Transcription
[00:00:00] Casey O'Roarty: Hey, welcome to the Joyful Courage podcast, a place for inspiration and transformation as we try and keep it together while parenting our tweens and teens. This is real work, people. And when we can focus on our own growth and nurturing the connection with our kids, we can move through the turbulence in a way that allows for relationships to remain intact.
[00:00:27] My name is Kacey O'Rourke, I am your fearless host. I'm a positive discipline trainer, space holder coach and the adolescent lead at Sproutable. I am also the mama to a 20 year old daughter and 17 year old son walking right beside you on this path of raising our kids with positive discipline and conscious parenting.
[00:00:47] This show is meant to be a resource to you and I work really hard to keep it real, transparent and authentic so that you feel seen and supported. Today is an interview and I have no doubt. That what you hear will be useful to you. Please don't forget sharing truly is caring. If you love today's show, please pass the link around, snap a screenshot, post it on your socials or text it to your friends.
[00:01:13] Together we can make an even bigger impact on families all around the globe. I'm so glad that you're here. Enjoy the show.
[00:01:25] Hi, everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. My guest today is Ron Kerbs. Ron is the founder and CEO of Kiddus. Ron has a decade of experience in leading technology teams and investing in early stage startups. After volunteering in various children focused NGOs, he decided to address the problem of gaming toxicity.
[00:01:49] Hi, Ron. Welcome to the podcast.
[00:01:51] Ron Kerbs: Hey, thanks for having me, Jason.
[00:01:53] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah, I'm really excited to focus on this conversation because many of the parents that I work with have kids who are gaming. So, let's start first with you. How did you end up working with a company that's focus is keeping kids safe while video gaming?
[00:02:11] How did you end up here? Yeah,
[00:02:13] Ron Kerbs: I think it all started for me when I was a gamer myself growing up.
[00:02:17] I
[00:02:18] Ron Kerbs: went back a little bit to gaming during COVID. And realize that it's still a toxic place. The same as I remember it when I was younger. People still, you know, scam each other. People still arrest each other.
[00:02:29] And I'm like, how come it was like 15 years ago and like people didn't solve the problem? And so I knew that I have the ability. In my past, I was working on machine learning algorithms for national security. I knew that there is a way to solve this problem. I knew that also some of the bigger gaming companies, the bigger social media.
[00:02:51] Companies typically state that they care about it, but they don't really care about it
[00:02:56] in most
[00:02:56] Ron Kerbs: cases. I said, okay, let's create a solution for parents and their kids to have the protection while they play. So we created KIDAS that protect kids when they play online multiplayer games like Fortnite, Minecraft, Roblox, and 400 other games.
[00:03:11] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah. Well, and when we talk about what's toxic, I mean, I think that, you know, parents immediately go to like predators and grooming. I also hear from parents like, oh my gosh, my kid puts on their earphones and they're screaming at the screen and the language, you know, if they're not wearing their earphones, then the parents also hear, you know, the language and the way that the other players are talking to each other.
[00:03:38] In your work, what is showing up for you all as the biggest threats facing young people who are on these multiplayer video games?
[00:03:51] Ron Kerbs: I think by soaring these privacy issues, and so teens and twins sharing personal information that they shouldn't be sharing online, switching passwords with other gamers because they feel like they trap them.
[00:04:04] place for a while, forgetting that their parents credit card is already connected to the account. And if someone gets access, they can get, you know, their credit card. And why would
[00:04:13] Casey O'Roarty: they want to share their passcode? Like, what's the, why would they do that?
[00:04:18] Ron Kerbs: Yeah, typically they're, they're stuck in some level in the game.
[00:04:21] And then one of their friends, Hey, I can do it for you. If you want to switch accounts, I can do it for you. And then once they already, they call, they're like, Hey. It's like pretty tempting. I have the credit card here. I can buy stuff. I can transfer it to my account. And so we see a lot of those issues of sharing passwords, sharing credit card numbers of their parents.
[00:04:41] Basically, someone tells them, Hey, I have a new promotion for Roblox, which is the currency on Roblox. Instead of paying 10 bucks for something, I can charge you only eight bucks. Do you want to do that? And then they still put a scam. So those are some of the things that we have been seeing as well. And that's something that, you know, adults.
[00:05:00] Fall for as well.
[00:05:01] Casey O'Roarty: Oh yeah.
[00:05:02] Ron Kerbs: Yeah. So anonymity of gaming, the stack that, you know, you build trough by playing with someone who you actually don't really know and you play with them, but like, you don't really know them in real life. And that's what causes some of those beaches to be more severe in gaming.
