Eps 55: Jo Langford Talks Porn, Sexting and Social Media

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Casey O'Roarty 0:00
This is the joyful courage parenting Podcast, episode 55

Hey friends, welcome back to the joyful courage parenting podcast. Thank you for listening. Thank you for returning. Hello. Hello to my new listeners. Welcome. You picked a doozy of a show to listen to for your first time. My guest today is Joe Langford, and he is a sex educator, therapist, all around, amazing guy, and we're going to talk about porn. I know, oh my gosh, we're talking about porn. We're talking about social media etiquette. We're talking about sexting. So if you got kids in the car and this is coming out loud and proud of your speakers, you might want to pick a time when you can wear your earbuds and listen to this without little ears listening in. You know this, this is the real reality of the world that we live in. Our culture is super sexualized. And you know when I know that, and we talk about this in the show, but when we think about porn, you think about like, those really lovely, low budget videos. But you know, consider some of the advertising that are in magazines or on commercials or in catalogs, and sex is everywhere. It's in front of our kids all the time. And for some of us, it's really disconcerting when our kids want to talk about it, talk about what they're looking at, or what they want to be looking at, or have questions and are curious. And you know, this tends to be really uncomfortable for the grown ups. So Joe was coming on to have a really wonderfully candid conversation with me about how to navigate all that, how to stay in relationship, how to set ground rules and guidelines so that our kids can have an easier go of it. We cannot have our heads in the sand people. We cannot pretend to think that somehow we can keep our kids from seeing, you know, body parts, naked images we you know, this is not the world we live in. It's easier now for kids to see porn than it has ever been. So how about we have some conversations about it. I'm super, super, super glad to get to talk to Joe, and I know that you'll find value in this conversation as well. So without further ado, let's meet Joe.

Hi Joe. Welcome to the joyful courage parenting podcast.

Jo Langford 2:43
Hey, Casey, thanks for having me.

Casey O'Roarty 2:44
I'm so glad that you're here and excited for our conversation. Would you please let the listeners know who you are, who your family is, and how you have found yourself doing what you do?

Jo Langford 2:56
Sure I am I. My name is Joe Langford. I'm a therapist and a sex educator here in the Pacific Northwest Area, I'm the dad of two kids, a boy and a girl, middle schooler and an almost middle schooler. And I have been working with other people's teenagers for the last 20 years, basically since I was one. I went to a pretty progressive at the time high school that had a handful of master's level therapists that they had come in and train some of us teenagers so that if a kid at school didn't want to talk to a grown up, they could come and talk to us, and we had direct supervision from these kind of grown up therapists. Made me think I could change the world and make it better, and I kind of have been doing that ever since then. I've worked in group homes, hospitals, case management, foster care. I've had a private practice for about 18 years, and for about six of that, I've been doing kind of more public speaking, going out to schools and agencies like Planned Parenthood, YMCA, Boys and Girls Club, and kind of helping do trainings for staff and stuff there.

Casey O'Roarty 4:03
Yeah, tell us a little bit about the trainings that you do.

Jo Langford 4:07
Mostly it's, you know, kind of talking to the staff or school people about how to handle sexuality phenomenon with kids. So my that's

Casey O'Roarty 4:19
a nice way to put it like that, my

Jo Langford 4:23
wheelhouse is basically that that section where adolescence and sexuality and technology sort of mash together, which is happening more and more these days. So I deal with a lot of sexting, cyber bullying, pornography, social media, those kinds of things.

Casey O'Roarty 4:40
Yeah, and I think that with our kids spending more and more time on their devices, I think that that training for the grown ups is so important. I was talking to somebody recently just about how, what was I talking to them about? Oh, well, I. Our mutual friend Amy Lang, recently, when she was on the show, mentioned, you know, it's harder for our kids to stay away from pornography or to not find it than it is from when we were kids to be able to find it. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So what are some things that are showing up with families that you're working with around this topic? Actually,

Jo Langford 5:19
that's the bulk of the calls that I'm getting from families. My typical client right now is a family calls me and they've got a kid between 10 and 16, and they are looking a lot of porn. They find out. The parents talk about it, they make rules, whatever. And the kid keeps going back, so having a hard time unplugging, like you said, from that specifically about the porn or the sexting, yeah,

Casey O'Roarty 5:47
well, so what's happening there?

Jo Langford 5:51
It is like the place that the monkey boys took Pinocchio, or the donkey boys took Pinocchio. It's just kind of madness. You know, kids are kind of doing it in reverse now, in a weird way. Rather than getting to know each other and being shy and being awkward and asking each other out and then maybe eventually seeing each other without their clothes on, there's starting at the end point and working their way back to, like, actual intimacy and going on dates.

Casey O'Roarty 6:19
Yeah, oh god,

Jo Langford 6:21
yeah.

Casey O'Roarty 6:23
Okay. Listeners, hold on. Okay, hold on, because we're entering into the dark zone here. So, you know, when I have I've got a son and a daughter, and there's definitely I had one conversation with my son a while back, and he said, you know, mom, sometimes when I'm online, there's little things that'll pop up that say, Click here to see naked girls, you know. And then immediately I'm like, Darn it, I have failed the parent protective software installation need, but, you know? And he says, and I kind of want to click on it, you know, and, and so we get to talk about that, and, and, and talk about how one thing that seat might seem innocent, or even just being on like he loves to watch Dude Perfect on YouTube, or Studio C, he's got his little YouTube shows, but scrolling down the side of the screen are all these other shows. And, you know, he's a curious kid, just very typically curious kid, and it's so easy for them to stumble upon things. And what I always, you know, what I have told him is, you know, there's this thing, and it's called pornography, and it's pictures and videos of grown ups having sex. But it's not even normal sex. It's, it's this whole, you know, it's kind of this elaborate, weird fantasy sex. And I said, and your brain is not equipped to handle it. And I said, and one time, you and if you see it, you can't ever unsee it, which is, you know, something for him that spoke to him, I'm, yeah, yeah, because he's like, even if it's something scary, he's like, I can't stop thinking about it. I said, so if you're going into that direction, you know, it'll be something that'll be really hard for you to stop thinking about, how do you coach parents around having conversations with kids?

