What Can Parents Do about the Sexualization of Children by Schools & Media? | Real Talk

our school system and culture are enabling predators to sexualize Children Landon Starbuck is an advocate who is empowering parents to fight back against the dangers of social media family drag shows and pornography in schools our children are being attacked it's time for parents to wake up and take action please join us I just think this conversation is one that all parents need to hear and really appreciate having you come here you know we've been talking about the Revival of motherhood and Parenthood in general and this era that we live in where there's an onslaught against our children from the culture from the schools and you know parents are aware but they also don't know what to do and it's frankly so scary to be a parent these days and so just love your feedback and your advice and I love the people who are watching to just hear where you come from and what you're working on well yeah I mean I'm a mom an advocate and the founder of a non-profit called freedom forever and we combat child exploitation and trafficking in all its forms we're different than the typical rescue raid model where the focus is to just rescue children while that's necessary and good we have to get to the source of the problem before the grooming starts before they're exploited or trafficked and that is where our work comes in with prevention-based activism empowering parents with not just education but inspiring them to take actions necessary area so that they can intervene and be the Warriors that they need to be in their kids lives to protect them what is the type of work that you're doing to fight Upstream so you're not actually dealing with the kidnapping of of children but you're seeing much of the sex exploitation happening in what I would say like normal homes I mean this could happen anywhere I know you were living in California you live now in Nashville what what is it that you're seeing and what is it that you're trying to educate people about well I think there's this notion you know the man in the van coming to take our children and that is just uh not statistically the reality of what's happening today the most dangerous assault on our children is the fact they're spending inordinate amounts of Time online and they're being exposed to grooming devices grooming social media things that groom them and render them more vulnerable to exploitation online so the majority of these crimes against children the horrific crimes are happening online we know that most of these sexual abuse crimes happen within family units within you know somebody that the child knows but we also are seeing a huge uptick in online exploitation particularly with CCM child sexual abuse material which could include videos and you know photographs of them and they're being coerced online onto platforms that were never designed for them they're not safe for them the adult content that is so prevalent on them is you know being exposed to our children and so we really have to question why that is what's being done about it and are the safety controls really adequate to protect them what is this landscape of sex trafficking online looking like can you give me an example of that it's a Suburban young girl who lives in a in a normal home with a mom and dad and somehow she goes from you know a fun life of ballet to to doing what in the afternoons and how is this even happening right so a lot of parents don't realize a child can be trafficked from their own bedroom without ever coming into physical contact with the perpetrator and these Predators know how to Target kids I mean they they know how this whole process works they know the vulnerabilities they know how to create fake profiles they know how to sex tort you know them their images all of those things so when it crosses the realm of sex torsion so we're seeing a lot more of child generated csam where they're sending each other uh nude photographs or videos and sharing this explicit content the problem is once that's online it's pretty much always there you cannot guarantee that it can ever be taken down and then that crosses over when a child thinks they're talking to a peer it might not be up here and likely many times it's not and they know how to capitalize on those vulnerabilities they know how to create a profile that and and take time and in the case that I was telling you about this 12 year old girl they took a year to groom her to make her feel comfortable to meet her needs you know to to be the one who says you know your parents are so lame they just don't understand you you just need to explore with your gender identity you need to go meet these adults online you come to our group we accept you we love you so they fill the need the emotional need that a kid is needing at that point and it might be you know physical need too it might be they need money or they want to you know the new shoes so they find the need by grooming this child and all they need is one photo one video and then they say you know we can expose you we'll we'll put it out we'll send it to your cheerleading team you know you'll get kicked out of school your parents you know send it to them and there's so much shame there we've seen a lot of you know sad cases of suicide in the case that I was telling you about um this girl was uh suicidal and her parents recognize these mental health issues intervened and the bottom of it was that she was being sex trafficked by an adult male who recruited her online lured her over a year period of time until she trusted this person and sent one image and then it escalated from there well I won't post it if you send me a video you know and it just kept going and kept going and you know he was profiting off that and that's really where it crosses the threshold of sexual exploitation that the chain exchange of images where at some period somebody's profiting somewhere online but then when