Copyright Santa Clarita Valley Signal
The city of Santa Clarita invited residents to a “Parenting for Prevention” meeting all about online safety for children at Hart High School on Wednesday evening. The evening had a resource fair with booths from the Department of Homeland Security, the Santa Clarita Valley Boys and Girls Club, Drug-Free Youth in SCV and an informative presentation by Victoria Scott, a special agent of Homeland Security Investigations. Scott said the digital world and life are more important now, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, because online exploitations are becoming more common. “It’s just increased a lot, but also, we can’t keep our kids offline. It’s too important to the world these days. And so, we really need to have parents be educated and we need them to be able to educate their children about how to be safe online,” Scott said. During the presentation, Scott showed attendees videos about sextortion and sexting and how easy it is to communicate online now with strangers. Scott said her favorite piece of advice to the community is being an informed and engaged parent to their children. “Being there for your kids, taking the time to talk to them about what’s on their devices, being informed about who they’re interacting with, is going to go a whole lot further than any Bark parental control (app) can,” Scott said. When asked what the common thing is that she sees in her cases on a daily basis, Scott said the unfettered access to strangers online. She added that children having so much access to applications makes their mental health worse, it puts them at risk and is destructive to them during their formative years. Scott added that parents should not be their child’s “best friend” when keeping them safe. “Getting out there and getting information is really important, and you are not your kid’s best friend. So, my 17-year-old now will tell people I’m her best friend,” Scott said. “But I was, you know, the destroyer of her universe for like five straight years. And that’s my job. You know?” One mother, Valerie Shah, decided to attend because she has two young children – 9-year-old Neev and 11-year-old Nyla. Shah said the presentation made her realize that the internet is so vast. “I think not everybody is aware of the dangers, and I think it’s important that we educate ourselves. I think being able to know all of the dangers out there, knowing how they impact girls differently than boys is important,” Shah said. “And I think all of the avenues where possible predators will try to take your children off monitored areas. I think that’s important for parents to know and to inform their kids.” Corey Allaway, program specialist of the city’s drug prevention program, said the reason they decided to discuss this topic was because parents were showing a growing concern for online safety. “We know that there are, the world is just growing into technology, and it’s going to become a bigger part of our children’s lives that we’re trying to really learn how to present this stuff from happening earlier,” Allaway said. “So, I think that’s why we focus on online safety from the public and from what we know about what’s going on in technology. It’s super important for parents and in the community to be aware of what could happen and how we can prevent it from causing online crimes.” Allaway said the presentation opened her eyes to how easy it is for predators to gain information through social media. “What did strike me as this is jaw dropping, is AI. What AI can do,” Allaway said. She continued with an example that was discussed about a girl in high school getting blackmailed to do something, like sending money, because of an artificial-intelligence-generated image from a predator saying they have naked photos of her, and she must do what they ask. “I’m going to be a lot more cautious with my kids. I think parents are going to be a lot more cautious with the amount of time they (their children) spend on their screens,” Allaway said.