Jo Langford 8:09
Well, I was really struck by your self talk, like you just said, Oh, I failed right now. You didn't fail like, you know, seven years ago, you know, that was kind of the conversation, you know, was still sort of like, how do I set up controls? How do I protect my kid from being exposed to this stuff? But it's not that. It hasn't been that conversation for a while. Really, it's, how do you handle it when it happens? That's what the conversation is. Now, Nobody escapes it anymore. There's, there's no kid that makes it through middle school without being exposed to porn in some form. It just doesn't happen anymore, statistically.

Casey O'Roarty 8:44
Well, I mean, even ads on I mean, there's, you know, if we're gonna define what porn is, I mean, there's like, advertisements in magazines, advertisements on TV that are so sexualized. Oh yeah. I mean, they're not like the, you know, the super quality videos that you can find online, but there's

Jo Langford 9:02
everything story. Last summer, I was I went to a 711 right? I was at a 711 and they still have those stupid little plastic dividers on the magazines behind the counter. And I was like, what is happening? Like, is this still a thing? Like all the 12 year olds are sitting out in the parking lot with their Slurpees and their phones looking at porn like they don't. Nobody I haven't. It's been years and years since I had a kid who even bothered to deal with still images like that doesn't that's not a thing. There's Abercrombie and Fitch catalogs that are more scandalous than whatever you find to find those dividers. So it's really it's just about, how do you handle it when it happens? Is what I talk to parents about, and what you're doing is exactly what it is. You just have an open conversation, and your kid can say, Hey, there's this stuff. It's called porn, and I'm kind of interested in it. That is more than half the battle, right? Because that what happens is the kids who who kind of combine it with secrecy and shame. That's where some of the real problems come out with it, if they're just talking about it and being curious, which is totally their job, right? That's in their job description. And you say exactly what you said. When I talk to kids about it, I say that isn't sex, right? What you're looking at, what you're watching like that is sexual, but it is not what sex looks like in real life. Yeah, people don't look like that. They don't say those things to each other. They don't do a lot of that stuff for the most part, or at least in that order, boys have a really hard time with that. Sometimes they you know, they don't think, you know. I say, Oh, you play Grand Theft Auto. Do you think you know how to drive a car? And they say, you know, of course, not that stupid, but they don't understand that there's that fictional leap as well. With porn, they think they know how to like do the sex, because I'm watching porn since I was nine, you know that kind of thing,

Casey O'Roarty 10:55
yeah, well, and I know that something that has been a godsend for me, with the stuff that's shown up in our house, as far as keeping the kids talking and making sure they come to me and ask questions, is practicing my neutral face, you know, and like really managing my own stuff that shows up when they say, Hey, I saw this, or Hey, I heard this, or, Hey, I have a question, and I have to, I have to remember the, you know, the long term is I want them to know that I can handle no matter what the things that they need to say to me, the things that they need to ask me. And so if I'm not in my calm, centered, zen place when he says things like, I kind of want to look at pictures of naked girls. Then, you know, then I know that he, he's registering this with, Oh, wow. Either, either he's thinking like, I must be bad for feeling like this, or I can't tell mom, because she'll freak out.

Jo Langford 11:55
Yeah, well, you know, that is super hard. Like, I have seen some stuff. I'll just tell you, right? I have seen some stuff, and I still have those moments, like with my own kids, where I'm just like, Okay, no, this would be happening quite yet. Haven't really stretched for that exercise, but let's go and trying to keep that poker face is so hard. But same thing, you lose it, you know? You just go, oh my god, really? And then you back it up and say, okay, thrown for a loop there, I'm back. Let's, let's have this conversation.

Casey O'Roarty 12:27
Yeah, yeah. So, so in that conversation, and you had mentioned that you have families where they come to you, and this is happening, and this and it's, you know, like you said, they've had, the conversations, you've made, the the agreements, and yet that you know, that child continues to return to this, the world of Neverland, or whatever that crazy Island was called, that Pinocchio got lured to, um, how are you like? What is happening? I guess I'm gonna back up and what happens in the brain when kids are exposed to, to porn, do you know? Well,

