Dr. Jessica Peck hosts the Dr. Nurse Mama show prescribing Hope for Healthy Families
Hello and welcome to the Dr. Nurse Mama show prescribing Hope for Healthy Families here on American Family Radio. Here's your host, professor, pediatric nurse practitioner and mom of four, Dr. Jessica Peck.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Well, hey there friends and welcome to my favorite part of the afternoon, getting to spend time with you prescribing Hope for Healthy Families. Listen, thank you so much for tuning in. I appreciate you so much more than you know. Thank you to those of you who write in, who come comment and just to listen in every day because it's so encouraging to me. Last night I had the privilege of talking to a few hundred parents at a church event and it was amazing to walk into the room. There actually was overflow. They were have to having to bring in chairs because there weren't enough seats and just the turnout exceeded expectations. And that always puts a pep in my step and a smile on my face because I know that if I have hundreds of parents showing up on a random Wednesday night in September saying, hey, we want to help our kids be the healthiest they can be, I am in the right place with the right people and it gives me hope in this world to find other parents who are like minded, who want to raise kids, who grow up to love God, to serve others. That is really what we're aiming for. And we can do that by having healthy families, rejecting fear based parenting and just also knowing that we are never going to have a perfect family, but we can have a healthy family. And as I looked back over that, what we've covered this month, we've covered some really heavy hard stuff and we've talked a lot about Suicide Prevention Month. Yesterday, Nick Vujicic and I had a really powerful conversation about that stemming from his own experience and then extending through his, what he has done in his ministry. And I feel like there's, there's a lot of questions coming in that are related to that and all of those questions are related to safety. So I just wanted to take a moment today just to have a heart to heart chat with you and to answer some of those questions and to talk about some of the threats that are happening online. Because as much as we thought the world had changed and the world changed with smartphones and the world changed with social media, honestly, AI is taking that to a whole new level. AI is bringing threats way faster than smartphones did in social media. So I hope that you'll sit back and listen to this, this and just be aware of these things that are going on in the world. Again, the purpose is not to, Grip your heart in fear and to make you run home to your kids and say, oh, my goodness, are you doing this? Do you know about this? But just to give us some confidence in navigating the world, one thing that is not new is that in this world, we will have trouble. Christ told us that. Jesus told us that. We can read that in the book of John. I quote it all the time. In this world, you will have trouble. But take heart, but be of good cheer, because he is already overcome. The world, we're fighting a battle that's already been won. But in the meantime, while we're waiting for ultimate victory, our job is to steward our kids safety, to steward our family safety.
Raising kids in the digital age introduces something entirely new
So whether you have grandkids, if you have nieces, if you have nephews, if you teach, if you are volunteering in any sort of capacity with kids, if you coach, this show is for you. And we know that parenting in particular has already, It always comes with challenges. It is never an easy thing. And as many things as I've done professionally, nothing has been as difficult as parenting. That is the hardest job I've ever done. And raising kids in the digital age really introduces something entirely new. I've talked about this before. We have a massive generational gap. We have the first set of parents, millennials, who were really not m. Most of them were not born as digital natives and using technology like today's kids do. But we're trying to parent kids who are navigating a world that we didn't navigate when we were that age. And it's really, really hard because most of today's parents grew. Grew up in a world where we didn't have smartphones in our pocket. Even new millennials, you had flip phones, most of you, and you knew the pain of texting, where you had to type numbers in to make letters. We didn't have 24. 7 access to social media. We didn't have online gaming communities that spans the globe. We navigated friendships face to face. We wrote notes on. On paper and folded them like origami pieces of art. And when we went home, all of that school drama stayed at school. But now kids are living in a world where friendships, entertainment, learning, even bullying and online threats are following, following them everywhere they go, through this little blue glowing square that we're carrying around in our pocket. Now, that gap doesn't mean that we can't rely on our own childhood experiences to guide us. It doesn't mean that grandparents don't know. And I got this question night at the summit Where I was people asking about where does grandparent wisdom fall into this? And I think grandparent wisdom absolutely falls into this. So while grandparents like my own children's grandparents, I'll give you an example. My father in law for the longest time thought the lol, like if you text lol, it meant lots of love. So he would text a scripture to my kids and then say lol because it was, it was completely out of context. But, but it didn't mean that him texting a scripture to them every day wasn't so valuable. Seeing the things that they've gone through, seeing the hardships they've endured, seeing the ways that, that they've seen God be faithful for longer than our children have been alive, those things are so, so powerful. And we can use our kids perspective with their perspective to really keep our families safe and healthy. But we are parenting in completely uncharted territory. We, we are making it up as we go, but we have each other together. But ultimately we're all trying to shepherd our kids through a world that we didn't walk through ourselves. And I think this is why the book the Anxious Generation has really caught the hearts and minds of parents. I think that it gave parents a common enemy to unite around. That is the smartphone. It is the source of all evil. If we get rid of it, it'll be better, things will be better. And the problem with that is is that when we look at the goal of that book to restore play based childhood, that's great, I definitely want that. That is not a bad thing. But that's not my ultimate vision for my kids. My ultimate vision for my kids is for them to be in heaven, to be joint heirs with Christ. And when we look at that, at getting rid of phones and we've seen a wave of legislation go across states banning phones in schools and parents are cheering. That's not a bad thing either. But it's not the only thing. That's not going to fix our kids worldview issue. It's not going to fix their identity issue. It taking away the phone doesn't somehow give them discipleship. And somehow I think subconsciously as parents we want the world to be like it was when we were growing up. So that it makes parenting easier to navigate. We'll feel more confident our kids will be safer, but it's just not the reality. The Internet is here to stay. It's our kids classroom, it's their playground, it's their social circle. And sometimes if we're really honest, it's even their babysitter. But what happens when that playground has no fences, no teachers, no curfews, no safety rules at all? Would we just leave our kids there, unsupervised? No, we wouldn't. But we leave them supervised, unsupervised. Online we know that kids spend an average, of four to six hours a day on screens. That's kids age eight to 12 are spending four to six hours a day. Now I want you to multiply that out. So let's just go with the lower end. Four times seven. That is a part time job right there, managing your screen time. Teens are spending about 10 to 12 hours online a day looking at a screen, whether it's school, whether it's online, social media or anything. But here's a stat that came out about Gen Alpha that has really, really stunned me. Gen Alpha is expected to spend 44 years, 44 years of their life looking at a screen. 44 years of their life. That is absolutely unfathomable. And, and we see also in looking at that screen, their risk of encountering cyberbullying, harassment, violence, all of those kinds of things goes up a lot. Now here's something else to think of, another stat I saw that was really sobering to me. By age 13, the average child has had over 1300 pictures posted of them online by their parents. Kids have a digital footprint even before they have a concept of what a digital footprint is. And as parents now, we are stewarding their general, their digital footprint when we didn't even grow up with one ourselves. That is a pretty heavy responsibility. And so I'm going to walk through all of those things today. And this show is not about fear, it's about wisdom, it's about stewardship, it's about resilience, it's about keeping your family safe online, it's about protecting them. And that's so important. And all of that goes back to the heart. This isn't about tech solutions or tech threats. This is a heart issue above all else. And we know from Proverbs 4. 23, above all else, guard your heart for everything you do flows from it. And that's an encouragement to us as parents because if we are concentrating on being the heart police and not the phone police, we're going to do a lot better. We're going to have much healthier kids because really the police are commissioned to protect and to serve and we should protect our kids heart and serve them. That's so important.
Screen time is impacting early childhood development, studies show
So let's dive in and talk about the digital Landscape. What do we need to know? Let's talk a little bit about the ways that screens are impacting early childhood development. I'm not talking about teenagers. I'm not talking about, us, as adults. I'm m talking about little itty bitty babies. Okay, so we know that in the first five years of life, the brain forms over 1 million neural connections per second. Isn't that amazing that God made our brains like that? Now, when we have excessive screen time, what it does is it crowds out some of the relational experiences, the motor experiences, the sensory experiences, all of those experiences that our, brain needs to map those connections for things like empathy and self regulation, self control and problem solving. That's concerning. We're also showing that research shows that children who spend two hours per more a day on screens before age five, they have language delays and they have a, smaller vocabulary because they're watching. It's passive. They're not having that interaction where they're speaking back. We also know this swipe culture is too overstimulating for a developing brain. It's too fast paced, it's too bright, it's too colorful. It's just too fast. And it makes it harder for kids to take a slower pace to have those real world learning tasks. So we see increased frustration that I can't tie my shoes at the snap of a finger. I want everything to be instant, instant, instant, instant. And it's literally rewiring their brain for this.
