Back-to-School Safety Tips Every Parent Needs with Cathy Pedrayes

0:04 I would still be cautious of what kind of information I give about my kid to. The AI, knowing that, you know, it's not private, right? Welcome back to the Running Wine Mom podcast. I'm your host, Samantha Slinsky, aka the Running Wine Mom. I'm so excited because back by popular demand, Kathy Pedraez is here again. If you missed our first conversation, episode 75, Kathy is the safety expert behind Kathy Pedraez, the signature blue dress and pearls, former QVC host, and the author of the Mom Friend Guide to Everyday Safety and Security. Kathy is an expert about staying safe online. So today we're going to dive deep into back to school safety tips every mom needs. So Kathy, welcome back.

0:48 Thank you. I can't believe episode 75. Was that the, that was the OG episode? Yes. And we are, this will probably be, I think this will be episode like 151. So you'll, you're double the episodes have happened. No, that's great. Back to school. Yeah, I know. It's been already in my district where we've been hit with so much stuff. And we will definitely get into that. But first, let's start with what every mom does the first day of school photos. And a lot of them go online. We're posting them. We're so excited to share. What should we not be posting when we're taking these photos?

1:32 You know what else I've seen this year that's along the same vein as the AI photos? And I would just, you know, caution that with the AI chat, like it's, I think it's a great idea to make the little billboards so that you can keep it privately your first. Day of school, whatever. But I would still be cautious of what kind of information I give. about my kid to the AI knowing that, you know, it's not private, right? So that's something to throw out there. But I think in general information, whether it's on a chalkboard, whether it's something you created in an AI bot or something, you know, you're just writing with your hand, information that I wouldn't post publicly is names, school, I don't even like sharing grade. Well, I don't like being.

2:13 Specific about grade level, although that's a little, but like I typically say like preschooler or like my elementary, I try to be like a little bit vague. I also don't share like birthdays. I also personally, there's a lot of considerations now about sharing kids' faces publicly because AI has gotten so good at piecing together all these little bits of information. And I know it's like, it sucks because Watching kids grow up on the internet is like, you know, whether they're your kids or your friends' kids, it's... It's one of like the small joys we have, right? Like kids are so innocent and they do like these cute things and it's so enjoyable. And it's like not fair that we have to think about this in like a creepy way. But it is something that a lot of parents are thinking about now. And it's something that I've personally made the decision for my family. I mean, you know, I don't have a private profile or anything like that.

3:06 So those are considerations too. So for my profile. I don't post my kids because it's a public, like large profile. If I had a private profile with just like my closest 50 friends or something. Then, you know, maybe I'd be a little bit more open to it. But there's honestly at this point, like you have to really reconsider posting anything. But the way I do it, by the way, is I take pictures that are like for my family. And then I'll take pictures that are a public version of it. So for example, a more private version. Of a back to school post. Would be the kid, like maybe you have the kid's backpack or the kid just with their back to like the door. And then you have like their favorite stuffed animals in front of them. And like a little back to school, you know, that's like a cute way of sharing it without sharing, you know, too many personal details or the face. So there are ways to still share without taking on all.

3:59 The risks, you know, you're trying to mitigate it a little bit. And so maybe not so much online, but a lot of times, like I know my kids get like a tag for their book bag that'll have their name on it. Or you have the like really cute pottery barn, you know, names that are sewn on. How do you manage that? Or everything has to be labeled like Do you think that's okay? Yes. Or do you think that's still. Honestly, I think it's probably mostly okay. It creeps me out. Because, like, if my kid was walking to school by themselves in New York City, I wouldn't do that because. That's way too much information to way too many strangers. But if I'm dropping off my preschooler every single day, then the risk is like much more small, much smaller, right?

4:45 Because I'm physically walking them to the classroom, the backpack afterwards is physically coming with me staying in the car. So I think that's a consideration. But Another reason why I personally don't love them, I like the luggage tags. I also use the blue painter's tape, the thick one, and I just put that on the lunchbox so that I don't have to label it. But I don't like personalizing stuff because it makes it harder to reuse. I know with the older ages, sometimes it's hard to reuse the bags and stuff like that. But with the younger ones, they may not really destroy it. And so I don't like personalizing stuff because it makes it harder to pass down. The only things I like to personalize are things that I am going to keep forever, like a baby bib. Or I think when they go, if they do sleepaway camp, then I don't think you really have a choice.