Jo Langford 13:05
it definitely kicks off the pleasure centers in the brain, right? So sort of like this big hit of its dopamine, right? It's kind of big hit of dopamine. It's intriguing, and it's new, and it's interesting, and it's kind of naughty, and they sort of know that, and it's you know, stuff that they've heard about, and they're actually getting to see it in real life. Then they get to tell their friends about it tomorrow, like all that stuff, gets kind of fired up with it. And then, if they keep doing it, then thinking the brain can get a little desensitized to it. And so they want the next thing, like, what's the next level, or the next plateau? You can get to that sort of thing. Some people, you know, sort of believe in technology addiction. I'm not a therapist that definitely believes in that, but some of the some of the activities, especially in the brain, can mimic some of that stuff, including withdrawal, in a weird way. So talking to the kids about building boundaries, really is, is kind of the biggest conversation when I'm dealing with kids who are doing this, right? So one is the reality testing and just saying, This isn't real, right? And two is to be encouraging them to go and and and be finding relationships and being social and being active with teams and groups in real life as well, so they're not falling into the, you know, all my self esteem, all of my social needs are being met through a screen. We don't want that. And then being able to work with them about just creating boundaries, right? How to unplug almost as often as the porn conversation I get kids coming in with the sexting is really hard for them too, especially, you know, I've had a handful of boys in the last year, where it's girls sending them pictures, and they they're just like, I don't know how to tell them to stop. They just keep coming. And they keep coming, and they keep coming, and I can't not look at them. And what do I do? And how do I, you know, make this thing stop, right? It's almost feels like a like an ocean wave that just sort of keeps coming. Their basement is flooding. They can't stop it, yeah? So that's that's really hard, too. And so some of it's about, you know, finding time at a certain time, at night you unplug, where does the phone live? It lives downstairs, not in your bedroom. You know, just kind of creating some sort of rules and guidelines for themselves,

Casey O'Roarty 15:18
yeah. And I'm guessing, for the parents that are listening. Well, I'm guessing they're all parents listening, you know, not waiting until you need to set guidelines, but setting them straight off the bat. I was, you know, I was foolish enough to think that we had a conversation around phones in the bedroom, and one of my kids was like, Mom, I just use it as an alarm. And I believe that when she when we had this discussion, that was the truth. But sure enough, after some time, she was I busted her texting, not, you know, she was texting a girlfriend like it wasn't a big deal, but still, it was well into the night, and it had been happening for a couple nights. I think I nipped it pretty early on, but it just reminded me, like, just because it was uncomfortable for me to, you know, because she'd say things like, you don't, how can you not trust me? Like you have to trust me. And so finally, we got to this point of like, well, you know what? It's not about trusting you. It's about not you at 13. Do not need the added pressure of policing yourself around your device when you should be sleeping like you just don't need that does that's not a skill that you need to develop right now. That

Jo Langford 16:33
happened with my son last night. We were watching the movie, and he had a friend who was just, you know, texting to make the plan for today. But, you know, it binged and it binged again. And it being, it was like four times, kind of in the span of about 15 minutes, and every time it dinged, he picked up his device to look at it and and I said, it's a convenience. If it's not convenient, you don't have to respond every time that thing makes a noise. You know, sometimes you just have to give them permission to to do that. The other thing that is really hard to remember is, for so many kids now, their first experiences, and the first several years of dealing with screens and technology, it's fun and entertainment and game and distraction and free time, and, you know, all that stuff. And then at some point, which I think is probably around 10 or 11, we have to shift gears and remind them, like, okay, it's been fun and games until now. But these things are actually tools that you use to make your life easier or more organized or, you know, helpful, and you kind of have to help them shift gears like that in a weird way. And so many parents, I think it doesn't occur to them to have that specific conversation with them. Yeah, so

Casey O'Roarty 17:45
important. So going back to porn, so with these, with if anybody's listening, who's thinking like, oh my gosh, this is so helpful, because I am in that situation where I'm trying to help my child monitor themselves and and you know, and recognize that it is a problem, and how to help them and support them when it has become kind of this desensitized, habitual thing, what you know? What are some other ways that you coach parents around that? So I heard you say, you know, helping them to create boundaries. And do you? Are you a big supporter of the, the software that, what is it called? I can't even think of what it would be called, the software, you know, the staff, the parent protection.

Jo Langford 18:38
Yeah, I am. And more, I tend to be more of a fan of monitoring software rather than blocking software, because, you know, in my experience, it's it's it's easy to not look at the porn if you can't look at the porn. But then once those kids go to their friend's house for the weekend, or they leave home and go to college or whatever, and they don't have controls, then they go bananas, right, right?

Whereas the monitoring software the kids can go look at this stuff if they want to go look at this stuff, but then they know that somebody's watching, and they're going to have to have an awkward conversation tomorrow night with tomorrow night with mom or dad, right? And that builds muscles of restraint and self control, right? Which is what we want. You know, I was talking to a group of parents, and I said, you know, do you do we want to raise good kids, or do we want to raise good grownups? Those different things. And I think when most of us take a step back and kind of take our deep breath, we're trying to raise good grownups. That's why we do all this hard stuff, right?

Casey O'Roarty 19:49
Yeah, for sure. Oh, I love that. What is what monitoring software do you recommend? So

Jo Langford 19:54
personally, I'm I do a couple of things. So one is called Custodio with. Q, Q, U, S, T, i, d, i, o, something like that. Custody, and they do a good job, because it just goes over your Wi Fi, and you can control it. From there, you can basically take off your web browser of your kids device and put custodial on instead. And then they go through custodial to get to the internet, and you get a report every day that says, these are all the places they went. This is how much time they spent, shopping, social networking, whatever, surfing the web. And you can put lots of controls, time limits on it, all that kind of stuff in a really, pretty easy to do way. And the other thing that I'm using, which I am really, really enjoying more, I think, even than custodial, is Disney's circle. It's called circle by Disney, and that is a super easy to use. You just like, take out a box and plug it in and it it hooks up to your Wi Fi, and then you put all the devices that are using your Wi Fi into a category so they can be grown up, teenager, younger kid. You can tie it to specific people. You know, that's my wife's Kindle, son's iPad, like, that kind of thing. And then, and you can put time limits on it, even for specific things, so you can have an hour a day and 15 minutes of that can be Instagram, like those kinds of things. It's great. And they just have an upgrade, where you can do it over 3g as well, where it's not that's not just why, when they're using it somewhere else, if they're not using Wi Fi, and have a time limit on there as well. And the thing I like about it is when someone else comes in or uses your Wi Fi, you get an alert that says, hey, there's another device on your Wi Fi. Oh, my kid's friend just came in the house. Okay, bam. And you put it into a category, you can lock it down even so that they can't do anything that you aren't comfortable with other under your supervision kind of thing. Oh,