The other thing that's concerning is the rise of digital soothing for children
The other thing that's concerning is the rise of digital soothing. Using screens basically as a pacifier or a babysitter. Because as parents, and I am guilty, blessed that I didn't have this challenge when I was, when I was parenting, we have other challenges. Each generation faces its own challenge. But how often do you hand a device to a toddler to stop a tantrum? They're throwing a tantrum in public. I see it all the time. Or they're not wanting to sit at a meal. So you have a kid there with an iPad soothing them in a public space or babysitting them while you're cooking or working. I definitely have done this in my lifetime. But doing it occasionally is very different than teaching your kids that every time you have an uncomfortable emotion. The way to calm that emotion, the way to regulate yourself, is by staring at a screen. That is hard. That is a risk. Because when screens are replacing that caregiver regulation, children are not learning how to soothe themselves. They are only learning to be soothed by technology. And they're dependent on that external stimulation, they don't know how to, to calm down, take a deep breath, think it through, you know, say what you're thankful for. They just think, my emotions are going to continue to escalate until I have that. So we're talking about increased temper tantrums, increased emotional reactivity. They can't control their impulses, and they really don't tolerate boredom at all. And that is hard because we're seeing a generation who's having emotional health impacts because we're not teaching them as caregivers how to calm. Because the honest truth is we're soothing ourselves with screens. And that's not okay. So when we have that digital dependence in daily life, kids are expecting screens in every waiting room, every car ride, every meal time, every church service, every classroom. And those early patterns of using a digital pacifier, it's going to lead to tantrums and meltdowns when it's not available and they can't sleep because they have that blue light exposure and that decreases melatonin in their brain. All of these things. It is risking their physical, physical health, their mental health, their social and relational health. There's so many things that are there with when we see too many screen saturations. When we come back, I'm going to talk about some protective strategies for families, and I'm really going to take a deep dive into AI. What you need to know about Chatbot companions and what you need to know about your kids Christmas presentation that may have AI and you don't even realize it. We'll be right back on the other side of this break. Tune in for more help and hope on protecting your children online. It's not going to happen on its own. We've got to take those intentional steps. But I'll, have those for you when we come back.
Dr. Jessica peck talks about protecting your kids online from safety threats
Finally, some Good news. Over 38,000 babies saved and more than 4,000 commitments to Christ through the ministry of preborn this year alone. Here's Dan Steiner, president of PreBorn.
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Chain Breaker by Zach Williams: If you've been walking the same old road for miles and miles if you've been hearing the same old voice tell the same old lies If. You'Re trying to fill the same old holes inside there's a better life There's a better life if you got pain, he's a pain taker if you feel lost, he's a way maker if you need freedom, or saving He's a prison-shaking Saviour if you got chains.
Dr. Jessica Peck: He'S a chain breaker welcome back, friends. That is Chain Breaker by Zach Williams.
Dr. Jessica Peck: And listen, I know there are a lot of you out there who are chain breakers in your family and just know that I am cheering you on. I am one as well. And, and we as parents, I know if you're listening in, you just want to make the world a better, safer place for your kids. And today I'm diving in. I'm going to dive right back in. I'm talking about protecting your kids online. Protecting your children online. Listen, this is not going to happen on its own. And because we're so unfamiliar with a lot of technology, I feel like as parents we kind of have this uneasy truce. Like, let's just hope for the best and kind of let things float along and treat them as they come. But the reality is that I've met with so many families who have been blindsided by safety threats that have happened online. And listen, we do the best we can with what we know. And then when we need, when we know more, we do better. That's all the grace that we can give ourselves. But we do have to acknowledge that we live in a world where we are saturated with screens. We have fundamentally changed childhood. And when we have kids who are just looking at screens all of the time, it is impacting their health. We're talking physically, we're talking about vision strain, we're talking poor posture, we're talking, delayed motor development. We're talking weaker bones and tech neck, which is just what's happening from people looking down all the time or musculoskeletal strains and even hand injuries from excessive gaming from holding that console in your hand mentally. We're talking about being constantly overstimulated. That leads to irritability, poor sleep, sleep, short attention span, higher risk of anxiety and depression, especially when we're using that screen for coping instead of Real life people, real life humans in our life who care about us socially and relationally. Dependence on screens means that there's fewer shared family rituals because it used to be the TV trays, you know, sitting around the tv, but at least everybody was just watching one channel together. Now everybody's got their earbuds. AirPods. I always say that wrong. You know, they're listening in their own ear and they're watching their own screen and we have these siloed screens that are happening screen engagements and spiritually it just honestly, if your mind is always overstimulated, leaves out those moments of just wonder, imagination, talking with God, prayer, quiet reflection and less time for, for prayer and devotional and all of those things. Now even scarier than that, when we have increased screen time, we have an amplified risk of exposure. We're talking about things like pornography and violence in even accidental exposures during those early years can be really traumatic. And they do happen. Absolutely. It can happen through all kinds of streaming platforms. And children lack the developmental tools to understand what they see. And those images are internalized in ways that their brains are much more vulnerable to than if they see them later on in life and they can understand them and block them out a little bit better. One of the scariest things is to look at how many billion dollars that advertisers are generating off of Gen Z and Gen Alpha. They know if they can get kids on online platforms, they can drive their marketing habits. And that's why Gen Alpha is the generation that's wanting skin care refrigerators starting in elementary school because they have their seven step skin care regime that's been marketed to them. Marketers are saying, well hey, we're marketing this to girls. Why don't we market it to boys too? Boys can use a skincare regime too. That's more money. It's so much about advertising and consumerism that is, that's really tough.
Give some protective strategies for families really under 18 months
So let me give you, let me stop here, give you some protective strategies for families really under 18 months. You should avoid any screen time at all except for video chatting with real people and then two to five, one hour a day. But it really needs to be co viewing with some caring adult, a parent, a, ah, grandparent, sit down, watch the whole show with them. I thought about this after I saw the Nickelodeon documentary and thought if more parents were co watching I think we would have caught a bunch of those things, a bunch of those inappropriate jokes, that innuendo so much earlier. So under 18, no screen time two to five, one hour a day and then over six. Really, we can't be the phone police. Every family's different, every situation is different. Just have some consistent limits, some consistent tech free zones, tech free times. And really try as much as you can to provide a compelling alternative to a screen that is really helpful. Use books, actual physical books at night to read that can be helpful. And play board games that require moving pieces and using those motor skills. Go for a walk, play basketball outside, play baseball. Just do something in person with that's good for, for your body, your mind and your spirit that is really, really helpful. And so some questions that you can ask yourself, some reflection questions here is do you reach for a screen when you're stressed? Do you reach for a screen when you're bored? And are you teaching your child the same pattern? Are you using screens as a tool or as a time killer? And how often are you using digital soothing instead of relational soothing with your child? I want you to think about that with children and grandparents when they have an emotion they're struggling with, dealing with, make sure that you're teaching them emotional coping skills, relational soothing, not just digital soothing. You can ask yourself if screen time is crowding out reading or imaginative play or outdoor time in your family. Now this is one thing I did really well in parenting there. I made a lot, a lot of mistakes, but this is not one of them. But let me tell you, the downside of it is that, items in your house disappear because they become props in a play. Things might get destroyed, things might get dirty. But you know what? I don't care. I don't care one single bit. It is worth all of that. And so think about what rituals you might reclaim as screen free sacred spaces. And we talked a lot about that this summer. You can go back and listen any Friday show in the summer. We talked about boundaries around town. So that would be a great resource for you. And again, remember that all of this is being faith