[00:05:19] Casey O'Roarty: Well, and it's so interesting too, because they get, I remember when my son. Started playing Fortnite and he was not, like I said, before we hit record, Ian was not a huge video gamer. He just liked to be outside amongst the people, like that's just his temperament, but man, he would get so pissed off when he wasn't performing.
[00:05:48] And I, I would remind him like. The kids that are getting the W's, that are really good because all they do is play Fortnite. Like, do you want that life? You know, I'd have to remind him of that. But it makes sense that kids, because they're such the draw to progress and to get to the next level and to perform, that, you know, it makes sense that some, you know, quote, nice person who, yeah, they have This like pretend or whatever surface relationship with saying like, oh, I can get you there.
[00:06:21] Just give me your passcode It makes perfect sense, especially the younger the kid Although like you said grown ups are falling for scams all the time But the younger the kid the more it's like, oh, yeah, there's the first of all not thinking of what's the downside here? But also oh, this is a quick way to just move me along
[00:06:42] Ron Kerbs: Yeah.
[00:06:42] And adults do it as well, it's funny, just like, you know, I think she witnessed what we're listening to. Elon Musk actually himself was switching accounts with someone so he can, you know, attract him in the game, he's a big gamer himself. So it's not just like, if the richest man in the world, a very smart person is doing that, then there's only younger kids who are less experienced or likely to do those things.
[00:07:08] And, you know, talking about their irritation of like not succeeding in the game. I think it's pretty obvious. Kids use those platforms, whether it's Roblox, Minecraft, Fortnite, in the social sphere, the place that they meet their friends online. And your status in the online space is based on your ranking.
[00:07:29] It's based on how good are you in the game. So while in the real world, your status is based on a lot of factors. How you look, how you behave, how smart you are, maybe your grades, maybe your achievements. In the online space, your status is basically how good you are in the game. So that's why they want to be so good in those games.
[00:07:49] They want to improve their social status among their friends, among the other game.
[00:07:55] Casey O'Roarty: And what else is it about the environment that brings out the worst behavior? I mean, I guess we could talk about gaming. We could talk about social media. Just the way that, I mean, I'm guessing your answer is, well, it's the security of being behind a screen.
[00:08:14] Right? Versus in front of someone and, you know, not treating them well. But what is it about? Like, so there's that drive for status, right? And belonging, I would say, or like that, at least a cheap sense of belonging. What else is it about the environment that brings out the worst behavior and this toxic behavior, would you say?
[00:08:36] I
[00:08:37] Ron Kerbs: think it's almost like a vicious cycle that we, the parent generation, are responsible for. And I'll explain. You know, when I started gaming more than 20 years ago, it was like pretty known that, you know, some players are toxic and, and that's okay. It was just at the beginning of, you know, texting while you play.
[00:08:59] And, but that just became a habit of, okay, if you're playing, you've got to be some kind of toxic because that's your shield against the world. Everyone else is very toxic. And when those kids who were eight or nine started to play, And they suffer from toxicity from the older players. And when they became the older players, it's like, you know, almost like, hey, like, hey, we suffer from it.
[00:09:24] Like, you guys, the new generation, you need to suffer from it as well. So it's almost like a vicious cycle that you gotta stop it at some point, but no one to be the last generation that was suffering from it, but not moving it forward, not enjoying the benefits, quote unquote.
[00:09:42] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah.
[00:09:43] Ron Kerbs: That, that's what we've been seeing in a lot of those cases.
[00:09:46] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah, and I would imagine that it's such an isolated world. Like we, I didn't want, I mean, every once in a while, I'd sit down and watch my kid play video games, but it's kind of boring, you know, or, and, and, and the ratio of the amount of time I'm sitting there versus the amount of time he's playing. And he, again, isn't a kid that played that often, you know, there was a lot more times where he was kind of in the bubble of the game.
[00:10:12] That there weren't grownups that were saying things like, hey, you know, it's not okay to treat each other like this. This isn't how we behave. You know, here's another way to handle this situation. So I imagine that too, like you're saying, comes into play when, you know, it's this cycle of bad behavior and no kind of voice of reason saying, whoa, whoa, whoa.
[00:10:38] We got to interrupt this because it's all the gamers, there's no healthy adults.
[00:10:45] Ron Kerbs: A lot of those gamers are fully streamers, they're fully professional gamers. Yeah. And those streamers, those professional gamers, they're talking to themselves. Yeah. They're like, hey, maybe you need to be talking in order to advance in the game.
[00:10:57] Maybe you need to be talking that way that you become good in the game. But actually research shows the opposite. It shows that when you're playing team sports, eSports. When you're playing online in a team, you're not playing one on one, but you're playing as part of a team. Toxic teens are actually make less likely to succeed in the long run.
