Alwyn Moran

Are they talking about being lonely?

Are they talking about not fitting in with anybody in the real world?

And are they retreating kind of maybe into their room or they might be in the corner of the living room on their phone or on a digital device?

Keep an eye on that and talk to your child.

Pull them back into the real world.

Make them feel like sharing with you is actually something that is safe to do when a child starts to open up to you.

Be very careful.

Do not immediately jump to fix things, which is what we do as parents.

We want to fix any pain that's in our child's life.

but actually ask them, OK, you're sharing with me now.

Do you want me to just listen?

Do you want me to respond or do you want me to react?

So that it gives them a feeling of control on the conversation, because the last thing they want is, oh, my God, mom or dad is going to go into school tomorrow and make things a million times worse.

And, you know, and again, we're going back to that shaming and that social brain.

So we really have to talk to our children about

you know, at the age level that their brain is actually at.

And worryingly, this Europol has said, you know, even children as young as five are vulnerable to this.

So basically, you know, we have to talk to our children about this all the time and give them toolkits to exit groups, you know, and something like,

you know, say for five to eight year olds, you know, they really need clear, specific safety kind of rules.

No abstract danger talk, you know, nothing about kind of those dangerous people.