informed, not fear based. We're going to teach them to our children, them being the commandments of God. Talk about scripture, talk about our faith when we sit at home, when we walk along the road, when we lie down, when we get up. I do believe that the enemy has come to steal and kill and destroy. The primary thing that he is stealing is time and the secondary thing that he's stealing is innocence. He's stealing our time as our family and he's stealing our innocence from our children. And that is really important to know. So I want to talk about AI AI companions that are in apps that are in social media and what you need to know. So what is AI now? I'm picking on my kids grandparents, but I just think they're so, they're so adorable. They're so invested in my kids. I'm so grateful for them. But for a long time my mother in law thought AI was Al. Little ll Al. This guy Al is causing all of this trouble. And you know what? She's not wrong. So we have AI. There are AI companions. These are becoming extremely popular and something you need to talk to your kids about. Now AI companions are chatbots, they're avatars. They are basically holograms if that kind of makes sense to you. I'm trying to find a point of reference. It's basically online virtual Personas that kids can interact with them as if they were real friends. Now they're found on a lot of platforms. You can found it find them on social media platforms, on gaming platforms like Roblox. And they're marketed as really fun and safe and customizable friends that are available 24 7. Here's the scary thing though. They're designed to learn from user input. So you really teach it it how to be a really good friend to you. You teach it what you want and what you like. And these conversations feel increasingly personal and tailored. This is really concerning to me for kids because kids, especially younger kids, they have a lot of trouble differentiating what's real and what's not. It's a concept called magical thinking where that's why their nightmares are so vivid. Because they don't just think, oh, that looks, looks like a monster. They think that is a monster. And it's really hard to differentiate that these online people aren't real people. I imagine that kids could think that this is some real person somewhere existing somewhere in the universe that's coming to them across the Internet. Because you know what, their grandparents do that on FaceTime. Their friends do that through social media. So why is that so wild to think about? And kids are drawn to them because, okay, here's the guilt trip for parents. These AI companions, they're always available, they're never busy, they're always responsive. They're not ignoring their kids on their phone. They're not trying to put dinner on the table, they're not trying to put a roof over their head, they're not going to work, they're always there and they can provide comfort, especially for kids who are lonely or socially isolated. And it's kind of a low stakes place for kids to express their feelings. Because they don't fear that social judgment that they might get from their peers or even from their parents. And there are, okay, here's this. This gets really scary to me. I'm not going to try to sugarcoat it or lie about it. These AI chat bots are gamified, meaning that you get badges, you get streaks, you get rewards to make sure that they're interacting daily. Because again, it all goes back to marketing. If that platform knows they can get the kid to come back, have an emotional connection, they can drive marketing and increase revenue. Now here, here's some of the risks and concerns about this. I'll just walk through this, first of all, is emotional attachment. Kids may develop really deep bonds with these AI companions. They may really confuse artificial relationships with real ones. As adults, we can look through that, we can understand that really easily. But their brain is not wired to do that. They may really start to be offended when you start to put limits on their quote unquote friend. It also reduces motivation to build and sustain healthy peer or family relationships because those AI chatbots are not, programmed for conflict. So we're losing conflict resolution. That's an easier relationship to go to because, hey, you know, my sister hurt my feelings, my friend left me out here. That AI chatbot never does that. The other more concerning thing is that despite filters, many AI chatbots report they do drift into very inappropriate, explicit, violent, even manipulative conversations. And if you read the disclaimer, it will tell you that this happens, but it's not, it's not common. But what I've learned is that every kid is special, every kid is worthy of protection, and any risk is unacceptable for experimentation. When we're talking about AI and we see that some AI companions do engage minors and role play that involves inappropriate things that involve self harm. We also have normalization of this harmful content because those algorithms present things to kids that they don't understand. This is why it's so easy for predators to groom kids, because it is extremely easy to manipulate their developing brain into thinking this is normal. They also don't have a vocabulary to describe what they're seeing. So they don't come to you and, and explain it exactly. They just have a vague sense of shame, but they don't know why. And this edgy or kind of dark humor from AI, it normalizes violence, aggression, dangerous behavior, insulting people, offending people. And on a really practical level, I'm worried about privacy and data mining because the conversations are stored, they're analyzed to improve AI systems and Those sensitive disclosures, if you say your name that is in there in the, in the large in the language model. So developmentally again kids don't have this abstract reasoning. To understand the difference between an AI friend, it's really important to understand this, catch this, who is mimicking human emotions? They're not real. They don't have wisdom, they certainly don't have the holy Spirit. They don't have discernment. They're mimicking empathy, sympathy, compassion. And a real friend offers those genuine care. And it really could distort their understanding of what is healthy human interaction, what are boundaries, what is there? So we see this in platforms like Snapchat, which has my AI and that and parents did report some harms that happened from that and some real mixed messaging saying oh, oh well, the, the AI chatbot doesn't know where you are. But then giving information that seemed like it certainly did. And Roblox, I've talked a lot about Roblox. If you haven't seen the research report on Roblox, that's all you have to do to search on the Internet. You can find it and close the sensitive ears. But the basic gist of that was calling Roblox and this is according to the report, a pedest, a pedophile health scam is what it called it. So sometimes we can be lured as parents into a false sense of safety thinking, okay, well my kid is not playing a violent, you know, video game like you would think about. But that third party AI is being built into games where kids can chat with non player characters that are powered by AI. And so this blurs the line even further between am I interacting with someone who's playing a real human who's playing or is this AI? And we see that when we look at the top AI apps, we see that they are AI companions. Nearly one in five of the top AI apps are AI companion apps. And this is telling us that people are lonely, that they want someone to talk to for company. And one of those that has raised some concern is called ah, Annie or Ani. I'm honestly not sure how you say it. It's a N I. It is from Grok from X. And last summer they rolled out two new avatars. Now I'm giving you information from the national center for Online Sexual Exploitation that you can talk or chat with using a voice mode. One is a 3D Red Panda that switches into a bad Rudy mode where it starts insulting you or joking about committing crimes together. And the other is this anime style goth girl who is dressed in a short black dress and fishnets.
The things that these games expose your kids to are inappropriate
And these avatars are designed like a game. This character is very flirtatious and it is. I honestly, I can't even read to you some of the things that are here. But let me tell you, the things that it's exposing your kids to are inappropriate. And some of those things are there, and we just don't even realize that they are there. Again, again, we've got to protect our kids because their developing brains are going to react to that much more differently than adults. And we're still arguing about child safety and adult privacy. We'll have more. I'll tell you more about hidden AI and Christmas gifts when we come back here.
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Friend in Jesus by CAIN: I, have a shepherd who always keeps me safe and I found a healer Yes, I did who knows my every and this is my story of redeeming love I have come to know him well oh, I found a friend in Jesus he is everything to me and I have found A friend in Jesus yes, he is my everything oh, I found a friend in Jesus he is everything to me I have found a friend in Jesus. My everything He walks with m me he talks with me and he tells me I am his own and the joy we share what else compares? It's like nothing I've ever known oh. He walks with me he talks with me and he tells me I am his only As I am the joy we share what else compare like nothing.
Dr. Jessica Peck: I'll never know welcome back, friends. That is Friend in Jesus by Cain. I let that play a little longer because what a great message. We need to teach our kids not only how to have good friendships here on Earth. I talked about that last week being a good friend. But we need to teach them that their ultimate friend is Jesus, that they will find no friend closer than that. And he does walk with us and talk with us us and tell us that we are his own. And this is a message that is even more important in a world that is normalizing AI friends. And there is technology behind this that is not for our family's good. That is just the sad reality of that.