[00:11:18] So it's
[00:11:18] Ron Kerbs: actually research based that, you know, it's not good to be toxic, not, you know, not just morally, but also in terms of performance.
[00:11:26] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah. We'll let the kids know, right? So, and you know, and a lot of the parents that I work with, parents of teens and tweens, you know, we're not necessarily super literate.
[00:11:38] about what our kids are doing, especially if we didn't come up in the gaming world. And so you've mentioned, you know, some of the popular games that I know I hear from other parents, but I'm guessing there's there's more to be aware of. So like Fortnite, Minecraft, Roblox. What can parents do to, like, stay informed and be more knowledgeable about what the safe games are for their kids?
[00:12:09] And when we say safe games, like, what does that even mean?
[00:12:12] Ron Kerbs: So, I think there are no safe games and games that are not safe. It's all about how you hear the game. So, in a lot of those games, you have voice communication, you have text communication, you have other ways to communicate, and most of the risks come from communication.
[00:12:29] So, whether you have the ability to communicate with other players that you didn't play with before, just online strangers, are you able to text them? Are there any, you know, And of filtering the text messaging system them, and so, and it's all in, in a lot of those games. It depends on your age. They, and you know, if most kids are not saying that they're younger than 13, right?
[00:12:52] They're just saying, Hey, I'm older than 13. That, that the COPA requirement children are like privacy protection Act, you know, those gay companies and not of good kind. They, they don't want to process the information of kids who are younger, they're than 13. They're not allowed. They need to get parents approval and another bad of things.
[00:13:09] So keep lying. Yeah. That's how they do it. And then once they lie, they get access to things that maybe they shouldn't get access to. Like talking with strangers, like the ability to have voice conversation that younger players are not allowed to get. So those are some of the things that I think parents should be aware of.
[00:13:27] The best way, and you know, a lot of parents will hate me for saying that because it's annoying. Play with your kids.
[00:13:33] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah.
[00:13:34] Ron Kerbs: Just sit with them. Play with your kids. Yeah. Like, you're taking interest in their schoolwork, you're going to their soccer games or basketball games, baseball games, hockey games. You are actually, you know, understand what they're doing there.
[00:13:49] You're talking with their coach, you're talking with their teachers, gaming, which is a big part of their life. You have no visibility to what is happening.
[00:13:57] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah. So
[00:13:58] Ron Kerbs: play with them. And if they think about taking it seriously, sign them up to an esports team. You know, some of the parents take it seriously.
[00:14:08] And, and while some parents walk in and say, Hey, just play, you know, on the game, on the, on the PC, like it's not a real sports, there are a few hundred universities in the U S that offer scholarships now for e sports, but it's not just a hobby anymore.
[00:14:26] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah. Well, and it's interesting that you say that.
[00:14:28] Cause I think that a lot of parents are like, this is not a real thing. Like I'm, I'm, you know, it's like in our dismissal of. And our opinion of the way that our kids are spending time when it's video gaming. It makes sense then that our kids aren't sharing with us and aren't talking about what's going on.
[00:14:52] And if something does go sideways, the last thing they want to do is go to their parent who's going to be like, well, yeah, I told you. Right. So if we're sitting with them, I mean, I can imagine with a, so I'm thinking about like tweens, like middle school age and God bless all of you parents that have managed to avoid multiplayer games until your kids are 13.
[00:15:15] Well done. Keep it up, share with others so that other parents know that there are parents that are actually doing this. So my experience Yeah, and then is there a settings like do most of the games have like, okay, I can go in and adjust the settings so that I'm not depending on my 13 year old to, you know, make the right choice around keeping themselves safe.
[00:15:41] Is that a thing?
[00:15:41] Ron Kerbs: There are settings in Roblox, in Minecraft, in Fortnite, the major games. The downside is kids are smart, you know, the moment you leave the room, they're gonna change it, like, they're probably smarter than us in a lot of the chases, and so that's why I say, I mean, play with them, understand, and they're actually thrilled about it, like, they're thrilled about stuff.
[00:16:02] Teaching you all of the slang of the game, teaching you about what they're doing in the game. And, you know, conversations become way more fun when you can share this part of their lives with them.
[00:16:12] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah. I'm really hoping that the listeners are hearing as well. Those of us that didn't come up in the video games, and I know you listeners are like, Oh, geez, I have to embrace this thing.
[00:16:22] And if your kiddo is super into it, then. Yeah, and even as I say that, Ron, I think about like a client call that I had yesterday. You know, the parent has a 17 year old and all they're doing is playing video games. So where, and I don't know if you know the answer to this, but like the question becomes where is the line between I am.