Casey O'Roarty 21:59
great. Is there are. Now, you know, kids are super tech savvy, and as much as I like to think that my kids aren't sneaky, I would be an idiot to say that out loud, even though I just did. But what are the are there, you know, are there go arounds for some of this? Because what I'm hearing you so, like the castio. So is that like in place of a safari app or a Chrome app? Okay, so, you know, so I'm wondering, like, I'm thinking about my kids and like, or any kid, and I know that one of the conversations I had with another guest, Emily Roberts, she talked about apps that are actually that pose as one thing, but really are ways for kids to get into mischief. Are the are these pretty well made, as far as you know, keeping them from finding the loopholes or they

Jo Langford 22:58
can, depending on how your parental controls are set on there, and they could go and delete it off of your off their device, though, I think you would get an alert if that. Oh, good idea. They could do that.

Casey O'Roarty 23:11
Okay, you can only do the best we can do, right? Yeah, you can

Jo Langford 23:14
only do the best you can do. Really, honestly, the best strategy is to put a lot of the onus of the responsibility on the kids, right? So I'm a big fan of that. And if you've been to my website, you know, I'm a huge fan of contracting with kids around behavior. I think kids need boundaries. I think they want to know what the rules are. They want to know what the speed limit is when they drive that kind of thing, right? So putting some of the responsibility on them, like you said earlier. You know, your daughter says, Oh, you don't trust me. That's not what this is about. You know what I mean? When that I get a lot of parent calls about that too, right? My kid played the trust card, right? What do I do? I hate that one. You you flip it back. You say, this is not about me trusting you. This is about you showing me that you're trustworthy, right? Those are different things, and it puts the responsibility back on them. Yeah, so coming up with contracts for families, and if I can pitch myself a little bit, pitch it on my website, which is beheroes.net there's a resource page, and on that resource page there's a whole armada of like these really detailed do's and don'ts, yeses and no's for different things. And one of them is about porn. One's about social networking. There's one about sexting, all kinds of things on there, drugs, alcohol. So kind of using those as templates. They're free PDFs that people can just download, and then you can kind of cut and paste and make your own, you know, contract for your own family. But one of the big things that's in that contract that I suggest families have is saying, you know, this is your responsibility, it's your tool, and these are your rules. And if you're spending more time sneaking around and trying to get around the rules than just following the damn rules, then we're going to have to back. Could talk about have a different conversation, find those apps, and they're out there. You know what I mean? That look like calculators, but really they hide your naked pictures that you share with your friends. When you find those things on your kid's phone, then that's a whole set of conversations you have to have with them. And maybe, you know, they're not old enough to have the smartphone right now, or we'll try again on your next birthday, you know, that kind of thing? Yeah, I think

Casey O'Roarty 25:22
that's so key too, I think, and it doesn't have to come out as a threat, no, um,

Jo Langford 25:29
like they want to be treated like grown ups. They want the responsibility. They want to drive, they want to have a smartphone, they want to have a bank account. They want those things. So you have to say, okay, great. And that means that that my expectation of you is that you'll be acting like a responsible person to be driving or having a bank account, debit card or a smartphone like that's there's responsibility in that.

Casey O'Roarty 25:55
Yeah, and I, recently, I wrote a blog post about a little Snapchat incident? Well, it wasn't really an incident, other than she wasn't allowed to have Snapchat, and it turned out that she did. And you know, and I had a great conversation with my daughter about that, and in the end, I said, you know, Daddy and I are really open. I feel like we offer lots of opportunities for you to explore the world, I said. And when things show up and you decide to be a little bit sneaky or a lot sneaky, and we find out, you're just gonna notice that the world is gonna get a little bit more rigid, right? You know. And it wasn't delivered like you're gonna be in big trouble. It was really just like, that's the consequence, you know. And sometimes you might get sneaky and you won't get caught, you know. And that's you know. That is what it is. But just know, you know, the more often you choose to really push the rules, the more likely it is that, you know, we'll find out, and then you're gonna have to deal with the aftermath of that and you know. And sure, and it wasn't long where we got to, but the world became a little bit more rigid for her, and in the moment, it was a big outburst, and I'm supposed to break the rules. Yes, yeah, you're 13. It's totally developmentally appropriate that you're breaking the rules. And remember I said that the world gets a little bit more rigid. This is what it feels like, like you're in it right now, and that's okay, and we love you, and it's all good. You know, this is totally appropriate for you right now to be dealing.

Jo Langford 27:27
Yeah, I mean, at some point it just becomes factual. It's not about threats. You're just saying you you knew what the rule was. You snuck around. You got Snapchat anyway. Does that seem like the behavior of somebody who's mature enough to be on Snapchat, right? Do you look like a little kid or a kitty cat in a box trying to cover something up? Right? You know that your this is just your actions and your behavior that we're talking about.