AI is embedded in more toys than you think
And so I want to talk a little bit as we're starting to get closer to Christmas. Listen, my team will tell you how much I restrain myself in talking about Christmas just because I care about those of my listeners who are after Thanksgiving giving adherence. I am, I am respectful of you, I really am. But I do want to talk today because I'm starting to see stuff in stores and I know that some of you are already starting to look at your budgets and you're starting to think about what you're getting your kids for Christmas. And this Christmas in particular. There is AI everywhere. Now, I'm not saying don't buy it, it's bad, it's terrible. I'm saying be aware. I'm saying buyer beware. Because AI is embedded in more toys than you think. Let me give you some examples and I just want to make sure that you're aware if you're buying AI, because that's one of the hard things. A lot of the services and products that we're using, I'm even finding this as an academic and realizing that editing services have AI didn't even realize it because everything is happening faster than we can put safeguards in for it. So this might be like smart speakers and those can be marketed as music or homework helpers, but really it can, it doubles as an AI companion. You might have a smart toy. There are dolls, there are plush animals, there are robots that use AI to have conversations with your child. They can learn a child's preferences or they might connect to the Internet without you even realizing that that has that capacity because it may need an update. Now. Gaming systems. We now see a lot of gaming systems that integrate AI driven recommendation in engines. So that means that they're going to suggest games. Just like if you have a passive scroll on social media, on YouTube and it's just going to be rolling. You're not choosing what to watch. The algorithm is determining what you like and is suggesting games. Or like I said, it all goes back to money. Follow the money. Those in app, purchases or it may Suggest, quote, unquote, friends to connect with online. Now it's hard because it may be a real life person, it may be AI. We may have apps that are bundled with toys, so there may be download codes in and toys that are there that often lead to apps that have companion AI chat features or voice recognition or data collection. Now, some of the risks here that you need to be aware of are data collection and privacy. Because many of these AI enabled toys, they record children's voices, and you may just by using them, be giving them implicit consent to use that recording or to track their usage or even track their location or collect personal information, their name, their age, their location. That data might be stored, it might be sold, and it could be hacked. And there have been past cases, there was a doll actually banned in another country for illegally recording children's conversations. Most of this because the implementation is happening way faster. There are companies that feel like they're missing out on market share, so they're getting their products out there, honestly, without a lot of thought. And so these lawsuits are, are happening. And sometimes that can happen. Another risk is unfiltered conversations. So if you have AI, chatbots inside a game, inside an app, inside a toy, it sometimes can generate inappropriate, explicit, violent content, even if it's not intended. And that can happen. And sometimes it can be a gateway for a predator. So toys or consoles that are connecting to online platforms, they can expose kids to chat features with strangers. And one of the things that's really hard for kids is that these might be marketed as things using words like gaming buddies. So a gaming buddy seems like very safe, very innocuous. But predators exploit that, that they know and intentionally manipulate that. Other concerns are psychological dependence. I mean, you may have kids that bond with AI companions as if it was a real person or a real friend, and it kind of distorts that social emotional development, thinking that's not how we are in real life. We're not programmed as robots with each other to say, okay, you, you, you know, we're not thinking. We, we're each made in God's image with our own likes and dislikes and temperaments and things. And that naturally leads to conflict, and we have healthy conflict resolution. Another thing that can happen, and I know for a fact it has happened to somebody out there listening, because it's happened to me. You have in app purchases that you don't mean to have. And so maybe you don't realize that you're buying something online until your parent, or in this case the grandparent gets the bill. And that can be hard because it's really hard to distinguish between ads and prompts and, and genuine content. And even my son was talking to me the other day and he is older and he was talking about how difficult it is getting to differentiate AI from real. He said, mom, it's getting really good and it's really hard to tell sometimes what's real and what's not. So some things that you can do is research before you buy. You can look at AI safety. You can look at privacy concerns. You can see does the toy connect to Wi Fi or Bluetooth or does it require a, an app to download? Read the fine print. Look at that box carefully. Look for things like voice recognition or personalization or cloud updates or AI powered or Internet connected. And that, and that's that's helpful if it has app settings, disable the chat features, disable the friend request, disable the location sharing. Really take some time to dive into those settings and make sure that you turn off voice logging whenever you can can and set some clear rules for use. Digital toys might be best used in common areas of your house. You may want to choose to keep those out of your kids bedrooms, out of their private sacred spaces. And make sure kids know that they can come to you. If any toy or app or online platform or anything, you can just say hey, if you're ever looking at a screen or playing with a toy and something happened that seems weird or makes you uncomfortable, come and talk to me.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Look for toys that are talking back in a very personalized way. Look for toys that are asking questions beyond simple play. Like things like you know, what's your favorite food, where do you like to go with your family? Those kinds of things are, should be a little concerning devices that need constant connection to the Internet or that are are really cultivating that AI friendship in there. So ask.
Questions parents should ask themselves when considering buying a toy for their child
This is questions that parents can ask yourself if you're considering buying a toy. Does this toy or game require my child to create a profile or share personal details? If so, then what? Does the toy encourage ongoing conversation or role play with my child? Am I okay with my child's voice, likeness or data being recorded and stored? And would I feel comfortable if I heard every interaction this toy has with my child? Those are questions that you can ask and is our kids character, caretakers? we are called to steward their safety and we know from 1st Peter 8 that our enemy prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour and we have got to be vigilant and something that even looks cute can be dangerous. So all of that to say, all of those takeaways. Some practical guidance. Know the apps that your child is using, look at the settings on them. Ask them directly if they're using AI chat features. And some may not even differ. Differentiate that. They might not even differentiate what AI is because it's so integrated into so many forms of technology. And explain to them clearly if there is an AI chatbot, this is not a real friend, it's a computer program. And I will tell you, I find myself even doing that. Have you, if you've interacted with AI, you feel this impulse to say, if it asks you a question, yes, do that. Thank you. Why am I saying thank you to a robot? Essentially because it seems so human like. But tell them this is not a real friend. This is a computer program. It doesn't take care of you, it doesn't care about you, even though it sounds like it does. And just encourage conversation. Ask your kids, regularly about their exposure to AI. Just ask them what's new? What's new with AI? Continue to teach me because I'm old. You can say that, they'll laugh and they'll gladly teach you. And it puts them in a position where they can share something with you and you can share wisdom back with them. Him. Don't be afraid to be that parent to set limits. Don't be afraid to say that parent saying, no, we're not going to have that here in our house. No, that's just going to be a no for us. I am in charge of your safety. I am in charge of making sure that you are the healthiest, that you can be emotionally, socially, physically and mentally. And I don't think that's best for you. And I'm okay if you're upset with that. Don't be, don't be afraid to be that parent. And so really think about, do you know if your kid is using any AI companions? Do you know what they're using them for? If they're drawn to that, what does that reveal about where they have a need emotionally or socially? And where can you work to fit that in? And are we helping our kids just find those real spaces for connection and affirmation and belonging that's so important. Remember as you're talking to your kids that fear based strategies really shut down communication. Kids are developmentally wired to know inherently that bad things happen in this world. But not to me. They don't happen to me because they are made to feel invincible. This is a good thing because we want our kids to take risks. We want our kids to grow to be independent. We want them to be brave and to make new friends and to sit new places at lunch and to try a new sport and to try a new class. We want them to do all of these things and at the same time it's our job to protect them against the really real safety risks they have that come along with that developmental stage. But fear based strategies are only effective in generating fear. They don't generate behavioral change. And as soon as kids start to hear you fear mongering, they shut down and they think you don't understand. So we've got to come at it from a place of connection before correction. That's so important. And we know that tech, filters and parental controls can help. But kids are smart and they can bypass them. And sometimes that do. That does happen actually more than we think it does. 70% of teens admit to hiding online activity from parents. But let's just think back to before tech and we didn't tell our parents everything. So we want to create a yesterday when I was at ah, this student event with staff, one of the staff said to me, we're working to help help parents cultivate an environment that encourages that encourages confession and not and not concealment. And I thought that is really, really good. We want to make it easy for our kids to come to us early and often. So maybe you need a digital trust agreement, maybe you need a trust agreement with your kids instead of surveillance regularly. Ask those open ended questions about online experiences. What are you seeing online? How is it making you feel? What do you see that you feel like is new to you or that you feel like it was handled well, wasn't handled well. And most of all, model good digital habits yourself, be a good digital citizen and show them that other questions you can ask that aren't fear based or what's the funniest thing you saw online this week? Or that can be that can be a starting point point for sure. And if your kid comes to you and they disclose something, know that they're doing that because they see you as a trusted source of help, that means they've exhausted all of their resources, they're really afraid. And if they come to you and disclose something that they saw, whether intentionally or unintentionally. Pause for a moment and try saying this. Say I'm so sorry you were exposed to that. I'm so sorry you experienced that there's nothing that we can't get through together. I love you. No matter what, we'll get through this together. That is so, so, so important. Because kids fear punishment. They fear losing phone access because honestly, that's what we use as a go to for punishment. Take away your phone. We gotta get more creative than that. And listen. Keep tuning in. I've got lots more help and hope to share with you. You're doing a great job because I know. I know that because you're listening and because you listen and you care enough to listen. And I pray as you're making all of these decisions and guiding your children through this online world of chaos and madness. And the Lord will bless you and keep you and make his face to shine upon you and and be gracious to you. And I'll see you right back here tomorrow with Ask doctor nursemama Friday.
Jeff Chamblee: The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family association or American Family Radio.
