goal is. And so that’s something you need to be very aware of that those things can slip into the YouTube Jr, or, you know, whatever they call the YouTube for the kids. So yeah, it’s just be very aware, and when they’re working on their device, so you want them to be on the device while you’re cooking. Find a spot in your kitchen, where the screen faces you as they sit. So you can see immediately what they’re doing. You know, um, that’s just my advice on that one.

 Lisa Luciano 12:45 

Because,yeah, it’s the best you can do. I mean, it’s like, what happened with me when I was a teacher, every student in my classroom was on a computer. And you can only circle the room so many times, and the minute you move, they know, back, or whatever. So you can put filters, they’ll find a way around the filters. That you mentioning that thing with YouTube, what was happening at one point when these challenges were thriving, and they’re still out there. But there was a thing called the MOMO challenge. As it turned out, we think now that it was a force, that it was a made up challenge. And that’s just as dangerous if kids try a challenge that nobody’s ever actually done. And in the MOMO challenge, they over a period of time, they asked the child to start doing self harm, cutting themselves different things. And it builds and builds and builds until the last challenge that you’re told that you must do, because by that time you’re hooked is going to take your life. Now, again, we don’t know for sure. We know people did it. We don’t know if it ever really was a challenge, or somebody just made this up. But they were inserting this into videos, you’re talking about children’s videos, parents would watch the first time and say, Oh, this looks okay. But they would put it where they know, well, mom and dad probably didn’t watch it all the way to the end right thing would come up and these kids would see it and it was giving them nightmares and everything else. But the worst part was some of them were actually doing it. And so that is a major issue. But also, the monitoring is so difficult. I wish I had a perfect system. I’ve worked on this for many, many years, trying to figure it out. You do want to make sure that any browsers or anything they use on a phone are protected. In fact, last week, I have a Facebook page where I just get tips every single day and last week we focused on how do you put your phones in order because what do we do the first thing I see young parents doing now, if they have a child in their arms, and they’re fussing, the hand on the phone and let them play with it. That is an adult device with no filters on it whatsoever. And I’ve seen toddlers find their way to videos. They like, or games, they like they figure that out. So as I said, last week, we talked about how to, if you have an Android phone, or if you have an iPhone, you have to first put, you can make a family account. That’s very, very helpful because you put your child in there. So if they’re on your phone, they can only go to the account, and the account then gets parental controls. So that was gonna be something I’d recommend, immediately do it to the browsers on your computer. And if anybody wants to contact me through Facebook or my email, I’d be happy to answer it or give you the directions because it’s that important that we get this going. Really we are, we have replaced a pacifier with a smartphone, but we don’t put anything on it that protects them. And then we’re shocked when they find their way around and get into trouble. And same thing with computers, there are child safe browsers that they can use, it’s gonna look just like the other browsers, they’ll never know. Or you put the controls in place, and then do the best you can. But it’s got to be a constant vigilance. Check in with them, see what they tell you. And then see, it’s like Ronald Reagan said, Trust, but verify. Yeah, try to trust them until you have a reason not to. But you also want to make sure what they told you is the truth, because I’ve seen a number of my students in the past, get themselves into serious trouble because they were afraid to tell their parents what they had done. Right. And one of them was a two of them were predators to young girls got stuck with predators. One of them fortunately, listened. It was in there somewhere. But after taking my course, I think and she finally went to her parents had to arrest him. He actually came to the house. Yeah, and the other one, we found out he was in our school, stalking her and her friends when he came to the school. He was working in our school. Oh, he found him online. But I don’t know is it was a chicken or egg situation, did he see her and then come to work at the school? Or did he was he working there, and he saw her, because she has no idea. She just knew this was a guy who wanted to run her to run away with him. And she thought about it, but then got scared, told her friend friend came to me in the frame. 