you can prove that somebody's profiting it and they're solely doing it for that purpose that's when it becomes sex trafficking what's crazy about this story is that I think when parents consider who their kids are talking to if they're talking to another kid they seem to think that it's not a big deal and so the story you told me about the young girl thought that she was talking to another young boy and she thought he was her boyfriend but it wasn't really a boyfriend it was actually an adult and so the Predators are actually using avatars to pretend that they're something that they're not and then they trap these young girls with these pictures nude pictures I'm assuming which they'll then threaten them and say if you don't share if you don't share more pictures with me I will share this particular picture with everybody you know and before you know it they're right they're being they're being trafficked mostly digitally right or it could be something that you know you share in confidence with a friend you know maybe a secret maybe something that is very very private and they say I'm going to tell somebody that secret if you don't send me an image and send me that one image then you know they know how to manipulate kids and even adults this happens too but definitely kids with their undeveloped minds and senses of identity how do the schools play into this factor I know that you had a moment of truth with with the school that you sent your kids to and ultimately you decide to pull your kids out of that school that must have been just so incredibly difficult just tell me a little bit about that experience when my husband came out you know supporting Donald Trump our our family was essentially canceled before cancer culture was a thing and sadly you know my oldest daughter was bullied at school was called a racist was called all sorts of names and she was so young she didn't know how to defend herself she didn't know what to do with all this so she was really angry at us like if you just wouldn't go and support you know stand up for your values mom I wouldn't be getting bullied if you would just get me social media I wouldn't be teased by the other kids it's your fault you know and it causes this fraction you know this division in in the home and that's exactly what this whole thing is you know intended to do and so I made the decision I want to show her that our values do matter and it does require risks and sacrifices and if that means we take you out of this environment where you're not thriving um then that's what we have to do and it was a really difficult decision but now she is thriving now she is in a great situation where we don't have to worry about grooming and the indoctrination and all those things but yeah it's so hard you know I think so many of us have had this moment especially over the last two or three years whether it was either you know the bullying over politics or you know the lockdowns or the vaccines or you know in many cases just the the real sexualization of our children and the fact that the schools have become breeding grounds for so many of these dangerous things I think most parents have realized that something is going on and it's really an Awakening that parents are starting to see I think while well we may have not hit rock bottom yet more and more parents are starting to wake up for me a lot of it has been the sexualization of kids I'm I'm just so worried about that because you're one of those people who are fighting upstream and you're seeing that ultimately if we don't stop this sexualization at an early age Downstream we're going to deal with a nation with more pedophiles a nation with more women who are willing to sell their bodies and you know fall into this extortion trap and so tell me a little bit more about the research that you're doing about specific School curriculum when it comes to sexualization I know it's become a big part of the work that you guys are doing right so we examine all of the grooming that's taking place whether it's the pornography in the libraries or at schools and so we're seeing definitely an increase in that but it's also in the communities with these all ages drag shows and the commonality here is the destruction of children's innocence and you'll notice that you know these people defend it saying well you know kids have to be exposed these are real things in the real world they need sex ed and all this and it's a false narrative children should have a childhood free from grooming and exploitation of any kind and they are trying to desensitize us to this idea that that is worth preserving because ultimately this is a Neil Marxist you know ideal of destroying childhood innocence because if they can do that that fractures the nuclear family and there's no purpose to protect children then the entity of motherhood and fatherhood and children that parent-child Bond once it's severed there is no family there is no resistance to any of the authoritarian schemes rather than the government can come in and just simply control everything you know a lot of people think that this is a conspiracy theory is there a big group behind it with a specific motive or is this just a culture that has gone bad and gone out of hand what's your thoughts on that well I think there's many nefarious interests that benefit from a sexual hypersexualized Society deconstructed families deconstructed identities of children but ultimately they're they're all authoritarians you know ultimately they just want to remove our rights as parents our rights as individuals and somebody else gets that power Just power transfer so I think that not to be fixated on who's doing it but really where it's happening in our communities and how we can make a difference from the inside of our homes out into our community so that is what I think that has been the most empowering for me as a parent and educating other parents is when we notice things happening in our schools it is