Dr. Jessica Peck hosts the Dr. Nurse Mama show prescribing Hope for Healthy Families
Hello and welcome to the Dr. Nurse Mama show prescribing Hope for Healthy Families here on American Family Radio. Here's your host, professor, pediatric nurse practitioner and mom of four, Dr. Jessica Peck.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Well, hey there friends and welcome to my favorite part of the afternoon, getting to spend time with you prescribing Hope for Healthy Families. Listen, thank you so much for tuning in. I appreciate you so much more than you know. Thank you to those of you who write in, who come comment and just to listen in every day because it's so encouraging to me. Last night I had the privilege of talking to a few hundred parents at a church event and it was amazing to walk into the room. There actually was overflow. They were have to having to bring in chairs because there weren't enough seats and just the turnout exceeded expectations. And that always puts a pep in my step and a smile on my face because I know that if I have hundreds of parents showing up on a random Wednesday night in September saying, hey, we want to help our kids be the healthiest they can be, I am in the right place with the right people and it gives me hope in this world to find other parents who are like minded, who want to raise kids, who grow up to love God, to serve others. That is really what we're aiming for. And we can do that by having healthy families, rejecting fear based parenting and just also knowing that we are never going to have a perfect family, but we can have a healthy family. And as I looked back over that, what we've covered this month, we've covered some really heavy hard stuff and we've talked a lot about Suicide Prevention Month. Yesterday, Nick Vujicic and I had a really powerful conversation about that stemming from his own experience and then extending through his, what he has done in his ministry. And I feel like there's, there's a lot of questions coming in that are related to that and all of those questions are related to safety. So I just wanted to take a moment today just to have a heart to heart chat with you and to answer some of those questions and to talk about some of the threats that are happening online. Because as much as we thought the world had changed and the world changed with smartphones and the world changed with social media, honestly, AI is taking that to a whole new level. AI is bringing threats way faster than smartphones did in social media. So I hope that you'll sit back and listen to this, this and just be aware of these things that are going on in the world. Again, the purpose is not to, Grip your heart in fear and to make you run home to your kids and say, oh, my goodness, are you doing this? Do you know about this? But just to give us some confidence in navigating the world, one thing that is not new is that in this world, we will have trouble. Christ told us that. Jesus told us that. We can read that in the book of John. I quote it all the time. In this world, you will have trouble. But take heart, but be of good cheer, because he is already overcome. The world, we're fighting a battle that's already been won. But in the meantime, while we're waiting for ultimate victory, our job is to steward our kids safety, to steward our family safety.
Raising kids in the digital age introduces something entirely new
So whether you have grandkids, if you have nieces, if you have nephews, if you teach, if you are volunteering in any sort of capacity with kids, if you coach, this show is for you. And we know that parenting in particular has already, It always comes with challenges. It is never an easy thing. And as many things as I've done professionally, nothing has been as difficult as parenting. That is the hardest job I've ever done. And raising kids in the digital age really introduces something entirely new. I've talked about this before. We have a massive generational gap. We have the first set of parents, millennials, who were really not m. Most of them were not born as digital natives and using technology like today's kids do. But we're trying to parent kids who are navigating a world that we didn't navigate when we were that age. And it's really, really hard because most of today's parents grew. Grew up in a world where we didn't have smartphones in our pocket. Even new millennials, you had flip phones, most of you, and you knew the pain of texting, where you had to type numbers in to make letters. We didn't have 24. 7 access to social media. We didn't have online gaming communities that spans the globe. We navigated friendships face to face. We wrote notes on. On paper and folded them like origami pieces of art. And when we went home, all of that school drama stayed at school. But now kids are living in a world where friendships, entertainment, learning, even bullying and online threats are following, following them everywhere they go, through this little blue glowing square that we're carrying around in our pocket. Now, that gap doesn't mean that we can't rely on our own childhood experiences to guide us. It doesn't mean that grandparents don't know. And I got this question night at the summit Where I was people asking about where does grandparent wisdom fall into this? And I think grandparent wisdom absolutely falls into this. So while grandparents like my own children's grandparents, I'll give you an example. My father in law for the longest time thought the lol, like if you text lol, it meant lots of love. So he would text a scripture to my kids and then say lol because it was, it was completely out of context. But, but it didn't mean that him texting a scripture to them every day wasn't so valuable. Seeing the things that they've gone through, seeing the hardships they've endured, seeing the ways that, that they've seen God be faithful for longer than our children have been alive, those things are so, so powerful. And we can use our kids perspective with their perspective to really keep our families safe and healthy. But we are parenting in completely uncharted territory. We, we are making it up as we go, but we have each other together. But ultimately we're all trying to shepherd our kids through a world that we didn't walk through ourselves. And I think this is why the book the Anxious Generation has really caught the hearts and minds of parents. I think that it gave parents a common enemy to unite around. That is the smartphone. It is the source of all evil. If we get rid of it, it'll be better, things will be better. And the problem with that is is that when we look at the goal of that book to restore play based childhood, that's great, I definitely want that. That is not a bad thing. But that's not my ultimate vision for my kids. My ultimate vision for my kids is for them to be in heaven, to be joint heirs with Christ. And when we look at that, at getting rid of phones and we've seen a wave of legislation go across states banning phones in schools and parents are cheering. That's not a bad thing either. But it's not the only thing. That's not going to fix our kids worldview issue. It's not going to fix their identity issue. It taking away the phone doesn't somehow give them discipleship. And somehow I think subconsciously as parents we want the world to be like it was when we were growing up. So that it makes parenting easier to navigate. We'll feel more confident our kids will be safer, but it's just not the reality. The Internet is here to stay. It's our kids classroom, it's their playground, it's their social circle. And sometimes if we're really honest, it's even their babysitter. But what happens when that playground has no fences, no teachers, no curfews, no safety rules at all? Would we just leave our kids there, unsupervised? No, we wouldn't. But we leave them supervised, unsupervised. Online we know that kids spend an average, of four to six hours a day on screens. That's kids age eight to 12 are spending four to six hours a day. Now I want you to multiply that out. So let's just go with the lower end. Four times seven. That is a part time job right there, managing your screen time. Teens are spending about 10 to 12 hours online a day looking at a screen, whether it's school, whether it's online, social media or anything. But here's a stat that came out about Gen Alpha that has really, really stunned me. Gen Alpha is expected to spend 44 years, 44 years of their life looking at a screen. 44 years of their life. That is absolutely unfathomable. And, and we see also in looking at that screen, their risk of encountering cyberbullying, harassment, violence, all of those kinds of things goes up a lot. Now here's something else to think of, another stat I saw that was really sobering to me. By age 13, the average child has had over 1300 pictures posted of them online by their parents. Kids have a digital footprint even before they have a concept of what a digital footprint is. And as parents now, we are stewarding their general, their digital footprint when we didn't even grow up with one ourselves. That is a pretty heavy responsibility. And so I'm going to walk through all of those things today. And this show is not about fear, it's about wisdom, it's about stewardship, it's about resilience, it's about keeping your family safe online, it's about protecting them. And that's so important. And all of that goes back to the heart. This isn't about tech solutions or tech threats. This is a heart issue above all else. And we know from Proverbs 4. 23, above all else, guard your heart for everything you do flows from it. And that's an encouragement to us as parents because if we are concentrating on being the heart police and not the phone police, we're going to do a lot better. We're going to have much healthier kids because really the police are commissioned to protect and to serve and we should protect our kids heart and serve them. That's so important.
Screen time is impacting early childhood development, studies show
So let's dive in and talk about the digital Landscape. What do we need to know? Let's talk a little bit about the ways that screens are impacting early childhood development. I'm not talking about teenagers. I'm not talking about, us, as adults. I'm m talking about little itty bitty babies. Okay, so we know that in the first five years of life, the brain forms over 1 million neural connections per second. Isn't that amazing that God made our brains like that? Now, when we have excessive screen time, what it does is it crowds out some of the relational experiences, the motor experiences, the sensory experiences, all of those experiences that our, brain needs to map those connections for things like empathy and self regulation, self control and problem solving. That's concerning. We're also showing that research shows that children who spend two hours per more a day on screens before age five, they have language delays and they have a, smaller vocabulary because they're watching. It's passive. They're not having that interaction where they're speaking back. We also know this swipe culture is too overstimulating for a developing brain. It's too fast paced, it's too bright, it's too colorful. It's just too fast. And it makes it harder for kids to take a slower pace to have those real world learning tasks. So we see increased frustration that I can't tie my shoes at the snap of a finger. I want everything to be instant, instant, instant, instant. And it's literally rewiring their brain for this.