5:27 Yeah, very true. Okay, that's good. Yeah, I always wondered if that's like, should that be something or should that not? Yeah, I don't think there's any... like any real life incident tied to it. I think it's just, not that I found anyways, I think it's just, we think about it in a creepy way and we're probably right. Yeah. So can you talk to us about back to school data privacy, school apps, portals, school issue devices? What should parents be paying attention to? Yeah. You know, It's tough because those devices do have a lot of data. And I believe it's in California right now, like the Google Chromebooks and the data that they collect on students. There's like an active lawsuit about that because, you know, the companies say we don't collect or it's just for basic.

6:13 You know, usage of the device. And then other people are saying, well, is it really? And so they're litigating that. But I think as a parent, the school should be having, it should have their settings on there, right? But I would always go through the settings. Boost all the top notch stuff, the two factor authentication, all of that. I would also, well, I don't know if there's a way, I would limit what, when they can use that device, right? Like, so if this is their school device and you're using it for homework, but you know that you don't have the same parental controls on it as you do as your home devices, you use it for the thing and then it goes away and then you use your home devices. where you know you have more control, you can see more things, etc.

6:56 Another thing for older kids, and this is more like when they're, you know, about to graduate, but just something to keep in mind is that your, you know, your Google accounts, you don't own them, right? The district owns them. So if you have important notes or essays or anything like that, that you want copies of, because you want to, you know, you're going to college and you want to reference or whatever, you're probably going to lose all of that unless you back it up before. You hand everything in. So that's not really like a data privacy security thing, but it is something to keep in mind in general. Like, you know, it's not a private account. So don't upload weird things that you wouldn't want to be you know, compromised at some point just in case.

7:37 Yeah, that's so, so true. And how about, I know in the tri-state area, there's been some cyber attacks happening with the school computers and systems. Should we be freaking out about this? What do we do about that? You know, it is a little scary because when you think of school critical systems going down, like that makes me think, how can they react in emergency situations? Like what other systems do they have in place? But I would say other than, you know, those like very logistical concerns. And I think in my school, they boosted like police presence and stuff like that. At least when I went by, it seemed like there were more. But, you know, I don't know if officially that was the case or it just it just felt felt that way.

8:17 When I went by. But but, you know, these ransomware attacks or cyber attacks on schools are very common. They happen almost every day. To be fair, they have decreased a little bit since last year on K-12 schools. They've increased on higher ed and decreased a little bit, like I believe it's 9% on K-12 schools. But a decrease of attacks that are happening almost every day is like, you know, So it was 25 times and now it's 20. Fine, whatever. But it still happens all the time. And the risk with schools is that there's a lot of people connected to their systems, right? They have a lot of vendors. They have a lot of employees. The little, you know, a lot of parents, everybody is connected.

8:58 And all it takes is one person clicking one bad phishing link, you know, and it could bring a system down if they're not set up properly. So a few things that I would encourage parents to do is actually ask their schools like what their response is. If they have a plan in place, are they backing things up properly? Because actually CISA has a free K-12 cybersecurity guide online. It has tools for parents, but it also has tools for kids. I mean, for the schools and tells them like, this is what you should have in place. This is how you should respond. A whole bunch of resources. And it's free. And they did that because they know a lot of schools don't have resources. you know, resources for cybersecurity professionals on staff and all of that.

9:38 So they did the work and just handed it off. So that's one thing, you know, that's just like high level kind of how could the district respond. And then on a parent's perspective. You know, a lot of times these districts, at least what we found locally, is they're not sharing much information because they're in a tight spot, right? They're still investigating. They still probably don't know everything. But also if they are negotiating with a ransomware gang, like they probably don't want to show them, hey, this is what we know you got or don't have, or, you know, they don't want to show all their cards. But from a parent's perspective, you're like, well, what is going on? What data, if any, was, you know, access and you want it all to be, you know, you want the answers immediately because it's your kid. So I would say like, just know that that is normal kind of procedure. And I wouldn't freak out about it because honestly, whether it's their school today, their school in college, their pediatric, you know, my kid, my eldest had their first data breach by four because a healthcare provider got leaked, you know?