[00:16:50] I'm serious about my gaming and I'm avoiding my life through using these games. How do we differentiate between those two things?
[00:17:01] Ron Kerbs: Right. I think it's almost impossible to differentiate between those things because everyone who's doing what they do, whether it's Basketball, soccer, football, hockey, basically dedicate their lives to playing this game.
[00:17:18] You can say the same thing about, you know, Messi, is he avoiding something else by playing soccer since he was, I don't know, five or four? I don't know. He kept pretty successful in what he done, but he also invested in a lot of time, a lot of hours every day. And he made a lot of sacrifices that, you know, the things that he didn't do.
[00:17:40] The same as every other NHL, NBA player. They dedicated their lives to, to, to doing that. I think in order to understand that, you need to understand if they're running from something or they actually enjoy
[00:17:54] it.
[00:17:55] Ron Kerbs: That's the most important thing. And you as parents will understand once you talk with them about it, once you share with them the experience, you'll understand if they're running from something, if it's from other social experiences or they're actually into it.
[00:18:10] Because if they're actually into it, Let them explore it, like it could be a great career. People make a lot of money out of it. People get college scholarships out of it. And people make and spend their life out of it. And, you know, I can tell you, I can share that our company, we provide our software not just to parents, we provide it to schools.
[00:18:30] A lot of high schools in the US and middle schools have eSports programs. And when I'm talking with the athletic directors of those programs, they tell me, listen, those kids who participate in the eSports programs, They're not the ones who are, you know, going to play basketball
[00:18:47] and they're
[00:18:47] Ron Kerbs: not in the cheerleading squad.
[00:18:50] And it's either playing those games or not participating in any of the activities. And once they start participating in the activities, their commitment to school is going up like crazy. Because they know that they have something to miss. They know that they miss classes. They're not allowed to participate in the esports activities.
[00:19:11] Now they finally have their group of friends.
[00:19:13] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah.
[00:19:15] Ron Kerbs: A lot of the other kids have and they didn't.
[00:19:17] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah. Well, and I think as I listened to you too, and I think about my clients and my own kids and my own experience, you know, it always comes back to like, what are the conversations that we're having? If we feel, you know, if there is a feeling of avoidance or withdrawal when they're not engaged in the game, you know, then, then we can lean in there and get curious there.
[00:19:44] I mean, I definitely, just like with anything I would guess, yeah. There could be some red flags. I feel like the gaming because of the nature of the screens can be a little bit more slippery than say soccer or basketball or something where you actually have to like leave the house. I don't know why.
[00:20:01] Maybe, maybe this is just like the old school thinking that is. entrenched in my brain, but I can see and I could also imagine like maybe somebody, you know, when we think about kids that are sliding into eating disorders or overexercise or like there's also problematic behaviors that come with more physical activities as well.
[00:20:24] So this is a really interesting place to just sit and ponder. And recognize our own biases because I definitely have a bias, you know, and I think what you said is so important. The kids that are most likely will say to participate in e sports are not the kids that are like, Oh, I'm not going to go out for basketball.
[00:20:48] I'm going to do this instead. Like that's not on their radar. They found a place where they can excel. They found a place where they can belong. And of course that's going to. Infiltrate in all these other areas. So I really appreciate that. Tell me a little bit about your company and what you do for parents.
[00:21:06] Cause I know that's the thing. Parents are like, what do I do? Like, how can I monitor? How do I limit? Like, what, what do you provide to pick to parents?
[00:21:17] Ron Kerbs: Yeah. So before I talk about my company, I actually wanted to go back to one of the points that you mentioned. Okay. Um, it's estimated that about 90 percent of the boys in the U S play.
[00:21:27] So the fact that someone is on the basketball team or the football team doesn't mean that they don't play. Sure. It just means that they play casually and maybe they don't do it as part of an esports team. Yeah. And also, like, 70 percent of the girls play. Okay. And so maybe they play more casually, but they still play.
[00:21:43] Yeah, yeah. You know, Meta changed their name to Meta based on the Metaverse. Because they wanted to create some, you know, online environments for people to hang out together. Gaming is already that space.
[00:21:57] Right. You
[00:21:57] Ron Kerbs: go to Roblox, you go to Minecraft, you go to Fortnite. That's their social space. They're not necessarily coming to just to play.
[00:22:04] For the Ws. They're coming to hang out with their friends.
[00:22:08] Yeah. And so, so that's something that I wanted to clarify. Yeah, A little bit about my, about the, the, the company Kitas. So I started KIDA about five years ago with the goal to protect kids and younger players when they play. Youngest player is six. We have players who are also 16 or 16. And we provide a software for parents to install on their kid's computer.