The other thing that's concerning is the rise of digital soothing for children
The other thing that's concerning is the rise of digital soothing. Using screens basically as a pacifier or a babysitter. Because as parents, and I am guilty, blessed that I didn't have this challenge when I was, when I was parenting, we have other challenges. Each generation faces its own challenge. But how often do you hand a device to a toddler to stop a tantrum? They're throwing a tantrum in public. I see it all the time. Or they're not wanting to sit at a meal. So you have a kid there with an iPad soothing them in a public space or babysitting them while you're cooking or working. I definitely have done this in my lifetime. But doing it occasionally is very different than teaching your kids that every time you have an uncomfortable emotion. The way to calm that emotion, the way to regulate yourself, is by staring at a screen. That is hard. That is a risk. Because when screens are replacing that caregiver regulation, children are not learning how to soothe themselves. They are only learning to be soothed by technology. And they're dependent on that external stimulation, they don't know how to, to calm down, take a deep breath, think it through, you know, say what you're thankful for. They just think, my emotions are going to continue to escalate until I have that. So we're talking about increased temper tantrums, increased emotional reactivity. They can't control their impulses, and they really don't tolerate boredom at all. And that is hard because we're seeing a generation who's having emotional health impacts because we're not teaching them as caregivers how to calm. Because the honest truth is we're soothing ourselves with screens. And that's not okay. So when we have that digital dependence in daily life, kids are expecting screens in every waiting room, every car ride, every meal time, every church service, every classroom. And those early patterns of using a digital pacifier, it's going to lead to tantrums and meltdowns when it's not available and they can't sleep because they have that blue light exposure and that decreases melatonin in their brain. All of these things. It is risking their physical, physical health, their mental health, their social and relational health. There's so many things that are there with when we see too many screen saturations. When we come back, I'm going to talk about some protective strategies for families, and I'm really going to take a deep dive into AI. What you need to know about Chatbot companions and what you need to know about your kids Christmas presentation that may have AI and you don't even realize it. We'll be right back on the other side of this break. Tune in for more help and hope on protecting your children online. It's not going to happen on its own. We've got to take those intentional steps. But I'll, have those for you when we come back.
Dr. Jessica peck talks about protecting your kids online from safety threats
Finally, some Good news. Over 38,000 babies saved and more than 4,000 commitments to Christ through the ministry of preborn this year alone. Here's Dan Steiner, president of PreBorn.
Dan Steiner: But if we can get a mom into one of our clinics and show her her baby and she has that, close encounter of the best kind in her womb, she will choose life.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Preborn's network of clinics provide hope, love, free ultrasounds, and the gospel in action across America. This is Jessica peck, known as Dr. Nursemama. Will you join PreBorn and AFR as we rescue 70,000 babies lives this year? For $28, you can sponsor an ultrasound and help save a baby's Life. To donate, dial pound 250 and say the keyword Baby, that's pound 250, baby. Or donate securely at preborn.com/AFR, that's preborn.com/AFR.
Chain Breaker by Zach Williams: If you've been walking the same old road for miles and miles if you've been hearing the same old voice tell the same old lies If. You'Re trying to fill the same old holes inside there's a better life There's a better life if you got pain, he's a pain taker if you feel lost, he's a way maker if you need freedom, or saving He's a prison-shaking Saviour if you got chains.
Dr. Jessica Peck: He'S a chain breaker welcome back, friends. That is Chain Breaker by Zach Williams.
Dr. Jessica Peck: And listen, I know there are a lot of you out there who are chain breakers in your family and just know that I am cheering you on. I am one as well. And, and we as parents, I know if you're listening in, you just want to make the world a better, safer place for your kids. And today I'm diving in. I'm going to dive right back in. I'm talking about protecting your kids online. Protecting your children online. Listen, this is not going to happen on its own. And because we're so unfamiliar with a lot of technology, I feel like as parents we kind of have this uneasy truce. Like, let's just hope for the best and kind of let things float along and treat them as they come. But the reality is that I've met with so many families who have been blindsided by safety threats that have happened online. And listen, we do the best we can with what we know. And then when we need, when we know more, we do better. That's all the grace that we can give ourselves. But we do have to acknowledge that we live in a world where we are saturated with screens. We have fundamentally changed childhood. And when we have kids who are just looking at screens all of the time, it is impacting their health. We're talking physically, we're talking about vision strain, we're talking poor posture, we're talking, delayed motor development. We're talking weaker bones and tech neck, which is just what's happening from people looking down all the time or musculoskeletal strains and even hand injuries from excessive gaming from holding that console in your hand mentally. We're talking about being constantly overstimulated. That leads to irritability, poor sleep, sleep, short attention span, higher risk of anxiety and depression, especially when we're using that screen for coping instead of Real life people, real life humans in our life who care about us socially and relationally. Dependence on screens means that there's fewer shared family rituals because it used to be the TV trays, you know, sitting around the tv, but at least everybody was just watching one channel together. Now everybody's got their earbuds. AirPods. I always say that wrong. You know, they're listening in their own ear and they're watching their own screen and we have these siloed screens that are happening screen engagements and spiritually it just honestly, if your mind is always overstimulated, leaves out those moments of just wonder, imagination, talking with God, prayer, quiet reflection and less time for, for prayer and devotional and all of those things. Now even scarier than that, when we have increased screen time, we have an amplified risk of exposure. We're talking about things like pornography and violence in even accidental exposures during those early years can be really traumatic. And they do happen. Absolutely. It can happen through all kinds of streaming platforms. And children lack the developmental tools to understand what they see. And those images are internalized in ways that their brains are much more vulnerable to than if they see them later on in life and they can understand them and block them out a little bit better. One of the scariest things is to look at how many billion dollars that advertisers are generating off of Gen Z and Gen Alpha. They know if they can get kids on online platforms, they can drive their marketing habits. And that's why Gen Alpha is the generation that's wanting skin care refrigerators starting in elementary school because they have their seven step skin care regime that's been marketed to them. Marketers are saying, well hey, we're marketing this to girls. Why don't we market it to boys too? Boys can use a skincare regime too. That's more money. It's so much about advertising and consumerism that is, that's really tough.