our responsibility not the politicians not anybody else's to get that stuff out of the schools whatever that means and that's hard because we're seeing a divide in parents we're seeing some that are you know done with this stuff and they see what's happening they see the effect it's happening on children and they're stepping into this Warrior mentality of this is enough and then there's another group of parents that they see it but they're just afraid and they're afraid that their kid will be mad at them they're afraid that they'll ruffle feathers and they're just um you know stagnant in this place they can't front what's happening and and so I really you know I always try to encourage parents that you know what's the point of having our values and morals if we cannot live them out are we really trying to tell our children to be um people of integrity and to stand up for what's right well we won't show them ourselves how we stand up even when there's risks involved even when there's sacrifices involved then are we just really virtue signaling the same way the left does yeah you know I feel like so many parents feel like they're being gaslit too where they don't know what to look for something seems off and then when they ask whether something is off they say oh well you're imagining right what are things that you have seen in the schools that you know should trigger some sort of concern in parents well absolutely I mean there is no excuse for sexual uh Sensational type of content I mean definitely prepubescent but in the context of sex I like sex ed no and sex ed being taught traditionally over you know the age of puberty not when they're in kindergarten you know but now we're seeing masturbation lessons in kindergarten we're seeing um sexual pleasure-based comprehensive sex ed so that's not sex ed that is a pleasure based and what is pleasure-based it's sexualizing children when you are giving adults whether they're teachers or strangers permission to talk to your kid about their sexual pleasure that is sexual grooming but we're being desensitized we're not recognizing that that's exactly what it is we're being punished you know you get kicked off Twitter if you call the teachers groomers that are doing it if you hold them accountable and that's what we're seeing so why are we being shut down for for saying the truth of what's happening in these schools giving a child a graphic novel depicting sex act or a tutorial or a QR code to go on to an adult website they are actively sexualizing our kids it's very difficult to just accept it that is the reality we are not uh being conspiracy theorists we're not exaggerating the truth it's just a difficult truth I also noticed that social emotional learning scl has been a kind of an excuse or a Gateway for a lot of this kind of curriculum have you experienced the same thing SEL is just a trojan horse to get all the other things in um and I think that's where I was deceived as a parent of this whole idea of anti-bullying and tolerance and inclusivity I mean that's just these words sound so nice and then you uncover you know the agendas and one thing that they do with SEO which is a form of grooming in itself is these little traumatic stories right where you know they might be there might be a death a very graphic death there might be a book you know depicting um abuse physical really torture type abuse things like that or abandonment like and and you have to ask yourselves why is this literature why is this being injected into their minds what educational positive outcome you know results and exposing them to this what is the purpose of this um and it's really resulting in creating little micro traumas um to also to affect that childhood innocence Dynamics this is not just sexuality that's the easy you know push but where they can't get that done you know in some of those more conservative areas where the parents are really paying attention where it wouldn't fly that's where they I think you know with the SEL they get what they can get through done and it's a progressive process they kind of want to have them tackle issues that adults really should tackle right and and then have them deal with that but they're still children and they're still supposed to be innocent but they don't want them to be innocent anymore so what would you suggest to a parent who does send their kids to a school where they're starting to notice some of these things I mean you went through the experience appearance of pulling your kids out of school you know it's not that easy there's I guess some some would say some trauma in that as well life is not easy we have difficult choices to make parenting today is not easy I'm not sure it ever will be but the only way we're going to you know combat this war on children is by becoming Warriors and um I think that we have some decisions to make as to what environments we allow our children to be exposed to whether that's social media influencers type of people that they're going to be exposed to music shows education the teachers who are they what kind of people are they they're spending up to eight hours there a day I think we have some serious decisions to make and I think we need a real strategy uh as opposed to just trying to fix little things that you know at a time which I think is good if you have the fortitude to do it if you're willing to go do the work do the work but sadly there's so many who aren't and I think that parents have to you know have that that decision and uh for their own families of if they're not willing to do the work then what do you do do you continue sending your child into an environment whether it's grooming and exploitation and gender indoctrination and play along with the lies I mean what message are we sending our kids then you have a 14 year old girl I'm sure she'd love to be on social media are you not letting her go on social no no I will not um allow her on social media because not just what I do