10:31 And so, it sucks. Because obviously we want to protect that data, but the biggest risks are, you know, fraud, child identity theft is still very real. So freezing the credit, which for kids is a pain because you have to send copies that you are an authorized representative. You have to mail the forms and it's a pain. And, Also, there's a little bit of discomfort of having to put that information in the mail. But the risk of something happening to it in the mail is much lower than like the fraud risk. So you just have to, you know, kind of weigh that out. And then in general, when something like that happens is, you know, just be aware that you could get more phishing links, right? Like imagine a school system being down and then a parent getting a text from an unknown number saying, you know, this is the so-and-so school.

11:16 Make sure you register here for emergency. contact whatever and you know you're already in a place of confusion where parents don't know the regular things not working you know and all it takes is a couple people to register to give up you know access to put a password and it's a reused password that works on their bank you know So I would just be aware of any of. That kind of stuff. Because once one of these gangs or something has your information, they often claim it online. So like the criminals know this school district is down because of. A perfect, perfect target. Now, I don't know that they're that coordinated, right? Like some of them are just, but they could be. They could be. If it were me, I would coordinate. They could be.

11:57 Yeah. So. you know, they also might. Be missing an opportunity and fingers crossed that, you know, but it's something to just be aware of because you can imagine it's not that hard for somebody to send a text like that and that they get a few clicks out of an entire school district. So true. So I want to kind of go into maybe school group chats. I even, the other day, I got an invite for like a birthday party. It looked like, you know, whatever, the Evite. And it was not from the Evite. And then, you know, there's location sharing on apps like Snapchat. Like, what do parents need to know about this? Yeah. There's also that new one, the Valid app, where you like compliment your friends through a link. It's weird. I can't think of any situation where you need to anonymously compliment people.

12:40 I've not heard of that. Yeah. And what happens is the way they compliment people, right, is like, oh, well, if the least attractive one in the class is getting all the compliments, right, like it becomes or, you know, you have the girl who develops early and, you know, it basically becomes another way to... screw with people socially. So, I mean, I would say, honestly, the best you can to minimize all of these extra apps that they're downloading, like, I know that the Snapchat is like a common group chat one and, you know, eventually they grow into social media, you know, but I would limit as much as possible because the other things with these apps is you don't know who's behind them, right? Like, every additional app is an additional... data breach is an additional source of data collection. So even if it's not used for bullying or any of the weird social stuff in school, which it definitely is, especially in middle school, like they are, it is like such a horrible time in a young adolescent's life or in our lives too.

13:43 We just think of all the terrible things that people did. I think in my school, people used to. Line up on both sides of the hallway and just bark at anyone that walked in. And like, it was just weird. It's like a weird time. It's so weird. And it was like to be intimidating, you know? So anyways, aside from all of that stuff, like additional apps means additional risks. So if you just take the perception of like, I'm just going to minimize as much as possible, we're just going to do, you know, the ones that I know are run by, I know the company behind these. Like, I know that they're big companies that have, you know, big security. Stuff in place and all of that. None of the new weird ones. And then also like when they are on these apps, obviously you want to do the two-factor authentication. You want to pay attention to their passwords because kids are notoriously terrible you know, just doing their dog and their birthday or something. And it's happened where, you know, I knew a girl in, I think this was middle school in Florida, where, you know, her Snapchat got hacked. And she had some like kind of risque photos in the camera roll with the boyfriend at the time. And like she lost them.

