Libraries are a source of knowledge for kids, and knowledge is a source of safety. As any fan of Lovecraft knows, the wrong knowledge at the wrong time can be a source of danger.
A good school librarian can help you and your kids navigate the good and avoid the bad, opening a world of fascination, education, and safety. Kate Coreson, a school librarian of many years experience, was kind enough to guide us through some of the basics of this amazing resource.
It's very hard to overstate how thrilled I am to have Grandmaster Bob White on the show for this episode. He's one of the world's foremost teachers of the martial art where I make my home, Kenpo Karate. In his career, he has taught tens of thousands of kids and adults how to be safer, more effective, kinder people than they would have been without his influence. He and his wife remain leaders by example in the martial arts community.
We talk today about how sports in general, and martial arts in particular, can be uniquely empowering for our kids. He's preaching to the choir for me, but all of us can benefit from what he has to say. By the end, you'll fully understand one of Bob's key points: "Martial arts for kids I can take or leave, but spending time with martial artists is"
In today's interview, we tackle the tricky topic of behavior and discipline. We know, because of science, that the old school method of threats and consequences doesn't build better behavior, or a trusting relationship between us and our kids...but that doesn't mean we let them run wild, either.
Robbin McManne is one of the best-respected parenting coaches in the world, having tested what she learned getting a related degree in the crucible of parenting children with special needs. She brings us the most amazing tools and techniques for getting the behavior we need without resorting to yelling, threats, and other forms of bullying.
We have a treat for you. Andy Murphy, the driving force behind The Secure Dad, has graciously provided us with a post about internet security, privacy, and how they interact with protecting our kids. Read all about it below, and do consider checking out his blog or subscribing to his newsletter. Mr. Murphy is one of the smartest, most generous humans working in this field today.
Without further ado, here’s Andy!
If you are a parent reading this, then I can assume a few things about you. Chances are you were born before the internet. You might have been lucky to have a tablet-free childhood where you played outside, wore a He-Man t-shirt, and saw an ashtray at a McDonald’s.
Today’s kids are growing up in a completely different world. While we were introduced to the internet in middle school or later, kids today are becoming YouTube stars at the same stage of life.
Which leads us to an important question: What does the internet know about our family?
While we can take a deep dive into a big question like this, we’re going to start with something called open source intelligence. While this does sound like something from Burn Notice, it’s actually something real that we need to be aware of. There are tons of places people can go and find out information about us that we would rather them not know.
Open sourced intelligence is commonly defined as data and information that is available to the general public. You’ll see this abbreviated as OSINT online. This is information contained on the surface web like sites such as Google and social media. Even Zillow!
It’s important for us to know what information is out there about us even though we’re everyday citizens who pay our bills and go to work. By knowing what information is openly available about us and our children, it will raise our security awareness and protect our families.
If we can know what other people can find out about us, we can be ready to stop scammers, thieves, and creeps.
Here are some common pieces of information that people can find out about us with just a few clicks:
Your home address
Schools your children attend
Phone numbers - mobile and home numbers
Email addresses - adult and children
IP Address
Photos and videos
Teams your children play on
Social media accounts - adult and children
Company profiles
Your house of worship
Amazon Shopping lists
Court records
Real estate transactions and listings
Freaked out now? Don’t worry. You might be wondering how this kind of information can be out there about you. Most of the information comes from data brokers. In simple terms these are websites that legally buy your information from third parties and compile them all together to create enough information for someone to profile you without ever laying eyes on you.
This is where people search sites compile their information on us. For a few dollars, people search sites will give you a ton of information on a person in just a few clicks. I really don’t like these sites, but they are legal and the information they have is legal to sell.
A good source of what a people search site can provide and how it’s done is at White Pages. https://www.whitepages.com/person You can read for yourself all the ins and outs of how the site works.
But fortunately for us, these data broker sites also have to offer an opt-out. Meaning you can tell that company to remove your information for free. So I highly recommend you do that.
Now there are tons of these people search sites out there and their opt-out process is different for each one. (Rad, right?) But there are companies that will work to remove that information for you for a fee. This might be money well spent for you.
One such company you can check out is DeleteMe by Abine. https://joindeleteme.com. They remove information from sites like this and continue to monitor you year round. Just because you ask a site to remove your information once, does not mean they can’t buy it again later. (Super rad.)
While data brokers are trouble enough, the best source of information about you online comes from social media. Yep, that’s right. We’re telling on ourselves.
We are self-reporting on where we are, who we are with, where we work and places we frequent. Like Spencer Coursen tells us in his book The Safety Trap, we often overshare important information about ourselves and our families. So we share some of this blame.