[00:22:33] Once they do that, we connect in the background to more than 400 games. Well, we can analyze the voice conversation, the text conversations, and we can also understand what happens within the game. So if someone tells you, hey, I'm going to kill you, and they're playing a shooting game, that's not a threat.
[00:22:48] That's part of the game. If they have a history, we can infer the player's age based on their voice, based on the grammar that they use. And we do all of that in order to detect 64 types of risks. Risks like online Predators, scams, harassment, bullying, all the things that we know that happen in online gaming.
[00:23:10] It's not just me saying that, the common sense media, that it's estimated that about 50 percent of the kids will be bullied, harassed, or scammed if they play before they turn 18. So it's a huge problem. And we want to prevent it. We want to prevent it in a way that provides parents and kids the ability to understand the situation and to resolve it.
[00:23:31] So parents get alerts and with recommendations on how to talk with their kids about the situation and how to explain what's the right behavior. Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, I want to pause because that's
[00:23:42] Casey O'Roarty: huge. So not only is it like, Hey, this is what's happening and here's a way of addressing it that is useful.
[00:23:51] Is that basically what you're saying?
[00:23:53] Ron Kerbs: Yeah. We work with psychologists and psychiatrists from CHOP, the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. To create those recommendations because we knew that parents don't really know how to communicate. No, we freak out.
[00:24:05] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah.
[00:24:05] Ron Kerbs: Yeah, they just freaked out. The first thing that they say, Hey, you're not playing anymore.
[00:24:09] That's the worst. The worst thing you can do is tell your kid, Hey, you're not playing anymore because you're basically depriving them from their social connections with their friends, especially if you're living, you know, in a suburban area, you don't live in the city and you need to drive them everywhere.
[00:24:24] That's their way to connect with their friend. So we would provide parents with some recommendations on how to deal. In those situations, based on the child's age, based on the child's history playing the game, and some other factors. And we say that parents are actually using it. In some of the cases, you know, those are severe cases.
[00:24:43] They need to report it to law enforcement if we're coming across an online predator or something like that. So we provide and numbers that they need to call and some of the cases they need to report the game itself. So we show them how to report the situation and in some of the cases, you know, it's just a conversation with your kid, which is fine as well.
[00:25:03] That's what we, we want them to do. We want them to be on top of things with their kid and not to make their kids feel like they're being spied on, but to make them feel like, hey, I'm helping you. The same as I would help you when you start driving, I'll show you how to drive, I'm showing you how to, to game.
[00:25:20] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah, and I think there's so much messaging that is unspoken, that comes, that shows up when we, in our response, right, like, I'm thinking about the big problem happening currently, mostly to teenage boys around sextortion, and kids are not talking to their parents, because They're worried their parents are going to freak out.
[00:25:45] And so instead of talking to their parents, they get wrapped up in this really scary situation. And there is, you know, in their mind, no way out, but the worst way out. And so, you know, I say to parents often when I do talks and here on the podcast, like, if you're going to say, hey, you can tell me anything, you know, then you got to be.
[00:26:06] You gotta back that up, and I think there's a lot of little opportunities, probably, I'm guessing, with your software to show, like, Oh, this came up, it's a little scary to me, but let's talk about it, versus, Oh my God, I can't, you know, like, We're saying so much about what we can handle and how we're gonna have their back or not have their back in the small moments.
[00:26:29] Right. And so I love that your company and I was on the website and saw your science board and the two gals that you work with Around this other piece. I think it's so Important. I think it's just so important. So just to Offer some things here. Can you give a couple examples of maybe? things that kid is will flag and then What will be provide, you know, maybe some language that could be provided for kids, like for parents.
[00:26:59] So what's like a really common thing that gets flagged and what is, you know, a usual response that you all would give to a parent?
[00:27:08] Ron Kerbs: Yeah, so, so, as I said, the most common thing that we would detect in our privacy violations, so kids sharing. password, credit card numbers, even social security numbers. Oh, geez.
[00:27:19] In a lot of the cases, that's something I learned working with the child psychiatrists that works with us, is that kids as young as six or seven don't have the mental ability to understand what is private information and what's the meaning of private information. So you can spend all the time that you want.
[00:27:38] It's explaining why it's private information and why you shouldn't share it. And, but they're still in the, the type of, you know, brain, uh, development stage, they're still not capable. Most of them, you know, there are some indicates that most of them are still not able to understand it. So you need to play this in either way.
[00:27:54] Do six and seven year
[00:27:55] Casey O'Roarty: olds need to be on multi person online games? Like to me, that's too young.