14:51 They weren't posted. They were in her drafts. But still that now that's in the hands of somebody else. So I would always boost all the security stuff, but then also make sure, you know, most importantly. Is to talk to your kids about this stuff. Talk to your kids about the risk. Talk to your kids about like how these things are not private because they feel private. They're on our phone. We are only texting our friends, but a lot of them are not encrypted. It's not private and you can lose access at any time. All it takes is a friend getting hacked. that then sends you one of those, oh, hey, did you see this? This person left you a compliment with this link, and then you click on it. And now you're hacked to well, once not just clicking on the link, but like once you go through the steps, you know, and then you lose access to everything. So I think one of the biggest, there's a lot of risks when we talk about.

15:37 Online stuff, right? There's data, there's scams, there's, you know, like the scarier stuff with grooming and all of that. But the most important. Thing, even with the most extreme like sexploitation cases, like, you know, you're talking federal government level type cases, the most important successful tactic at like mitigating the risks has been having a kid who feels comfortable talking to their parents when they make mistakes, when they do. Things that are shameful. You know, I told you not to send the nude. You sent the nude. You know, like that really. And I have actually spoken recently to people in the federal government who oversee these cases. And they're like, yes, that is the number one thing you can do. I mean, of course, you do all the security prevention and whatever, but conversations.

16:24 Is really key. not just with the scam stuff, but like the really big stuff too. Yeah. Wow. That's, that's so important. So I, you know, as we said, I wanted to have you on for like a quick combo. I didn't want to overwhelm parents and, you know, go through every single detail and you've given us so many great tips already, but if you could leave maybe parents with one safety takeaway from everything you teach, you know, coming into this new school year, what do you think that it would be? It would be number one, not to freak out because a lot of the parenting instincts are the same, right? Like, you know, The things that you would teach kids like in the 50s, in the 90s, whatever. A lot of the parent stuff is the same. It just changes. Like the stranger danger isn't about the man in the van in the parking lot so much anymore. Now it's about how do we interact with strangers, which we do every single day. But how do we do it appropriately online or, you know, whatever it might be.

17:17 So I would say your instincts are good and lean into that. But but also don't like freak out about it. Right. Like because you are like I want people to feel confident that they already know what to do. So I would say do that. Be familiar with what some of the apps are. You know, if your kid is coming to you with a new. App, talk about it. What is it? Use it together. You know, look it up online before agreeing to it. All of that. I'm sure, you know, all the big social media ones and all of that. But, you know, there's like this new valid one. And then last I would, well, and then I would say do the security settings with any app, always look through the security. So trust your instincts, look up the apps and then whatever app you're on, boost all the security settings. And then the last one would be, and the most important, honestly.

17:59 Is to have those ongoing conversations. Because as I mentioned, you know, I've had conversations with really severe cases and it's the number one prevention tool for most of parents' concerns. And the good news is you already know how to do that. So you have conversations every day. It's just a matter of, you know, like one of the things that really helps is the no trouble rule. I forget. There's different ways that people address it. But, you know, like basically telling your kid that if you come to me telling me the truth about, a thing, even if you broke a rule. But if you're coming to me for help, like you're not going to be in trouble for that. That's not to say there's never consequences, you know, but just knowing that they can come to you in any situation or even giving them a secondary adult that you trust, you know, maybe there's an aunt.

18:46 that they can go to if they're really not comfortable coming to you. Just like a plan A, plan B. But to honestly talking about it, talking about what are the risks? What does it look like? What are the red flags? That builds your muscle memory so that when you see it, you're prepared. Awesome. Well, that was, I know that wasn't one thing, but. No, listen, that's okay. More than one thing. Everything that you said was so true. I learned as always from you. I love having these conversations because I learned so much about safety from you. So thank you so much for coming on. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks for having me. And like I said, the conversations, that's the number one. That's the number one. I love it. So as always, thank you for spending time with us today on The Running Wine Mom. Don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with a mom who needs to hear it. You can follow me on Instagram at TheRunningWineMom underscore. And Kathy, where can the listeners find you?

19:38 Kathy Pedraez, but Kathy with a C. So if you put Kathy P, I should come up. Perfect. And I will link that in the show notes. So thank you for joining us today. Remember, you are strong, you are capable. and you are all amazing. Until next time, keep running, keep your safety in check, and keep embracing the joy of motherhood. Cheers, and I will be back next Tuesday.