Casey O'Roarty 27:49
And I love your I love these PDFs. They are I was saying before we hit record, you know? And I there's just, they're such great talking points. I think a lot of times, parents aren't really clear on how to have the conversations that they want to have, especially around stuff like porn. God wants to talk about that, but you've written it all out in a way that it's a great starting place to just put it on the table and say, I want to read through this with you, and I want, I want to know what you think. And you know, I'm a big I love agreements and contracts, and when we make agreements at our house, it's typically something that we've created together, versus me saying, here are the rules. You follow them. So I love this as far as starting the conversation, and then from here, you know, let's put something together for you. You know, that works for both of us. That comes that covers enough of all of this after we've had the conversation that it feels like we've come together to create something that works for our family. So I so appreciate all of this. Thank

Jo Langford 28:53
you. That is a really nice thing to say, but that's one of the one, one of the things I had in mind when I designed them was just to kind of hit all the points, like all the bases that one might want to cover, if their kids are getting their first smartphone, for example, that kind of thing. And using those with kids, like going back to the families who come in and the kids having a hard time unplugging or can't stop looking at the porn, giving the kids the list there, the PDFs, and giving it to them and saying, all right, you go, you know, you got two days you come up with what you think the rules should be for you to help you. And we'll and bounce them off of us, and we'll see what we think about, and then kind of, again, putting it on them and letting them come up with some of the guidelines and rules, because a lot of stuff that they haven't thought of, either Right,

Casey O'Roarty 29:40
right, sure. Or it just, you know, if it's early on, you know, talking about this with an 11 year old or a 13 year old is it's going to be different than with a 16 or a 17 year old. Yeah, it is. And I appreciate that, and I love that. At the very top of your PDF about smartphone use, it says, I understand that the smart. Phone is not my smartphone, yes, right? And I was reading somewhere that now when kids are getting into mischief around sexting and sharing, you know, naked or inappropriate images, the parents are being held responsible. They can be for sure, yeah, keep that in mind, peeps, keep that in mind. And so you also have a PDF around responsible social networking, right? And I will not speak negatively about my friends on my feed. That includes my exes, my parents, my teachers, my boss. I love that, and I think it's so important, right? Especially as they see other people making perhaps different choices on how they use their social media. I think it's so key to be having these conversations, front loading these conversations with our kids, and then returning to them. Just because you've had the conversation one time doesn't mean that, Okay, we're good, you know? Yeah.

Jo Langford 31:03
I mean, developmentally, kids change so quickly. We know this, right? So even just in six months, their attitude about something, or the number of words they've learned, or the number of people they know who are on Snapchat and they're not like, those kinds of things, change really fast. So trying to stay in front of that ball as much as you can is really important. But, you know, the internet is forever is a sentence I say more than most sentences in any given week and and so I really do believe that it's you leave a trail when you're interacting on screens. And it's really important to not, you know, look like a jackass or somebody who's rude and horrible. And, you know, especially now that it's an election year, right? Like, Facebook's getting weird. Twitter's getting a little scary. Like, you know, people are saying horrible things about people, and even talking to my kids, you know, about, you know, the candidates and stuff. Like, all right, are you just gonna, you know, make a joke and make fun of him because his hair looks stupid, or you're gonna talk about what he's actually talking about or believing in or espousing, you know what I mean, like, talk about the real stuff, not the superficial stuff, which feels a lot like cyberbullying. You know, things that grownups do online that if kids were doing it would fall into the category of cyberbullying, right? You know, this morning there was a clickbait thing like, you know, 14 child television stars who grew up looking horrible, right? Like, if someone did that in a middle school, right? That would be totally a cyber bullying issue, right? Why are grown ups doing this too? It's so hard to get kids to not do that when we're doing it ourselves, you know, yeah,

Casey O'Roarty 32:38
well, and that's totally speaks to the opportunities for modeling that we have all day long. Yes,

Jo Langford 32:44
exactly, yeah, all that. Don't text while you drive, you know, no tech at the dinner table, like all those kinds of things. You know, we want to be good role models, for

Casey O'Roarty 32:54
sure, for sure. What are some of the social media challenges that parents come to you with? What are some of the things that are showing up?

Jo Langford 33:04
Well, Snapchat is, is one, right? Snapchat is kind of a problem. I'm not a big fan of it, and

Casey O'Roarty 33:10
so, okay, let's, can we talk about Snapchat for a minute? For sure? I actually am on Snapchat trying to, well, first I thought maybe it's a whole nother way to reach parents, although I'm like, oh, there aren't very many parents on Snapchat. And then I thought, well, this will give me a chance to learn to navigate it for the day that comes when it becomes an option for my kids. So the main thing that sucks about Snapchat is, well, I know what I've hearing from parents. Is the worst part about it is there's no way to monitor what's happening, because it all disappears, or seemingly disappears.

Jo Langford 33:50
So there's a few things with Snapchat. One, it's it's more kind of in the deeper end of the pool, right? More kind of varsity level social networking on there. It is super crazy pants popular, right? Yeah, beaten Twitter out for, like, the number third spot for in terms of popularity with social media. So it's really tempting. It feels like the whole world is on Snapchat. But having a kid start out with Snapchat is a huge mistake, right?

Casey O'Roarty 34:21
Listen to that. Parents. Listen to that. Listen to that. Thank you.