[00:28:01] Ron Kerbs: You would be surprised how many kids on our platform actually are. Peak seven and eight an hour playing old game. And you know, I'm not here to judge. I'm, I'm here to, right, right, right. I know I'm judging. I'm over here judging Ron.
[00:28:12] Casey O'Roarty: I'll just own it.
[00:28:25] Okay, so, so say it's like a 13 though, like a 13 or a or a 15-year-old and there's an alert, a passcode has been shared information, privacy information has been shared. What would be kind of a follow up? Here's the, here's one way to have a conversation about it.
[00:28:41] Ron Kerbs: So typically our alert contain. Practical things like, Hey, you need to change your credit card number.
[00:28:48] You need to change your passport or password or something like that. And some emotional ways for parents to communicate on how to explain it, how to discuss it, how to run the conversation. Those are the two pillars that we use. We want to make sure that first of all, we get the message, which is, you know, the practical part, but also you can deliver the message.
[00:29:09] But if the other side is not open to receiving the message. It's not going to work. Yeah. So you need to have the right setting and you need to have the right way to communicate it.
[00:29:19] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah. When I think about that, I imagine first, here's the alert. Take some breaths. Right? Like parents, calm down. This isn't a character flaw.
[00:29:30] This is something that happens. right? So that, that, that opportunity to tend to ourself before we go barging in there. And I'm saying this to all of you, and I'm also saying this to myself because I'm a total barger in there. And then Yeah, hey, like I think it's also important and I'm sure that you're I just want to offer a little something for parents I think it's really important not to say not to try to trap them But to say like hey, I was alerted of you sharing the password.
[00:29:59] Let's talk about that Right, and do you know what the downside of this could be right? So like really just staying open finding out what they know and how are we gonna fix the problem? so I think that less about, oh, you did the wrong thing and now you're in trouble, and more about, oh, do you know why this is problematic and let's work to fix this together.
[00:30:25] Am I on the right track?
[00:30:26] Ron Kerbs: And sometimes, you know, we detect something and after parents talk with their kid, they realize that it wasn't an issue, actually. Okay. We had a case of a child sharing a password with an older sibling who's not living at home anymore. You know, our software couldn't know it, but you know, that's okay, they're siblings.
[00:30:43] Yeah, so not in all of the cases there is a problem. That's why it's so important to have an open conversation You know, just attack, you know, hey, I realize that, like, stop doing that.
[00:30:55] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah. Well, and that's, I'm all about developing critical thinking and self awareness. And without conversations about the problematic behavior, they're not developing that critical thinking and that self awareness.
[00:31:07] So I'm all for that. And so let's talk a little bit about, I mean, it feels like parents have. no voice. I mean, I feel like we get some lip service, but it feels like we have no voice when it comes to the laws and legislations. It feels like the big tech companies are like, Painting these pictures of like, oh, look what we've done, like Instagram teen accounts as if kids are like, hey, I mean, it's just, it just feels like a lot of bullshit and a lot of appeasing and then, you know, an inauguration just happened and all the tech guys are sitting behind.
[00:31:50] Like, it just feels like nobody really cares about child welfare in a real sense if it's gonna cut into, you know, the bottom line. So what can we do? How can we have a voice as parents that makes a real difference? It's when it comes to our kids safety online, because online is a space that's not going anywhere.
[00:32:15] Ron Kerbs: Yeah, well, I think what we're seeing, what we've been now in the trend that goes not just into gaming, it goes to everything else and I'll clarify. We used to think that, you know, government will protect us and there are regulations. They will protect us on social media. They will protect the type of food that we're eating.
[00:32:38] They will protect. You know, everything that we're doing, it's all regulated and I think the last few years has shown us and some of, you know, the ingredients that are going into our food are not healthy for us, we're causing cancer. And then we need to be more self aware of the things that we're putting in our kids plate.
[00:32:58] And we need to be more aware of the things that we're letting them consume.
[00:33:02] We
[00:33:03] Ron Kerbs: cannot assume that Netflix will do the work for us, that Meta will do the work for us, or that TikTok will do the work for us. I think, you know, pushing for regulations, I honestly don't really believe in that. I believe that it's all about parents, and understanding, and taking care of their own kids.
[00:33:22] And
[00:33:23] Ron Kerbs: it's not about just, you know, pushing regulation. I think that, you know, in communities, you need to make sure that you have You're communicating with other parents, especially the parents of, you know, the friends of your, of your kids, because if one kid is playing Fortnite, they're going to escalate pretty quickly, and the others will want to play Fortnite.
[00:33:42] Like, no one is playing Fortnite because they're eight, and Fortnite is suitable for certain class, and then, you know, it makes it easier for everyone. The same with smartphone, the same with tablet, the same with other connections. It's about community, get your community, um, communities. organizing themselves, talking with, you know, the parents at school, the neighbors, what is our policy regarding tech and what is our policy regarding game?
