Parents need to take more control over their children's online activity, a Kiwi couple who run an online education, company say.
When Rob and Zareen Cope's four children began wanting phones and screens, the pair decided to dive into the research.
Photo: CONCEPTUAL IMAGES/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY
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They travelled overseas talking with experts and made a documentary Our Kids Online: Porn, Predators & How to Keep Them Safe about it.
Their company, Our Kids Online, educates parents about the dangers of handheld devices and social media.
Wherever children gather online, so too potentially will predators, Rob Cope told Nine to Noon.
"We need to create a safe place in our homes so that if something has gone down with our kids, they feel like they can come and talk to us about it," he said.
If a child has, for example, sent a nude there will be a lot of shame attached to it, he said.
"They're very unlikely to tell their parents, but we need to create a space in our homes where we say to our kids, hey, if you're ever exposed to something online that either scares you, or it's sexual in nature, you just need to talk about it, come and have a chat to me, I want to walk you through this. And then it's just a matter of without shame, having the conversation with the kid."
He doesn't believe children should be on social media before the age of 16.
"We need to do the research and look at how it's affecting the mental health of our kids. Last year the state of Utah made social media 18 plus, it's now illegal to sign up in Utah unless you're over 18 years old. The mayor of New York City in February this year, filed lawsuits against all the major social media companies for the destruction of the mental health of the youth because they're paying out over $100 million a year trying to help these kids.
"Australia's looking at the moment and making it a 16 plus. A lot of experts in New Zealand are saying social media should be a 16, if not an 18 plus for kids, because they're just not ready for it."
The pressure from children and their friends to be on social media does not trump parental responsibility, he said.
"I think we just need to up our game as parents, because back in the day our parents would say, it builds character, you don't get what everyone else gets, if everyone else jumped off a bridge, would you jump off a bridge?
"Just because everyone else is doing it does not mean it's safe, does not mean it's good. And once you do the research, you'll go oh, man, I don't want I don't want my kids to face that."
Making sure children have phones which are safely filtered and monitoring their use will prevent them having porn set a template for their future sexuality, he said.
"Kids will see everything there is to see on someone else's device. Just like I saw a Penthouse and Playboy and everything else. But I didn't have a stack of 1000 magazines and 1000 videotapes in my closet that I could look at whenever I wanted.
"So yes, this is the world they're living in, and they're going to see it, but I'm not going to allow an addiction to form. I'm not going to allow this to become my child sexual template, that violence and degradation will be a normal part of their sexuality."
Keeping children safe overrides concerns about privacy, he said.
"I think we need to realise that our kids are talking to strangers online, and that predators are actively hunting our kids. And we need to know who our kids are talking to.
"I always say to parents, do you know who your kids are talking to online, on their Snapchat, on their Instagram on their gaming platforms? Do you know who your kids are talking to? Because they're actively being hunted. And it's part of our job to know who our kids are talking to."
A more active role in policing device use is needed, he said.
"And that's not only just put filters on all the devices, but we need to know if my kids are texting their mates, I don't need to go through those texts because it's their mates. But if there's numbers and names on their contact list who I don't know who they are, or who are?"
Popular gaming platforms such as Roboblox also present a threat, he said.
"Roboblox is one of the worst ones because you're literally walking around talking to strangers the whole time. And predators will get in there. Kids are on it and most parents think, Oh, it's just other kids on there. But predators hunt, where the kids hang out.