Patrice Badami 17:23

Yeah. And then I had to send everyone glad that  you got involved with that. What I was gonna say it’s also when your child has issues making friends, and they have insecurities and whatnot, they will often go on to different sites, such as Facebook, for example, they’ll start talking to someone, someone will see that they’re on there, they have a fake profile picture of another teenager, and it could be an adult. So what ends up happening is your child might start having a correspondence, then that person might say, go to another chat room, then the child and then once that child, your child goes to that chat room, they can start making demands on the child and say things for example, I will tell all your Facebook friends this that you know that things will get better do this, that. And it could lead into something that down the road could turn into a meet up with that person where your child really believes we’ve all seen catfish, and then that happens on online as well. And it could end up with tragic endings to those stories. So talk to your children, keep the keep the conversation open, let them know you love them, do lots of family activities, where you’re discussing, that’s where it starts is if they feel strong at home a strong bond with their family. And if they know that you love them, then that from there, they’ll start thinking and listening to what you’re saying. It’s hard. I know once kids become teenagers, it’s very difficult, but having these conversations when they’re young, and letting them know that these people online could be anyone. And it’s not necessarily their friend probably isn’t. They need to get involved with things around their school that are physically for example, soccer or something that to make friends. And if you see your child is suffering and not making friends, find something they’re interested in, redirect them so that the internet is not their only outlet. That’s what I that’s what I’ve experienced. I think that that’s, that’s the groundwork is the relationship you have with your child and letting them know there’s other things in life besides the internet. Lisa Luciano 19:22 Right? Well, that makes perfect sense. The process with these predators is that they sometimes will be the older mentor, substitute parent, like if the child is not getting along with their own parents, that kind of thing. Or they’ll do the fake profile. 

Patrice Badami 19:54

 And they never because one of the clues that somebody can look for is they never come live on the chat in the chat room or whatever kind of brain that makes sense, because they can’t show themselves because they’re lying but There’s a process called grooming.

 Lisa Luciano 19:56

They become whatever the child wants them to be whatever they’re looking for, if they’re looking for a friend or a mentor or whatever it might be boyfriend, girlfriend, that kind of thing. If the child says, I like to play lacrosse, well, they play lacrosse, too. Oh, when is your practice? What school do you go to what time and they just dig and dig and dig for information, they don’t get much. And then whatever they give you, it’s a lie anyway. But they just keep asking and asking and asking for information. They get a profile on the child and they pick the ones they go on social media where they know that kids are going to be that’s the predators playground. And they search for the right kind of child. And they do exactly what you say. They get them to do something, maybe inappropriate, like a picture or a video or something. Now they’ve got blackmail. Right now don’t say I’ll tell your friends or I’ll tell everybody online, they say I’ll tell your parents. And that’s more terrifying to them than anything. Because they might actually think what they did was cool, which is a little bit scary. But it’s more mom and dad are gonna shut me down. So they will give in, or they’re so embarrassed. They can admit to what they don’t want anybody know they got this far in a situation. But they are masters at psychology these bad guys. Oh, yeah. They can manipulate our children very easily. And then the meetup, of course, is again, they think anybody who is a friend online is a good person, right? Oh, it’s changing. And I often tell it would tell my students I said, Okay, you’re walking down the street. And this man comes up to you have no idea who he is. And he says, I want your name, address, social security number, send me some pictures do so. I said, Would you do that? No, he’s a stranger, right? There is no difference. So why do you do it online? I had sixth graders who had 1000s of friends on Facebook, first of all, young to be on Facebook. That’s another problem. Yes, nobody is checking the law. There’s a law. So COPPA law says you can’t be under the age of 13, and have people harvesting information from you, anybody of any kind, they just don’t ask. And then the kids don’t tell. Or they lie. And so that right there, if that would just be enforced, we’d be in much better shape, because we would at least keep the youngest ones. But the youngest ones are the most vulnerable ones. 