Jo Langford 34:26
I was telling a kid in my office earlier this year, you know, I said, if you say, had never been to a restaurant and you went to this particular restaurant called Snapchat and people were like spitting food and throwing plates across the room, dancing on the tables, then you might think that's how you behave in a restaurant, but it is not so kids, really. They need to start with the Facebook, start with the Instagram, maybe Twitter, you know, and kind of wade into the social networking pool and learn how to appropriately interact with people, even though, like I said, this is an election year, so it's getting weird, but yeah, generally, most people are using. Powers for good on those sites, right, right? And when they're not, they stick out, right? Someone being a creep on Facebook, you can tell right. On Snapchat, you can't tell. There's so many people not following rules, not having appropriate behavior, that it's very confusing. So that's something for later teens, like 14, 1516, Snapchats working on their image. I think since they've gotten this huge popularity boost in the last year, they're trying, I think, to mature up a little bit. They're

Casey O'Roarty 35:32
tired of being at the top of the list of apps that parents shouldn't let their kids on. Yeah, they're, I

Jo Langford 35:37
think they're getting a sense like, oh, we could actually be an actual, legitimate contender for networking. So they're adding some news features and that kind of stuff, and trying to be less horrible and creepy, I guess, yeah. And I think that that can work, right? I think there's potential there, even though I don't really like Snapchat, so that's one of the things, and the and the other thing is that is ephemeral communication is what I call it, like messages that can disappear after a period of time, right? I don't really get that. It is not my thing. I'm not a fan, you know, unless you're like a spy or having an affair or something like, I don't know why you would need that, right? I don't have a need for that kind of stuff in my day to day life. I

uh. So it really feels like, like a mature take on mature behavior, right? And kids, I think it's so tempting, like then that gives them carte blanche to do whatever they want. Because why not? There's not going to be any consequence. Nobody will ever know, right? And it feels like a trap to me for them, yeah,

Casey O'Roarty 36:43
well, and I, you know, and when, so my daughter turned 13 in January, and, you know, for the last few years, has been asking about social media, and I have said, Oh, nope, you got to be 13, sorry. And that's the rule look on the website, and even though she would say, whatever, Mom, you know, and so, you know, as 13 approach, she had all these grand plans of being on all sorts of social media. And I said, ho, ho, ho. That's not the situation, you know. We're gonna we're gonna crack the door open and practice and play and see how it goes. And as you mature and show responsibility, the door will, you know, will open a little bit more and a little bit more. But I think that was really important too. And something that I remind parents of is just because you say, you know, yes, then we started with Instagram, because she didn't want to be on Facebook. She's like, Mom, that's your thing. But you know, Instagram, that's what her friends were on, and so, you know, it was like, Okay, well, we're gonna, we're gonna open the door a little bit and say yes to that, and have a, you know, check the privacy, and I get to be your friend, and I won't comment or like things, but I'm out there, which is super annoying to her, exactly

Jo Langford 37:58
what I tell parents to do, yeah. And

Casey O'Roarty 38:00
she says, Mom, you don't. You're just always watching 24/7 I've said, You know what Instagram is? It is not a private room. Yeah? You know it is? It is public, like, regardless of your profile being private, what you put on Instagram you're putting out to the world. And so, yeah, I am gonna check it out, and I'm not gonna read your your direct messages unless I feel like there's something calling for me to check it out, I said, But you know, as far as your your wall, or whatever they call it on Instagram, yeah, that's fair game. And like I said, I won't, I won't comment, I won't like I'll ask you before I tag you in my Instagram. But that's, you know, this is just the way it is. And I I notice, you know, and I kind of poke around and her friends stuff too, because so many of them have public accounts, and that's intriguing to me. And I get in there, and I'm like, What's going on with this kid, and what's happening here? And then the next thing I think is, why isn't there? Why doesn't their parent make them have private accounts? Like, where are the parents? Where are the parents? Joe, tell me, where are they? Is it just a lack of of knowing or or just not realizing the importance of being familiar with this stuff so that they can monitor or what's the deal?

Jo Langford 39:16
It's a bit of both. I think there's still parents out there that don't understand the amount of damage that somebody can do to themselves with social media. And then I think there's a good chunk of parents that are still kind of intimidated by it, right? They don't want to do Twitter. They don't know how this Twitter thing works and what it's all about, or how does this Instagram thing happen? And to that, I kind of say, you know, do it with your kid. When your kid is 13 and they've been wanting Instagram, then get on Instagram with them and learn how to do it together. Let your kid teach you how to do Instagram right? It can be a really cool bonding thing, and normalize interacting with each other through that particular social media, you know, with kids, you know, especially like, like you said, Your daughter was just like, oh, let's just. Let's hit this one and download this app. And download this app. No, no, just doing it is the whole point of why I don't want you on things like Snapchat, right? Like, come up with a plan. Like, tell me what, what are you trying to accomplish? What do you want to do with your social media, and then which of the apps is going to help you do that thing and kind of remind them of the utility of the social media, right?

Casey O'Roarty 40:24
Well, and I'm also interested in like, what you said about the boys that you've seen over the last couple years who are being inundated with, like, boob picks. And knowing that I was having this call with you, I was looking over your PDFs this morning and and I just kind of hollered out to my son. I said, Hey, Ian, don't ever send anyone a picture of your penis. And he was like, oh my god, Mom,

Jo Langford 40:50
what did you learn that word?

