Retaking the social media high ground
as a school resource officer
i’m a uniformed police officer working
at the school to ensure the safety of
the kids
and to build relationships with them
i first started off working at a middle
school with about 1200 students
who were just starting off their social
media lives
and learning how to do so i later on
went to work at a high school with 2 300
students
who had lots and lots of social media
in order to see social media the way my
students did
i made a fake social media account and i
started adding
students from the school under my
assumed name
what surprised me is that every single
student i added accepted me as a friend
within a few months i had over 400
students at the school who had accepted
me
as their fake social media friend
now some of these kids had no
idea that they were friends with a
police officer
what i discovered is that many kids at
the school
have between 400 and 4000 social media
friends
a lot of them had more social media
friends there are there were students in
the entire school
what concerned me about that was if they
were friends with me
who they didn’t know who else were they
friends worth
right and then what question i really
had was
how many of their friends that they
didn’t know were online predators
in my journey into social media i found
that
millions of online predators are just
waiting for kids to come online
to make them victims i also discovered
many other perils of social media
that included two but were not limited
to
bullying fraud
sextortion desensitization
and even sex trafficking
now as a parent how can you
navigate the ever-changing world of
social media
it’s easy to think that a parent would
have to be a digital technology wizard
fluent in the digital applications of
tick tock snapchat
instagram and whatever other social
media
the kids happen to be into next
in working with thousands of kids at the
school every day
i learned that the parents that were
winning this battle
were not technology wizards and they
were not sitting over their kids
shoulders every day looking at their
social media
what i learned is the parents that were
successful at
checking in with their kids social media
were using very low-tech methods to do
this
and because of that any parent
regardless of their
technological background can use these
same methods
first we have to assume that we can’t
set up
our kids to be able to navigate
every single problem that’s thrown in
front of them
but let’s use news headlines as an
excellent tool to equip them
every week there’s news headlines about
predators that are after kids every week
there’s
news headlines about kids who’ve made
mistakes that change their lives
and i know some parents don’t want to
introduce their kids to some of the ugly
news headlines
but it’s better that you talk about it
with your kids so that they’re
able to navigate some of these problems
without having to experience themselves
by having conversations about possible
problems and how
people got into them your kids will
essentially
extrapolate how to solve problems in
their own online life
what’s super nice about this is it’s
super low tech
no technology required it’s just a
conversation you have with your kid
second
the outside world isn’t the only thing
you have to worry about with your kids
in social media
sometimes their friends circle and their
peers
will try to victimize your kid through
the use of bullying
and online bullying specifically it used
to be that you had to bully in person
and you get to take a break when you
went home at night
nowadays bullying is 24 7 through the
use of online applications
sadly i get real reports from real kids
and real parents
on how a kid wakes up and he sees
messages in their inbox on
hey you should kill yourself you should
not come to school today
because you’re too skinny you’re too fat
you’re too short
you’re too tall and you’re two so many
other things
now while i take
measures as law enforcement officer i
know that it’s far better for me to
teach kids how to solve these problems
themselves
so over the years i came up with a low
tech
visual aid to help kids understand how
to combat bullying
each time i had a kid come into my
office and say officer gomez i am being
bullied
i’d ask him a few questions and then i
would draw them a picture
i would draw them a simple picture of a
house key on a sticky note pad
now i would tell the kids that this
sticky note represents
control of their life right it’s control
of their thoughts and emotions
now i would hand them this sticky and i
would say hey you have
somebody who’s bullying you and trying
to control your thoughts and emotions
why don’t you go ahead and rip off a
piece of that key
and i’ll give it to them and explain to
them how much of control of your life
they have
and every time i would tell them to rip
off a piece of that key they would hold
it next to their chest and they’d say
officer gomez i don’t want to give them
control of my thoughts and emotions i
want to keep that for myself
and i would say i want you to do the
same thing and they would take the key
and they would usually put it in their
wallet
or they would put it in their binder so
they could remember and they could use
it in case they ever forgot
this is a super low tech way that
parents can have a
conversation with their kids about
bullying
right no cyber safety degree needed no
tech wizardry
they don’t even need my taser
it’s just another conversation low tech
thirdly we have to understand the
different dangers that are coming out
for our kids
predators are coming after your kids
online and they’re attacking their
self-worth
they’re getting to know your kids and
they are
exploiting things that your kids not
might not be happy about
lots of kids wish they had the latest
fashion trends
they wish they could maybe have a few
more freedoms to do
different events like staying out at a
party too late
or maybe ditching or other things that
a lot of parents don’t allow their kids
to do
well predators go after those weaknesses
and they will explain to kids how
the predator understands what a rough
life that kid has
and how much better that kid’s life
would be if they just had a parent like
the predator that they’re talking to
what i found is the best way to combat
these predators
is through gratitude if you teach your
kids how to be thankful for the things
that they have
their friends their family their
community it makes them
a lot more resilient to these predators
who would try and attack their
self-worth in order to make them a
victim
a wise person once said if you’re in a
state of gratitude you can’t be in any
other state
and what’s nice is it virtually takes no
time at all
for you to point out the things in your
life that you’re thankful for and the
things in your life that your kids
should be thankful for
and what they should be thankful for
again
a super low-tech way to build up your
kids self-worth
their enjoyment of the world around them
and make them very resilient to online
predators
as you can see this technology battle
isn’t one with technology at all
it’s one with conversations
about risky situations and how they
develop
it’s one by empowering your kids to
exercise
self-control over their thoughts their
emotions and their self-worth
right it’s run with gratitude
the best part about this solution is if
you teach your kids these things and
talk with them about them
not only will they be safer but their
friends will be safer as well
i was sitting in the high school
cafeteria and talking to a group of
young ladies
and one of the girls happened to mention
that she felt like she was getting
bullied
now as i was about to start my
questioning to ask her a few more
in-depth
things about how i could help her friend
said hold on officer gomez i have this
and her friend reached into her backpack
and into her binder and she pulled out a
sticky note that i’d given her probably
a year before
and she started to explain to her friend
hey
this represents your control over your
life over your thoughts and emotions
i smiled and i walked away because they
didn’t need me
they had showed me yet one more low-tech
way
on how kids can stay safe online
they can support each other in real life
thank you