 Patrice Badami 22:34

 And they just say, yes, you’re my friend, because they want to be able to brag, look at all the friends, the friends that they have. Now. It’s a very, it’s all it’s a it’s, it’s kind of like a rabbit hole, that one thing leads to another and another another. So essentially, you need to really just try to try your best to educate your child about that. And we talked in the podcast that having a computer device, or even a phone, having your child have that and then go to their room. You don’t want that. So for example, they come home from school, that phone, they’re allowed to have phone time, but they need to be in a common area, you want to be on your phone, talk to friends do it in the living room, then when they go upstairs, that’s it, they can’t because they’ll be up all night, talking to people, it’s not it becomes an obsessive thing, you have to try your best to come up, you know, take your child to the computer store, pick out a beautiful computer that works for your family, have them get involved, maybe they can pick the color, there’s all different colors, and then set it up in a common area in the house. And then you make sure that that’s done once they go to bed, get a book, get something out, if they’re not allowed to have an upstairs, you have to try to protect them and have those conversations with them. Because it’s it’s sad, because when you’re when you’re you know, when you get older, you forget how vulnerable you are at age 1513 12. And how bullying at school can lead you to seek out somebody you don’t really know, to vent to. And we all know once again, it’s just like that catfish show, which I think was a great, great idea to create that so that people can see how this happens, even to adults, and then let your children know, you know, things happen not just to children, but to adults too. So that’s why you have to be extra careful. So yeah, absolutely. I think that’s education is the most important piece and your secret tell us about your series because I think that will be very helpful the course that you offer. 

Lisa Luciano 24:23

 Well, I will offer I found that there are so many different types of audiences for it. I was originally thinking, I taught it to children. And I know that was important, but it was in a school setting. And it was very easy to deliver the material. And then to follow up on it and all of that. And I started looking around I saw oh my goodness, schools are not doing this. I had retired, but I had put the program in place and trained other teachers and all of that. But then I thought, Why didn’t this catch on? Why? Why aren’t other school districts doing is everybody’s got the same problem. So then I decided to do online courses but then I realized Maybe it would be better to go to the people who are the linchpins in their family, which is the parents, because they would be able to enforce it, they would be able to monitor. So I have programs where I still would teach the children, I still think that’s the best way to go to just give it to them directly. As opposed to asking mom and dad, like what happened during the COVID shutdown, suddenly, mom and dad had to be teachers of every subject level, because there was nobody else really available to help them. And this is the same thing, mom and dad are busy, they’re overbooked. So are their kids. So I think it’s hard for the parents to have to do the lessons I haven’t absolutely available. But then they have to then transfer that knowledge to their children. And that’s the tough part. So I have a family program that I think works best for the situation. It’s the parents, the children, and even the grandparents, if they’re directly involved in their child, the tools. They can all take the program together. And I was doing live sessions. And I still offer that because you have that interaction. But again, I discovered the logistics of people sitting down week after week, because was an eight week course, was getting difficult for everybody. So I now offer a version where it’s recorded. And then I will do live sessions as support. We can I can talk to the children, to parents to everybody together. And I’ll just answer questions go over the material when it’s convenient. Instead of having that every week, we have to find the time kind of thing. Because this wasn’t suiting anybody’s schedule. I have seniors, I have a program now for high school and college bound students, right. Because they, for the first time in their lives, maybe making decisions online on their own with nobody watching, and they won’t know how to handle it. I actually had a student I’ll never forget this. Who was very restricted in the home mom and dad, really were trying maybe a little too hard. And he felt like he never got to do everything his friends were doing, went off to college, and just went crazy. And he asked me to friend him, because he saw me as a mentor. So I wasn’t comfortable with that idea. But I thought well, better, somebody should keep an eye on that. And all of a sudden, I started seeing his Facebook page flooded with the most inappropriate and just gonna be nice, inappropriate material day after day, all day long. And I was very worried about him. But I knew if I said anything, it was gonna fall on deaf ears. And then all of a sudden, I found out he stopped, had stopped going to class was not getting his work done. And he was kicked out of college because of the overreaction, so you have to be careful how far you go with the restrictions. You can’t tell them they can’t be online. That’s not going to happen. But and then one thing just before I forget. So the program is available. And you know, I give free consultations absolutely free. So we can talk about it and see if it’s the right fit for you. Or I can do a special version of it because I’m flexible enough that I want to be make it right for the people involved. But you mentioned about putting the computer in a common place. Yes, absolutely. But here’s what I recommend. Have each person in the family have their own login. That way you can figure out who’s doing what. And Johnny can’t say to Susie Oh, you were the one who went I wasn’t me it was you and that’s on your hands. And don’t ever let them use your as an adult. Yes, your logins. It’s very important when you have a common computer in the house. 