[00:34:09] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah, I really appreciate that. It's disappointing though. I mean, it's annoying that what is like how much work it is. And We're in it for our kids. The encouraging thing is the more parents that I am talking to with kids in middle school these days, more often I'm hearing parents say, Oh yeah, our parent group, we all have agreed to wait till X age for this.
[00:34:41] And it is so powerful because then the flip side of that is a parent who says, You know, we've decided to wait and my 13 year old has barely talked to me over the last six months because she's so upset that I won't let her have a smartphone and it's. You know, it's layered and it's complicated, but you know what I'm hearing you say is if we really want to be Supporting our kids.
[00:35:06] We've got to be talking to each other. We have to be Coming together and recognizing. I mean, do you feel like most parents get it? But there are a lot of people who are like it's not that big of a deal and I want to slap slap slap Are you kidding me? Like what do you mean? It's not that big of a deal. It absolutely is a big deal It absolutely is a big deal, and the interesting thing I'm finding as a Gen X er, raising, you know, my kids are 19 and 22, and I just recently, funny enough, posted about this on social media, talked about how we can't understand their attachment to technology because we don't have anything to draw from.
[00:35:48] We can't go back in time and be like, oh, I remember. How important it was for me to have my phone in my back pocket when I was 15 because I mean I didn't even have Email till graduate school, you know, it was not a thing. And so I think it's really important Also to just bring curiosity and compassion to our kids who literally are now growing up in a world and looking around and seeing everybody holding a phone, holding technology, engaging and consuming technology.
[00:36:24] It makes perfect sense that a 6, 7, 8 year old would say, well, I want that too. Doesn't mean we have to say, OK, everyone, by the way. And it might mean, like, maybe we can model additional behavior beyond. You know, the majority of our time being on technology, I think too, you know, so the adults get to check themselves, but it makes sense that they all want to be on it.
[00:36:52] And I'm learning from this conversation. It doesn't have to be the worst thing ever, although it kind of feels like it, but yeah, I mean, again, as my conversations always do, it comes back to like, what is the relationship that we're developing with our kiddos and are we able to continue to have conversations and technology is a privilege.
[00:37:14] Right? We don't have to buy them computers. We don't have to buy them Playstations and smartphones. We don't have to do that. And if we're going to do that, it should come along with responsibility, which includes being willing to engage in conversation about things like, you know, limits and safety and monitoring.
[00:37:33] And hey, if you want to play these games, we're going to work with Kittis and make sure that this software is on it. If you're not okay with that, then we don't have to get this game.
[00:37:43] Ron Kerbs: Right? It's also a loanable trust. So the fact that you're helping them, guiding them, and on playing those games doesn't mean that you're not trusting.
[00:37:54] It just means that you want to show them how to do that. The fact that you're not letting your kid, hey, just take my car keys and drive. It doesn't mean that you don't trust them. You just want to show them what the right way to do that. Oh yeah. And I think when limiting technology use, we shouldn't forget that we should trust them in other, you know, aspects of their lives.
[00:38:14] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah.
[00:38:15] Ron Kerbs: And I think, I think that, you know, if you're limiting your kids on who they meet and what technology they use and a lot of other things, you're basically leaving them no room to, to grow. So I think it's important to give them some trust, you know, trust them and while limiting some of the things that you see that are not appropriate for their age, trust them with other things.
[00:38:35] Yeah. And of course, model, model the right behaviors. Yeah. If you're watching three hours of Mad Sneaks every night. You can be sure that they're going to do that as well. If you're sitting at the dinner table and you're checking your phone, they're going to want to do that as well. And so when I'm getting home, my phone is, you know, in the drawer.
[00:38:53] I'm not checking my phone while we're having dinner. I'm modeling the things that I want to see my son doing because I know that he's going to replicate my behavior.
[00:39:13] Casey O'Roarty: Yes, absolutely. And I really appreciate what you said. The internet is just another space. to explore and practice. Like when you said trust to me, what I'm hearing you say is like giving them enough room to practice. What does it look like? And you know, I don't, they have, it's not, again, it's not going anywhere, you know, and that was something for us, what we normalize and my listeners are probably like, Oh, here she goes again.
[00:39:40] She's going to talk about this one thing because I think it's important. Like. One of the things that I tried to normalize in our house before my son went to college was let's compare screen time on our phone. And often I had worse screen time than my son, right? And when we would look at it, we would also talk about, oh, how does that feel?