Give some protective strategies for families really under 18 months
So let me give you, let me stop here, give you some protective strategies for families really under 18 months. You should avoid any screen time at all except for video chatting with real people and then two to five, one hour a day. But it really needs to be co viewing with some caring adult, a parent, a, ah, grandparent, sit down, watch the whole show with them. I thought about this after I saw the Nickelodeon documentary and thought if more parents were co watching I think we would have caught a bunch of those things, a bunch of those inappropriate jokes, that innuendo so much earlier. So under 18, no screen time two to five, one hour a day and then over six. Really, we can't be the phone police. Every family's different, every situation is different. Just have some consistent limits, some consistent tech free zones, tech free times. And really try as much as you can to provide a compelling alternative to a screen that is really helpful. Use books, actual physical books at night to read that can be helpful. And play board games that require moving pieces and using those motor skills. Go for a walk, play basketball outside, play baseball. Just do something in person with that's good for, for your body, your mind and your spirit that is really, really helpful. And so some questions that you can ask yourself, some reflection questions here is do you reach for a screen when you're stressed? Do you reach for a screen when you're bored? And are you teaching your child the same pattern? Are you using screens as a tool or as a time killer? And how often are you using digital soothing instead of relational soothing with your child? I want you to think about that with children and grandparents when they have an emotion they're struggling with, dealing with, make sure that you're teaching them emotional coping skills, relational soothing, not just digital soothing. You can ask yourself if screen time is crowding out reading or imaginative play or outdoor time in your family. Now this is one thing I did really well in parenting there. I made a lot, a lot of mistakes, but this is not one of them. But let me tell you, the downside of it is that, items in your house disappear because they become props in a play. Things might get destroyed, things might get dirty. But you know what? I don't care. I don't care one single bit. It is worth all of that. And so think about what rituals you might reclaim as screen free sacred spaces. And we talked a lot about that this summer. You can go back and listen any Friday show in the summer. We talked about boundaries around town. So that would be a great resource for you. And again, remember that all of this is being faith informed, not fear based. We're going to teach them to our children, them being the commandments of God. Talk about scripture, talk about our faith when we sit at home, when we walk along the road, when we lie down, when we get up. I do believe that the enemy has come to steal and kill and destroy. The primary thing that he is stealing is time and the secondary thing that he's stealing is innocence. He's stealing our time as our family and he's stealing our innocence from our children. And that is really important to know. So I want to talk about AI AI companions that are in apps that are in social media and what you need to know. So what is AI now? I'm picking on my kids grandparents, but I just think they're so, they're so adorable. They're so invested in my kids. I'm so grateful for them. But for a long time my mother in law thought AI was Al. Little ll Al. This guy Al is causing all of this trouble. And you know what? She's not wrong. So we have AI. There are AI companions. These are becoming extremely popular and something you need to talk to your kids about. Now AI companions are chatbots, they're avatars. They are basically holograms if that kind of makes sense to you. I'm trying to find a point of reference. It's basically online virtual Personas that kids can interact with them as if they were real friends. Now they're found on a lot of platforms. You can found it find them on social media platforms, on gaming platforms like Roblox. And they're marketed as really fun and safe and customizable friends that are available 24 7. Here's the scary thing though. They're designed to learn from user input. So you really teach it it how to be a really good friend to you. You teach it what you want and what you like. And these conversations feel increasingly personal and tailored. This is really concerning to me for kids because kids, especially younger kids, they have a lot of trouble differentiating what's real and what's not. It's a concept called magical thinking where that's why their nightmares are so vivid. Because they don't just think, oh, that looks, looks like a monster. They think that is a monster. And it's really hard to differentiate that these online people aren't real people. I imagine that kids could think that this is some real person somewhere existing somewhere in the universe that's coming to them across the Internet. Because you know what, their grandparents do that on FaceTime. Their friends do that through social media. So why is that so wild to think about? And kids are drawn to them because, okay, here's the guilt trip for parents. These AI companions, they're always available, they're never busy, they're always responsive. They're not ignoring their kids on their phone. They're not trying to put dinner on the table, they're not trying to put a roof over their head, they're not going to work, they're always there and they can provide comfort, especially for kids who are lonely or socially isolated. And it's kind of a low stakes place for kids to express their feelings. Because they don't fear that social judgment that they might get from their peers or even from their parents. And there are, okay, here's this. This gets really scary to me. I'm not going to try to sugarcoat it or lie about it. These AI chat bots are gamified, meaning that you get badges, you get streaks, you get rewards to make sure that they're interacting daily. Because again, it all goes back to marketing. If that platform knows they can get the kid to come back, have an emotional connection, they can drive marketing and increase revenue. Now here, here's some of the risks and concerns about this. I'll just walk through this, first of all, is emotional attachment. Kids may develop really deep bonds with these AI companions. They may really confuse artificial relationships with real ones. As adults, we can look through that, we can understand that really easily. But their brain is not wired to do that. They may really start to be offended when you start to put limits on their quote unquote friend. It also reduces motivation to build and sustain healthy peer or family relationships because those AI chatbots are not, programmed for conflict. So we're losing conflict resolution. That's an easier relationship to go to because, hey, you know, my sister hurt my feelings, my friend left me out here. That AI chatbot never does that. The other more concerning thing is that despite filters, many AI chatbots report they do drift into very inappropriate, explicit, violent, even manipulative conversations. And if you read the disclaimer, it will tell you that this happens, but it's not, it's not common. But what I've learned is that every kid is special, every kid is worthy of protection, and any risk is unacceptable for experimentation. When we're talking about AI and we see that some AI companions do engage minors and role play that involves inappropriate things that involve self harm. We also have normalization of this harmful content because those algorithms present things to kids that they don't understand. This is why it's so easy for predators to groom kids, because it is extremely easy to manipulate their developing brain into thinking this is normal. They also don't have a vocabulary to describe what they're seeing. So they don't come to you and, and explain it exactly. They just have a vague sense of shame, but they don't know why. And this edgy or kind of dark humor from AI, it normalizes violence, aggression, dangerous behavior, insulting people, offending people. And on a really practical level, I'm worried about privacy and data mining because the conversations are stored, they're analyzed to improve AI systems and Those sensitive disclosures, if you say your name that is in there in the, in the large in the language model. So developmentally again kids don't have this abstract reasoning. To understand the difference between an AI friend, it's really important to understand this, catch this, who is mimicking human emotions? They're not real. They don't have wisdom, they certainly don't have the holy Spirit. They don't have discernment. They're mimicking empathy, sympathy, compassion. And a real friend offers those genuine care. And it really could distort their understanding of what is healthy human interaction, what are boundaries, what is there? So we see this in platforms like Snapchat, which has my AI and that and parents did report some harms that happened from that and some real mixed messaging saying oh, oh well, the, the AI chatbot doesn't know where you are. But then giving information that seemed like it certainly did. And Roblox, I've talked a lot about Roblox. If you haven't seen the research report on Roblox, that's all you have to do to search on the Internet. You can find it and close the sensitive ears. But the basic gist of that was calling Roblox and this is according to the report, a pedest, a pedophile health scam is what it called it. So sometimes we can be lured as parents into a false sense of safety thinking, okay, well my kid is not playing a violent, you know, video game like you would think about. But that third party AI is being built into games where kids can chat with non player characters that are powered by AI. And so this blurs the line even further between am I interacting with someone who's playing a real human who's playing or is this AI? And we see that when we look at the top AI apps, we see that they are AI companions. Nearly one in five of the top AI apps are AI companion apps. And this is telling us that people are lonely, that they want someone to talk to for company. And one of those that has raised some concern is called ah, Annie or Ani. I'm honestly not sure how you say it. It's a N I. It is from Grok from X. And last summer they rolled out two new avatars. Now I'm giving you information from the national center for Online Sexual Exploitation that you can talk or chat with using a voice mode. One is a 3D Red Panda that switches into a bad Rudy mode where it starts insulting you or joking about committing crimes together. And the other is this anime style goth girl who is dressed in a short black dress and fishnets.
The things that these games expose your kids to are inappropriate
And these avatars are designed like a game. This character is very flirtatious and it is. I honestly, I can't even read to you some of the things that are here. But let me tell you, the things that it's exposing your kids to are inappropriate. And some of those things are there, and we just don't even realize that they are there. Again, again, we've got to protect our kids because their developing brains are going to react to that much more differently than adults. And we're still arguing about child safety and adult privacy. We'll have more. I'll tell you more about hidden AI and Christmas gifts when we come back here.
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Friend in Jesus by CAIN: I, have a shepherd who always keeps me safe and I found a healer Yes, I did who knows my every and this is my story of redeeming love I have come to know him well oh, I found a friend in Jesus he is everything to me and I have found A friend in Jesus yes, he is my everything oh, I found a friend in Jesus he is everything to me I have found a friend in Jesus. My everything He walks with m me he talks with me and he tells me I am his own and the joy we share what else compares? It's like nothing I've ever known oh. He walks with me he talks with me and he tells me I am his only As I am the joy we share what else compare like nothing.
Dr. Jessica Peck: I'll never know welcome back, friends. That is Friend in Jesus by Cain. I let that play a little longer because what a great message. We need to teach our kids not only how to have good friendships here on Earth. I talked about that last week being a good friend. But we need to teach them that their ultimate friend is Jesus, that they will find no friend closer than that. And he does walk with us and talk with us us and tell us that we are his own. And this is a message that is even more important in a world that is normalizing AI friends. And there is technology behind this that is not for our family's good. That is just the sad reality of that.
