St Thomas's School Community Event - Our Kids Online

We all want our school and community to be a safe place for our tamariki. But in a rapidly changing digital world, the risks our children face online are growing—more frequently, and more seriously.

That’s why we’ve invited filmmaker, author, and speaker Rob Cope, producer of the powerful documentary Our Kids Online, to deliver a humorous, eye-opening evening talk for our parent community.

"We need to tackle this as a community so that all of our kids are safe. When I protected my kids online, I also protected yours, so please, please protect your kids online so that you are also protecting mine" Rob Cope

His talk will cover:

• Cyberbullying - How bullies can reach our kids 24/7

• Social media - How social media is affecting the mental health in 3 out of 5 children. FOMO, depression, anxiety

• Gaming and the developing brain – An oversupply of dopamine leading to dopamine deficiency, synaptic pruning, and the underdevelopment of social skills and empathy

• Naked Selfies - The pressure to send nudes from intermediate up through high school

• Online predators - The methods they use, how to spot them

• Online porn vs healthy sexuality - How consuming online pornography as a child or teen can create a sexual template where violence, aggression, and dominance are seen as normal and consent can become very blurry.

• AI - Growing concerns around Companion bots, Deepfakes, Voice Cloning, Algorithmic Radicalisation 

Solutions

• Filters - Which filters are best and how to install them

• Smartphones - How to lock down a smartphone to make it a safe phone

• Boundaries - How to put good boundaries in place around device use

• 3 golden rules - The 3 golden rules that will keep your kids safe

• Talking to your kids - How to have difficult conversations with your kids

• Challenging our own phone and device usage - Reconnecting as a family.