[00:40:01] Right? Like if he had a day or if I had a day that was really low activity day and really high Scroll time waste day, you know, like when I see that number, yeah, it makes me feel not great. Right. And I have an app on my phone. I have an app called Opal that literally just shuts down certain apps during the day because you know that there is technology is designed to keep us busy with it.
[00:40:34] And so I need extra support around that. I don't have enough. Gumption or my own willpower to be like, I'm not gonna, you know, I'm not gonna get on these particular spaces, even though there are workarounds that I know of that I use, you know, sometimes, but I think it's just messy. There's no perfect solution.
[00:40:55] It's how we're living with this part of life. I think it is new, but it's also. not as new anymore. I mean, I think about millennial parents who do have memory of being in high school, of being able to text and having that information in their pocket. And as we all get older, it's less the Gen X are saying like, what is this newfangled thing?
[00:41:20] So, yeah. So I really appreciate what you've created. I really appreciate the piece around supporting parents in how to navigate when things get flagged. I think that is Huge. And is there anything else you want to make sure to land for parents that are listening?
[00:41:38] Ron Kerbs: Yeah, I think what you've said before is a great point, you know, dealing with online time or dealing with those struggles.
[00:41:45] It's not about or will, it's setting an environment that makes it easy for you to succeed. I, I have an app on my phone that limits my screen time, limits, my social media times, um, basically turn off while in certain hours. So Exactly. I'm not gonna have the, I'm not gonna have the computation to, to check it.
[00:42:04] Um, I treat it the same as you go to the grocery store and you're not, you are not buying the ice because you know that if it's, you're gonna have it in this fridge. We are gonna be tempted to, to eat it. Yeah. Don't even go down that aisle. . . So it, it's easier to avoid a temptation one, you know, at the grocery store than have the constant update temptation at home when you know it, it's all in the fridge.
[00:42:28] And that's exactly with the technology. Yeah. You, the two that are, you know, off, are offered out there to make life easier for you.
[00:42:37] Yeah. Either
[00:42:38] Ron Kerbs: way it's gonna be hard and challenging, especially with, you know, young adults. Make your life easier with, you know, using the tools that are provided.
[00:42:46] Yeah. And
[00:42:48] Casey O'Roarty: really normalizing those conversations.
[00:42:50] Like even with my young adults, I still will talk about, you know, Oh my, I have a, you know, my goal this week, or I'm really noticing. you know, my own use of social media and wow, it's really hard to, you know, know that I have to post for my business, but then not to get sucked into, you know, reels about babies swearing, which I think are hilarious.
[00:43:16] So yeah, just normalizing those conversations and that we all struggle with it. And there is a opportunity cost that comes with. You know, especially, you know, and this is we've kind of moved out of the gaming as an activity conversation and more into kind of the mindless, bottomless pit of social medias and the endless YouTube videos, but.
[00:43:40] Yeah, we all have a problem with it. It's a rare person that has it all figured out. So yeah, we get to just be honest about that. So my final question that I ask all my guests, Ron, and I'll ask you in the context of the work that you do for parents, thank you so much for your service, by the way, for kids really is who you're taking a stand for.
[00:44:00] My final question is what does joyful courage mean to you? I
[00:44:06] Ron Kerbs: think joyful courage, and I talked about it before it. You know, doing the activity that you, you as a parent, don't like to do, like playing, maybe, with your kids because you want to understand their behavior better, you want to understand their world better.
[00:44:21] So I think that if I had to choose, you know, one thing that would be immersing yourselves in their world, even though sometimes it doesn't feel that comfortable, you need to learn a new language, you need to learn a new technology, you need to learn a new platform, maybe like Xbox or PlayStation or something that you're not used to.
[00:44:40] And that's for me, you know, a joy for sure.
[00:44:43] Hmm.
[00:44:44] Casey O'Roarty: Where can people find KIDAS and follow what y'all are doing?
[00:44:49] Ron Kerbs: Yeah. So this first place in our website, getkidas. club, G E T K I D A S dot com. And we're also on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, TikTok, all of the social media platforms. Just look for KIDAS and you'll find us.
[00:45:07] Casey O'Roarty: Okay. And I will make sure that all of those links are in the show notes. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing with me today. This was, I think, a really useful conversation. very
[00:45:16] Ron Kerbs: much for having me.
[00:45:24] Casey O'Roarty: so much for listening in today. Thank you so much to my Sproutable partners, Julietta and Alanna, as well as Danielle. And Chris Mann and the team at Podshaper for all the support with getting this show out there and helping it to sound so good. Check out our offers for parents with kids of all ages and sign up for our newsletter to stay better connected at besproutable.
[00:45:48] com. Tune back in on Monday for a brand new interview and I will be back solo with you next Thursday. Have a great day.
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