Patrice Badami 28:36

 Yeah, I was gonna say there are so many layers to the service that you offer. It’s not just right now we’re talking about challenges. We’re talking about Internet security as far as predators, and you know, invading the child endangering themselves with these challenges. But then there’s also another whole area, the financial and security to make sure people are tapping into your accounts and making them protecting seniors from scams. And then there’s all these other things in addition, like yesterday, I just got I was on the computer and all of a sudden there was a scam that came across the screen and of course I shut my computer down. There’s so many things you can help people to navigate and to put put in these safeguards. So I’m so glad that you came on to discuss this but we’re absolutely going to have you back once again because you have so much so much important information. Frankly, I need to learn a little bit. So yeah, so it’s Lisa Luciano, and then give them your all of your your website and information and your Instagram social.

 Lisa Luciano 29:36

Yeah, um, my website basically gives an overview of my programs but also explains all the different parts of it. So that’s online safety success.com my Facebook page is a really good place to go because first of all, you’re going to pick up free information and tips and everything I can think of whenever anything happens like Just jump on. And I’m like I did look at this, look at this, look at this, or something has changed. And then it’s basically instructional. And, and you can also message me or you can ask questions. No question is, is too silly? For me to answer that if you really don’t know what to do, don’t guess and don’t do nothing. That’s the problem with that. So those are the two best places to get me. And you can also just contact me, and I’d be happy to give everybody a free gift that I’m having right now, which is five essential tips to how to protect your child from an online predator. Right? Absolutely free. It’s a PDF. And it’s very helpful, something you can do right away. And that’s the thing about my programs is I’m trying to cover all the bases, digital device addiction, dangerous media apps, all these things. 

Patrice Badami 30:56 

And then gaming and all the bullying that goes along with gaming. There’s just like I’m saying, we’re just scratching the surface, there’s so much that people need to know. And if they’re not savvy with the computer, it’s a place to go to slowly ease into learning because we have to become knowledgeable about technology in order to protect our families. So now yeah, I’m gonna have the show notes. And in the show notes, I’m gonna have Lisa’s contact information her her social media, the website, so that you don’t have to worry about writing it down right now. We’ll have it in the show notes. And once again, Lisa Luciano, amazing resource. Thank you so much for joining us, for Acorn to Tree in the Kitchen, the first installment of our video series, just happy to have her.

Lisa Luciano 31:44

 You are so knowledgeable. And that’s saying that. That’s right, you’re way ahead of the curve, because some of the things that you said I would have said, right, the first and that’s great, because knowledge is our only weapon at this point. That’s correct.

 Patrice Badami 31:59

 And technology is changing every day. And there’s more and more scams on the computer. And there’s more and more ways your child can get around things. We have to keep on top of it in order to protect everyone. And you know, and have those conversations with your families at a young age, letting them know that you love them that nobody loves you more than your family that you need to let them know that they’re supported at home and there’s nothing they can’t come to you with. If they’re they don’t understand they’re afraid. And that’s just a really important thing to let your children know. So again, Lisa Luciano, acorn tree in the kitchen, everybody. Thank you so much for tuning in and look forward to seeing Lisa again because we’re gonna have her back many many times. Okay. All right, everybody. Thanks again. And Lisa, thank you so much for joining us. 

Lisa Luciano 32:47

 You’re welcome everyone. Stay safe.