Casey O'Roarty 40:52
Why are you saying that? You know, I'm like, just, just throwing it out there. But, you know, it's one thing to to have conversation and to really help them, you know, understand that it is not okay to be sending their own junk around the world. But how do we help them? Because, you know, they open a text and there it is,

Jo Langford 41:13
yeah, you know, the sexting thing is really hard. You know, statistically, you know, somewhere between 20% and a third of all teenagers have sent scandalous pictures of themselves. The numbers double for just texting words, right? So it is pretty prolific. It is happening constantly, right? They just trade these pictures around like they used to with Pokemon cards, and you have to kind of talk them out of that. And depending on what study you read, sometimes the girls start that ball rolling first, because they know that that's what the boys are going to respond to, right? Our kids are just sort of marinating in this, like totally pornified culture. And so with the guys, one of the things I coach them to do is just remind the girls, like, you know, when you respond, you could, you can just say things as simple as, like, you know, you don't have to do that stuff with me. Or, here's three things about you that I think are cool, besides your boobs, you know, how many points does a guy get for doing something like that, right? Right? Well, I would hope a lot this message that girls are getting that like the most interesting about them is under their sweater, or they're only going to get attention, even if it's just for five minutes, is by sending a picture of the swimsuit areas to the boy they like in school, you know, and how vulnerable and risky that is in terms of trust issues and stuff like that. It's just a horrible message, and the girls are just kind of putting up with it, yeah, and when the boys send them pictures, and they just go, oh, okay, there's a penis on my phone that I didn't ask to see. And, you know, and when I have had girls in my office, I say, you know, if he pulled his penis out at a parking garage, what would you do? And I call the police, like, why is it different? Because it's on your phone, and they go, I don't know. It just is, oh, it's awful,

Casey O'Roarty 43:06
yeah. Well, and I really, so I'm looking at that PDF for the sexting too. And I really like your way with words. So, like, I understand that sending and receiving naked pictures is not a badge of how cool foxy or desirable I am. I really appreciate the use of the word Foxy. It's good word, yeah. And I think that in, you know, I and I know you write about this too, as far as attention getting and remembering that, you know, our kids are going to get attention. They don't need to pull out all the stops and recognizing what you know, what they want attention for, exactly you know, is so key and important, and oh god, I just feel like we're like, on the cusp of like, this hasn't shown up yet, thank God, in our world. And yet, I would, you know, again, be a fool to think that this is not ever going to be something that one or both of my kids is going to have to navigate. Yeah,

Jo Langford 44:12
the, you know, there's some good stuff about it. I think kids have, you know, less hang ups about sex now they seem to be more comfortable with their bodies. They're sharing them all kind of willy nilly, in a way that's kind of interesting and refreshing. But there's also the that abyss that they can tumble into where maybe you should be a little more cautious, and maybe you should be a little more, you know, discerning about who you share that with. Yeah, that that kind of thing is important conversation to be having,

Casey O'Roarty 44:43
sure and the meaning they make around likes. Yes, that's what breaks my heart. Like, yes. I mean, I think on the surface, it's this, like, I'm really comfortable with myself, and yet, checking every three minutes to see how many more likes you have on that picture. Doesn't necessarily align with that. I'm really comfortable with myself mentality, right?

Jo Langford 45:04
Or I'm gonna take that picture off my feed because it didn't get enough likes like that kind of stuff. Oh, it's not a good sign.

Casey O'Roarty 45:12
Yeah, darn. Okay. What do you think about musically? Do you know about musically?

Jo Langford 45:17
Um, I, I do, but I haven't. I haven't had a lot of issues with that, like, I haven't had a lot of people sort of emailing or coming to my office around musically. So

Casey O'Roarty 45:28
those of you out there who have no idea what musically is, it's a social media app where the kids can pick song. It's basically like a lip sync app, and they can video themselves, video themselves, lip syncing to a popular song, which all seem to be sped up into chipmunk voice in our house, but whatever. And the thing that shows up for me around this is that we've had conversations about is song choice because, and, you know, and I laugh because I'm a girl of the 80s, and I loved Guns N Roses, and I loved Motley Crue and poison and Hello, every song was totally about sex, right? And I remember my stepmom going to some meeting and coming home and railing against guns and roses. And how can you listen to that? And do you know what that song's about? And just rolling my eyes like, yes,

Jo Langford 46:20
it's not a big deal with Madonna,

Casey O'Roarty 46:22
right? Oh my gosh, I lip synced Like a Virgin when I was 10 to a room full of adults having no idea of what a virgin was. But so anyway, I try to keep that in mind as I you know, am listening to pop music with my kids, but you know, some of the song choices that they have are pretty scandalous, and I try to make sure to say things like, Well, I always say, Do you know what this song's about? To which I often hear, you are ruining it for me, mom. But it's also like you're putting this out there. You know people are going to make meaning and make judgments and assessments of you based on the songs that you choose, and so really think about the message, not the message that that you're giving, but the message that might be being perceived by others. But I also think it's not even as I say that out loud, I'm a little uncomfortable with it, because then there's that whole other piece around, you know, being yourself and not worrying about what other people think. So it's kind of this like crazy gray area, and I guess the answer is, just continue to be in conversation about it.

Jo Langford 47:32
I think that's totally the point, right? And in some ways, musically is a really great thing, because it can spurn conversations like that, right? But Did you just hear the words that came out of your mouth? Like, do you know what that word means? Like, what is this song about? Is that something you really believe? Like, you just said that chorus 10 times out loud. Like, how many times do you think you need to say that before you start to believe it somewhere in the back of your head, is that how you think of women or dating or sex, you know, and be able to use those as a teachable moment. I think you said earlier moments, right? Like, you know, commercials, sitcoms, you know, movie themes, lines of songs, those are all great things for spurning conversations. And then if they do think that, or at least you have a conversation and they say, No, I don't really believe that, and this is why, but I really love that song. The music is great. That's got a great beat, whatever. Then at least they're doing it on purpose, right? And I think that is way more valuable than just kind of autopilot into something, yeah,

Casey O'Roarty 48:30
well, and then you're in there, right? Then you're in there, the song comes on again, and it even if it's just, oh God, remember that conversation I had with my mom. But I get that too. I mean, I love the sound of blurred lines. I mean, I love the beat. I love I love the music to the song, Blurred Lines, and the message is awful, yes. And I finally had to decide, like, I cannot listen to this song, especially if my kids are around like I won't, and I make a point of saying, Oh, here's that song that I love, but it's so awful about what it says that I'm gonna turn it off. And I

Jo Langford 49:07
think that's part of being a grown up, right? I mean, I listen to songs whose lyrics were awful. I still kind of do sometimes, but as long as you know that it's awful, it's kind of okay, you know, at least to some limit, right? I still feel kind of guilty listening to Chris Brown songs, kind of guilty when I watch Mel Gibson movie, like, Is this okay? Yeah, right. Like Mel Gibson movies now, I don't know, but, but then I'm thinking about it, right, right? And I think having that sort of discerning mind is is part of growing up.