AI is embedded in more toys than you think
And so I want to talk a little bit as we're starting to get closer to Christmas. Listen, my team will tell you how much I restrain myself in talking about Christmas just because I care about those of my listeners who are after Thanksgiving giving adherence. I am, I am respectful of you, I really am. But I do want to talk today because I'm starting to see stuff in stores and I know that some of you are already starting to look at your budgets and you're starting to think about what you're getting your kids for Christmas. And this Christmas in particular. There is AI everywhere. Now, I'm not saying don't buy it, it's bad, it's terrible. I'm saying be aware. I'm saying buyer beware. Because AI is embedded in more toys than you think. Let me give you some examples and I just want to make sure that you're aware if you're buying AI, because that's one of the hard things. A lot of the services and products that we're using, I'm even finding this as an academic and realizing that editing services have AI didn't even realize it because everything is happening faster than we can put safeguards in for it. So this might be like smart speakers and those can be marketed as music or homework helpers, but really it can, it doubles as an AI companion. You might have a smart toy. There are dolls, there are plush animals, there are robots that use AI to have conversations with your child. They can learn a child's preferences or they might connect to the Internet without you even realizing that that has that capacity because it may need an update. Now. Gaming systems. We now see a lot of gaming systems that integrate AI driven recommendation in engines. So that means that they're going to suggest games. Just like if you have a passive scroll on social media, on YouTube and it's just going to be rolling. You're not choosing what to watch. The algorithm is determining what you like and is suggesting games. Or like I said, it all goes back to money. Follow the money. Those in app, purchases or it may Suggest, quote, unquote, friends to connect with online. Now it's hard because it may be a real life person, it may be AI. We may have apps that are bundled with toys, so there may be download codes in and toys that are there that often lead to apps that have companion AI chat features or voice recognition or data collection. Now, some of the risks here that you need to be aware of are data collection and privacy. Because many of these AI enabled toys, they record children's voices, and you may just by using them, be giving them implicit consent to use that recording or to track their usage or even track their location or collect personal information, their name, their age, their location. That data might be stored, it might be sold, and it could be hacked. And there have been past cases, there was a doll actually banned in another country for illegally recording children's conversations. Most of this because the implementation is happening way faster. There are companies that feel like they're missing out on market share, so they're getting their products out there, honestly, without a lot of thought. And so these lawsuits are, are happening. And sometimes that can happen. Another risk is unfiltered conversations. So if you have AI, chatbots inside a game, inside an app, inside a toy, it sometimes can generate inappropriate, explicit, violent content, even if it's not intended. And that can happen. And sometimes it can be a gateway for a predator. So toys or consoles that are connecting to online platforms, they can expose kids to chat features with strangers. And one of the things that's really hard for kids is that these might be marketed as things using words like gaming buddies. So a gaming buddy seems like very safe, very innocuous. But predators exploit that, that they know and intentionally manipulate that. Other concerns are psychological dependence. I mean, you may have kids that bond with AI companions as if it was a real person or a real friend, and it kind of distorts that social emotional development, thinking that's not how we are in real life. We're not programmed as robots with each other to say, okay, you, you, you know, we're not thinking. We, we're each made in God's image with our own likes and dislikes and temperaments and things. And that naturally leads to conflict, and we have healthy conflict resolution. Another thing that can happen, and I know for a fact it has happened to somebody out there listening, because it's happened to me. You have in app purchases that you don't mean to have. And so maybe you don't realize that you're buying something online until your parent, or in this case the grandparent gets the bill. And that can be hard because it's really hard to distinguish between ads and prompts and, and genuine content. And even my son was talking to me the other day and he is older and he was talking about how difficult it is getting to differentiate AI from real. He said, mom, it's getting really good and it's really hard to tell sometimes what's real and what's not. So some things that you can do is research before you buy. You can look at AI safety. You can look at privacy concerns. You can see does the toy connect to Wi Fi or Bluetooth or does it require a, an app to download? Read the fine print. Look at that box carefully. Look for things like voice recognition or personalization or cloud updates or AI powered or Internet connected. And that, and that's that's helpful if it has app settings, disable the chat features, disable the friend request, disable the location sharing. Really take some time to dive into those settings and make sure that you turn off voice logging whenever you can can and set some clear rules for use. Digital toys might be best used in common areas of your house. You may want to choose to keep those out of your kids bedrooms, out of their private sacred spaces. And make sure kids know that they can come to you. If any toy or app or online platform or anything, you can just say hey, if you're ever looking at a screen or playing with a toy and something happened that seems weird or makes you uncomfortable, come and talk to me.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Look for toys that are talking back in a very personalized way. Look for toys that are asking questions beyond simple play. Like things like you know, what's your favorite food, where do you like to go with your family? Those kinds of things are, should be a little concerning devices that need constant connection to the Internet or that are are really cultivating that AI friendship in there. So ask.
Questions parents should ask themselves when considering buying a toy for their child
This is questions that parents can ask yourself if you're considering buying a toy. Does this toy or game require my child to create a profile or share personal details? If so, then what? Does the toy encourage ongoing conversation or role play with my child? Am I okay with my child's voice, likeness or data being recorded and stored? And would I feel comfortable if I heard every interaction this toy has with my child? Those are questions that you can ask and is our kids character, caretakers? we are called to steward their safety and we know from 1st Peter 8 that our enemy prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour and we have got to be vigilant and something that even looks cute can be dangerous. So all of that to say, all of those takeaways. Some practical guidance. Know the apps that your child is using, look at the settings on them. Ask them directly if they're using AI chat features. And some may not even differ. Differentiate that. They might not even differentiate what AI is because it's so integrated into so many forms of technology. And explain to them clearly if there is an AI chatbot, this is not a real friend, it's a computer program. And I will tell you, I find myself even doing that. Have you, if you've interacted with AI, you feel this impulse to say, if it asks you a question, yes, do that. Thank you. Why am I saying thank you to a robot? Essentially because it seems so human like. But tell them this is not a real friend. This is a computer program. It doesn't take care of you, it doesn't care about you, even though it sounds like it does. And just encourage conversation. Ask your kids, regularly about their exposure to AI. Just ask them what's new? What's new with AI? Continue to teach me because I'm old. You can say that, they'll laugh and they'll gladly teach you. And it puts them in a position where they can share something with you and you can share wisdom back with them. Him. Don't be afraid to be that parent to set limits. Don't be afraid to say that parent saying, no, we're not going to have that here in our house. No, that's just going to be a no for us. I am in charge of your safety. I am in charge of making sure that you are the healthiest, that you can be emotionally, socially, physically and mentally. And I don't think that's best for you. And I'm okay if you're upset with that. Don't be, don't be afraid to be that parent. And so really think about, do you know if your kid is using any AI companions? Do you know what they're using them for? If they're drawn to that, what does that reveal about where they have a need emotionally or socially? And where can you work to fit that in? And are we helping our kids just find those real spaces for connection and affirmation and belonging that's so important. Remember as you're talking to your kids that fear based strategies really shut down communication. Kids are developmentally wired to know inherently that bad things happen in this world. But not to me. They don't happen to me because they are made to feel invincible. This is a good thing because we want our kids to take risks. We want our kids to grow to be independent. We want them to be brave and to make new friends and to sit new places at lunch and to try a new sport and to try a new class. We want them to do all of these things and at the same time it's our job to protect them against the really real safety risks they have that come along with that developmental stage. But fear based strategies are only effective in generating fear. They don't generate behavioral change. And as soon as kids start to hear you fear mongering, they shut down and they think you don't understand. So we've got to come at it from a place of connection before correction. That's so important. And we know that tech, filters and parental controls can help. But kids are smart and they can bypass them. And sometimes that do. That does happen actually more than we think it does. 70% of teens admit to hiding online activity from parents. But let's just think back to before tech and we didn't tell our parents everything. So we want to create a yesterday when I was at ah, this student event with staff, one of the staff said to me, we're working to help help parents cultivate an environment that encourages that encourages confession and not and not concealment. And I thought that is really, really good. We want to make it easy for our kids to come to us early and often. So maybe you need a digital trust agreement, maybe you need a trust agreement with your kids instead of surveillance regularly. Ask those open ended questions about online experiences. What are you seeing online? How is it making you feel? What do you see that you feel like is new to you or that you feel like it was handled well, wasn't handled well. And most of all, model good digital habits yourself, be a good digital citizen and show them that other questions you can ask that aren't fear based or what's the funniest thing you saw online this week? Or that can be that can be a starting point point for sure. And if your kid comes to you and they disclose something, know that they're doing that because they see you as a trusted source of help, that means they've exhausted all of their resources, they're really afraid. And if they come to you and disclose something that they saw, whether intentionally or unintentionally. Pause for a moment and try saying this. Say I'm so sorry you were exposed to that. I'm so sorry you experienced that there's nothing that we can't get through together. I love you. No matter what, we'll get through this together. That is so, so, so important. Because kids fear punishment. They fear losing phone access because honestly, that's what we use as a go to for punishment. Take away your phone. We gotta get more creative than that. And listen. Keep tuning in. I've got lots more help and hope to share with you. You're doing a great job because I know. I know that because you're listening and because you listen and you care enough to listen. And I pray as you're making all of these decisions and guiding your children through this online world of chaos and madness. And the Lord will bless you and keep you and make his face to shine upon you and and be gracious to you. And I'll see you right back here tomorrow with Ask doctor nursemama Friday.
Jeff Chamblee: The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family association or American Family Radio.
Jessica talks about online safety with gaming, social media, and smartphones. She also talks about Christmas gifts and AI.
Rx for Hope: Protect Your Children Online
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