Time Well Spent—Raising kids in the digital age

On Monday, Bonnie Speas and Cohlee Winward—Community Coordinators for the Soda Springs School District—hosted a Parent Night as part of its “Time Well Spent” series.  The event was designed as an informational session to provide parents with resources and material to help them navigate the ever-changing world of an “always-on” internet and social media culture.

Speas and Winward plan to make the Parent Night event a recurring one.  As a kickoff for the series, Monday’s presentation at the Idan-ha Theatre had a good turnout and gave the audience a chance to hear from professionals on one topic that all parents dread—social media and the effects it can have on their children.

As a result of the accommodations at the Idan-ha theatre, the evening began with a screening of the opening segment of the documentary “Childhood 2.0”.  The film explores different experiences and attitudes about social media and the internet from modern kids, as well as their parents.  The film looks to explore the gap between how parents think their children interact with the internet, and the reality of that interaction from the kids’ perspective.  Beyond the laugh lines about dial-up internet and playing outside “until the streetlights came on,” the film makes the clear point that a modern child does not have an experience with peers and the world around them that a parent can adequately understand.  The point is to try.

Jeremy Banks, Camille Petersen, and Laurie Skinner made the venue for the meeting possible.

 Detective Korey Payne from Bonneville County has considerable experience with the often harmful and even criminal actions that children can be exposed to, even in the county’s smallest communities.  He spoke with the parents about the many issues that he encounters in his capacity as a detective with the ICAC (Internet Crimes Against Children) task force.  As part of his work, Payne works on “cybertips” received by Idaho children and parents about situations that need law enforcement intervention.  In addition to detection and apprehension, he also participates in operations where he and other officers pose as a child in order to identify groomers and others with pernicious motives in order to monitor and arrest them.

Payne, who is a father himself, discussed some of the ruses he has seen perpetrators use to entice children into parasocial relationships that can sometimes turn much worse.  It’s a well-known adage that you never know who you’re really interacting with online, but Payne has the firsthand experience to back up just how dangerous that can be.

He outlined some of what he identified as the worst of the social media platforms for potential exploitation, which included the most well known (such as Snapchat and TikTok), as well as many that parents may have less familiarity with, like Discord.  As Payne pointed out, new platform proliferate when old ones become heavily monitored, and the best tool is vigilance and parental involvement.

Some platforms, for instance, are able to disguise problems with their unregulated or untracked user base by presenting themselves as anodyne children’s games. Roblox, what Payne calls “the absolute worst place for your children to be online,” is one site that he singled out specifically for being very unwilling to assist law enforcement in preventing predators from accessing young players.  “They do nothing to help law enforcement,” he said.  Payne told a story about arresting “a 70 year old guy online talking to kids recently—he did not need to be there, but they always are.”    

Parents can gain some control over what their children might be coming across by establishing open communication with them, and making sure they know that if someone threatens them online, they are not in the wrong.

“A sad thing is that a lot of kids don’t know what to do when they are messaged or contacted by someone who is essentially trying to coerce them,” he noted.  There are a number of recent incidents of teenage and younger children committing suicide over “sexploitation,” which is the use of perceived leverage over someone to force them to act against their will.  Often this is the result of the predator gaining access to compromising pictures of the child, whether through direct communication or other means.  Children in this situation can be too embarrassed or afraid to see a way out of the situation other than the most extreme.

“Most of the time, this person isn’t even in the country.  If they are ignored, they will usually keep moving on until they find a person who they can exploit,” Payne said.  He stated that even if they are embarrassed, kids need to know that they are not in the wrong, and that they can tell an adult. 

According to Detective Payne, it is often only a matter of hours between when a child is contacted with a sextortion threat and a decision to end their lives.  “The kids mentally don’t know what to do.  They don’t know how to make decisions.  Teenage boys don’t think it’s going to happen, or happen in a small town.  But it does.  It definitely does.  We want to make sure the kids understand that they are the victims, and need to tell someone.”

The detective also discussed the growing issue of AI.  “We all kind of dread it,” he said.  “It’s a great thing but a bad thing.”  AI “friends” have become very popular, he noted.  “Even today we were at a school and a kid said that his brother had an AI girlfriend.”  Payne mentioned an ongoing situation he is working on.  “We are dealing with a HS where a 17 year old boy was infatuated with girls.  The school posted pics of them in the swimsuits for the swimteam, and he used an app to undress them.  Now he is being charged with making child pornography.”  

While daunting, Payne discussed a number of resources that parents can look into, including software that tracks their childrens’ online activity, or positive alternative sources of engagement, such as the Facebook page of Officer Gomez.  Gomez is a School Resource Officer in the Boise area, and provides tips to parents about what to look out for online, and how to deal with what they might find.

To discuss some ways to approach the concept of the internet and kids, Caribou Medical Center’s Ashley Wright spoke about strategies for navigating a complex reality. In Wright’s counseling, she works with clients from pediatric to adults, so she has a good range of experiences to pull from.  She is also local to Caribou County, and knows firsthand what living in a small county and raising kids is like these days.

Wright overviewed the components of mental health: emotional awareness, resilience, positive relationships, self-acceptance and confidence, sense of purpose, ability to manage daily life, sleep and energy levels, coping mechanisms, focus and decision making, and enjoyment and gratitude.  It occurred to her while thinking about them that “almost all the components of mental health are negatively affected by screen time.”

Wright, as a parent in 2026, acknowledged that to some extent the technological world of today is not likely to go away.  “There are so many benefits of tech,” she stated, “but we have to learn to use them.”

Essentially, Wright made it clear that modern parents occupy the roles of individuals and parents, and that both elements are important to understanding how to deal with the internet.  An honest, family-based understanding of what the expectations and rules of behavior are for everyone can help bridge the gulf between parents and children, many of whom actually share similar usage habits.  What’s most important, is the face to face interaction that helps to buttress and support the relationship.  “If our support system is only online, and we aren’t developing those interpersonal skills, what are we getting?”

Wright noted that the expectations many people have about constant accessibility to others, and immediate feedback need to be modulated.  One of the effects of the instant communication feedback loop is that kids (and adults) can be conditioned to feel “ignored” if they aren’t immediately responded to.  This can lead to seeking external reinforcement on media platforms. “That’s what our children are looking for, validation.  And that validation can also come from outside sources.”  If kids feel that parents are accessible and engaged, it can mitigate this need.

With regard to sleep, Wright suggested what doctors have suggested for a long time—use the bedroom for a very limited number of activities, sleep foremost among them.  She explained how if a person is engaged in an activity like, for instance studying, in their bedroom, their brain can have a difficult time switching into sleep mode in the same environment where the previous activity occurred.

She encouraged people to “take pleasure in little things in life” and to “live in the moment.” She has noticed an uptick in people constantly thinking about their own life experiences in terms of how they can maximize it for online use, rather than just enjoying it with the company they are in.

And again, it’s really the concept of “company” and “togetherness” in the physical, real world that helps to put the inevitable online world into the right kind of framework.  

“Our family rule is no phones at the dinner table,” Wright said. “Be present with others.  Let your mind wander. Boredom is the space between imagination and creativity.  Play games with kids online rather than forbidding it.  Screens are not going away, so focus on learning to use them.”

At the end of the evening, Speas and Winward drew raffle tickets for prizes, and opened the floor to questions.  We will keep you posted about the next planned Parent Night.  Based on the success of the first one, it should be something to keep your eyes on.