Casey O'Roarty 49:37
This is so great, Joe. Thank you so much for the work that you do and for taking time to come and talk to me about it. I'm going to make sure that your website. Beheroes.net. Is the that the links in the show notes, where can speaking of social media, where else can we listeners find you and your work? I

Jo Langford 49:58
am primarily on the face. Book, Joe Langford and the Twitter be heroes.net. DOD, any t, kind of all spelled out. I'm on there quite a bit, Twitter more than Facebook, but I do that too, and and my website are kind of the big ones. Can I do another plug totally here? Because this is kind of good timing. I've got my second book. My first book was spare me the talk, which is, it's the only book in print, actually, that's just written for teenage boys, beyond great puberty stuff, right? But by popular demand, I wrote a girl counterpart for that for girls. So the first book for teenage girls written by a dude, and that's coming out in September, and what's that called, spare me the talk, The Girl Guide to Sex relationships and growing up. Great.

Casey O'Roarty 50:47
And I will make sure that, let's see on your resources page, do you have a link to the boy book? No, but

Jo Langford 50:56
is on the front page of the website? Okay, perfect.

Casey O'Roarty 50:58
I will make sure that there are links to that for the listeners. And I have one last question that I ask all my guests before I say goodbye, what does when you hear joyful courage? What does that mean to you?

Jo Langford 51:12
It means taking risks that make you feel good about yourself? Oh,

Casey O'Roarty 51:16
short and sweet, I like it. Thanks, Joe, sure. Thanks for coming on the show, sure. Thank

Jo Langford 51:22
you for having me. What a great time.

Casey O'Roarty 51:31
Wow. Okay, don't be scared. You are equipped. You know what to do. You know the conversations that you need to be having with your kids. Okay, don't wait until something crazy happens or you're in crisis. Start talking to your kids about their bodies, about sexual development and about this stuff before you get to the point where you're doing you know you're trying to retrofit or or go back in time or fix mistakes, because this is a part of their life, all right, this is out there, it's out there, it's out there. So I hope that you enjoyed that podcast. I certainly did. It was so fun getting to know Joe and having that conversation. And if you're thinking, holy cow, I do need to be talking about this with my kids, and it makes you feel all uptight and anxious and and rigid. I have a gift for you, and it's called joyful courage. 10 I've been talking about it for weeks now, but August 24 we start. And this is a great program for a variety of reasons, but especially if you know you're thinking, how am I supposed to stay neutral when my kids come to me talking about sexting or uncomfortable things? Well, this is this is going to help you with that, because the purpose of the joyful courage 10 is to first help parents define who they want to be. As a parent, how do you want to show up when your kids say, Hey, I kind of want to look at naked pictures. Or, Hey, I was on the computer, and I saw this video, and it made me really uncomfortable. How do you want to respond? Do you want to respond from a place that is centered and calm, where your logical brain is still intact and you can have forwarding conversations? Or do you want to react and get all freaked out and you know, and yell and scream and and and, or regress or retreat, right? Withdraw. You don't. It's not going to be helpful to your kids. So you want to be intentional about how you show up when it's uncomfortable, right? And so the joyful courage 10 is going to help you with that. It's also going to be supportive of as far as practicing goes, because just because we know that we want to show up, calm, centered, available, connected, loving, doesn't mean that that's right at the tip of our fingers when we need it, we It requires us to practice. And the joyful courage 10 is as close as I can get to being in your head for 10 days and helping you with your practice of showing up intentionally and connected to your kids. If that sounds good to you, I want you to head over to the website, www, dot joyful courage.com/jc, 10. Www, dot, joyful courage.com/jc, 10. There's a place to register, and you can do it. And for my friends that are listening in the States, you are going to be privileged enough to also be in on the text message support. I'm so excited to be using text messaging software because, you know, we don't always check Facebook, we don't always check email, but, man, we get a text, we're gonna check that. Except for my neighbor, Marcy, who never checks or texts and it makes me crazy. Shout out to Marcy. Love you girl. So yeah, check it out. Sign up if you have any questions. If you have any feedback around the show, feel free to email me. Casey at joyful courage.com Casey at joyful courage.com will get used. Into my email box, I respond to every single email that I get. Also, if you aren't already a part of the tribe, there's many ways to stay connected. You can sign up for my newsletter on the website, or you can head over to Facebook and ask to join live and love with joyful courage. Go into the little search bar at the top of the Facebook page and type in live and love with joyful courage, the group page will come up and you just ask to join. I will accept you. All right. Love having you here. I love that you're listening. Love the feedback. Thank you so much for doing your part in raising the next generation for a better world. I really appreciate it, as does everybody else in the world, and your kids, future partners, future neighbors, future coworkers. Let's keep teaching them skills so that they can show up well as adults. How about that? All right. Have a beautiful, beautiful day, my friends and until next time. Mwah,

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