By the way, check out Spencer Coursen on The Secure Dad Podcast and also on The Safest Family on the Block.
Here are some questions I want you to ask yourself before you post online again.
Is this post going to be too personal?
Could someone figure out where I live with this post?
Am I sharing too much about my children?
Will my post age well?
What are my children posting?
Will anyone actually care what I post?
We all need to remember that last question. I know I think about this one a lot and I think it would help many of us feel better if we just kept our personal feelings… well personal.
There is some information out there about us that we can’t do anything about and that’s what the US government has deemed public information.
Generally, we can’t ask our federal and local governments to remove our public records. And just because your county might not have a great online database, public records are still accessible in person at government offices. This means as much as we try, we can’t completely remove all of our public information from the internet.
In general the things that I discuss at The Secure Dad and Jason talks about at The Safest Family on the block is personal safety that is part of the broad spectrum of open source intelligence.
We’re talking about saving your vacation pictures for social media until you get back home. Not leaving your phone unattended at a restaurant. Making sure you close your garage door when you are away from home. We just need to keep in mind that what we do can be used as information about us and our families.
Open source intelligence really is a very broad topic. Trust me, you can really go down the rabbit hole with this one. So for today, keep your personal information off of social media and look into a service that will remove your information from data brokers. Then, take the time to integrate your understanding of OSINT into your daily life.
For more on Andy Murphy and the mission of The Secure Dad go to https://www.thesecuredad.com/ or follow him on Instagram and Twitter with the username: @thesecuredad.
A lot of people think about weapons when it comes to protecting themselves and keeping their families safe. No matter what decision you make about this, it's best to make that decision from a position of knowledge.
John & John of Shield Protection Products have spent their careers in law enforcement, where they've seen what happens when armed defenders come into contact with resolute bad guys. They started a shop where they sell not just gear, but training, too. They're one of our show's first sponsors, and highly knowledgeable about what to carry, when, and why...and how to use it if you ever need to.
As we get older, our parenting responsibilities often shift from watching just our kids to also watching our own parents. Sometimes that responsibility includes helping them understand they need to move into a senior community, and helping them navigate that move.
This can be a hard decision to make, and even harder to implement. Luckily, we found Beth Pratt. Beth has worked in the industry for her entire career. She knows the good, the bad, and the ugly of what goes on, and she shares it with us today.
One thing I dislike about too many martial arts books is how much they focus on...well...martial arts. The truth is, details of technique for punching, kicking, stabbing, shooting, choking, and avoiding all of those things when they're aimed at you are the least important aspects of self-defense.
David Kahn is one of the world's leading experts on the martial art Krav Maga, which has a somewhat deserved reputation of being one of the worst offenders in that category....but David, and his new book recently published by YMAA, are different. My conversation with David included a little bit of martial arts geekery, but focused mainly on the techniques, mindset, and knowledge we need as parents to avoid ever having to use martial arts. Which is what the goal should be in the first place.
The problem with about half the martial arts teachers in the world is that they're training and teaching for the wrong reasons.
No...that's not entirely fair. They're training and teaching for reasons that don't mesh well with the needs of parents. They're in it for the sport, or for warrior fantasies, or some other goal that doesn't fit with the intelligent self-defense and protective strategies you need when you're responsible for children.
Sifu Alan Baker is part of the other half. He's widely trained, highly experienced, and _gets it_. We had a great conversation about what self-defense really looks like when you have the responsibilities of a parent, and what you and I can do today to become safer people and more effective protectors.
For a child, trauma can mean the death of friend, divorcing parents, extensive bullying, or even failing a test. The "worthiness" of the upset isn't important -- it's how upset our child is, and how well we help them manage the stress, anxiety, and grief from that trauma.
Dianne Maroney has worked with children throughout her career, and especially focused on helping parents without mental health backgrounds become powerful and empowering resources for their kids. Her Image Project is a set of exercises and workbooks that help children acknowledge difficult feelings without letting them control their lives.
She was kind enough to come on the show today to tell us about the Imagine Project in particular, and helping children through trauma in general. It was an enlightening conversation I'm sure you will find helpful.
Food allergies, including life-threatening intolerances, impact 1 in 13 children in the developed world. This means there are 2 impacted children in every classroom. Whether your child has a food allergy or intolerance, or you want to be helpful to your child's classmates or friends, it's important to know the realities and best practices surrounding this issue.
Allergy Amulet has invented an impressive device that can detect even trace amounts of common allergens. Their star Meg Nohe came on to talk about the device, and about allergy safety in general. It was a great conversation with a smart, knowledgeable person for whom food allergies aren't just a calling -- they're personal.