but the the outcomes I mean when a parent has true informed consent over what that decision entails I I see less and less parents agreeing to it at that point but the problem is there's a disconnect there's a lack of Education there's an illusion of Parental safety controls helping parents right there's no incentive for big Tech or requirement for them to be implementing accurate safety mechanisms for our children this is our responsibility um and so we've been lied to we've been lied to by the big Tech Lobby the industry we've been lied to uh even by organizations that claim to help protect kids online that are supposed to help reduce trafficking they're not telling them the truth about what happens on these platforms about what grooming looks like on these platforms about how kids who are struggling with gender identity are actually at an increased rate of being vulnerable to exploitation because they're suffering from mental health um you know issues at the same time that makes them more vulnerable so there's just very few people telling the truth and I think when parents have the whole story they look at all of the risks no parent would willingly then say sure I would like to expose my 12 year old to pornography only fans girls predators and just see what happens because I don't want them to feel left out so I think that we can do better as parents um and it's hard again parenting is hard this idea that it's not okay for kids to be mad at us then we're not doing a good job as being parents I try to say that my kids know every single day it's like a vitamin vitamin n yeah no you know I think it's easier for me to say I'm not going to let my kids go on social media because they're under the age of 10 but you have a 14 year old and I'm sure many of the people who are listening on this conversation do have teenagers and really battle with this idea of how do they make their child be that weirdo that is not on social media and I and I totally understand this idea that it's super dangerous and they need to be aware of it but they'll probably say well you know I put parental control I make sure they only speak to their friends they only speak to other young kids I mean what's your feedback on that can you let your kids go on social media and have the parental control systems on allowing kids on social media is 10 times more harmful than the any positive that could be gleaned from that experience but um I will say that you know it's not just social media it's what what is being replaced you know their real childhood their physical experiences going roller skating being outside all of those things are being robbed from them for this digital world that they really can't tell the difference you know if we're trying to raise Warrior children that know how to engage and interact with the world not be afraid of it right but be but know how to deal with it then we have to give them some kind of foundation and allowing it to groom them to to accommodate you know big Tech is really a misstep in my opinion and renders them more at risk now with my 14 year old I mean I have a nine-year-old too I it's not a no-tech policy you know my nine-year-old builds websites and we do give them access to computer there's just things you can do and we have a lot of resources on freedomforever.us of ways that we can engage our kids with tech and sort of test pilot things with them so that it's not just a no you can't have it you can't know anything about it but I want to show you what they do I will show my 14 year old daughter how they how the algorithms to me look different than my husband you know how they send bikini pictures to men but to women they send Beauty things to make us feel like we're not enough you know and try to sell us things like that so they need to understand that before they're sent into the lion's den you know hoping that they survive there they need the digital self-defense skills they need to understand how it all works before we just let them you know have that access what's the website again freedomforever.us so freedom forever and then you also have some advice on other plugins that people can use for their kids what are those and can you explain them right so I mean for parents who are going to make the choice to give them access to some things right whether it be YouTube or or whatnot you know there's um really great partners that we have like protect young eyes gab phones as an alternative bark ways that can Empower parents and really get into the weeds of exactly what you need to do to protect your home from the inside out and all your children's devices because it looks different for every age and in your home you know we have a shared space for the device so that we can watch YouTube videos together but there's a difference between watching YouTube videos as a family and having your kid have a device unrestricted on YouTube up in their room that's a completely different Dynamic so it's ways and tools to engage Tech protect your routers all of those things the first instinct of a mother in particular is to defend her children right we have the the idea of the mama bear but it just seems like the mama bears are dormant for some reason I don't know if you'd notice the same thing but they would almost rather be cool it's more important for them to be cool or to be relatable than necessarily to be protective and I think in many ways this is why we're seeing the as exploitation of our children because there's evil that is taking advantage of the fact that the parents are just simply too weak right now right and so what can we do to tell parents that this is their time this is our time to just step in and step up because if we lose this country if we lose the future of of our children right then there is no turning back I don't know how you fix complete chaos and it just seems like we're headed into complete chaos and the targeting of our children is so dangerous right that I just want parents to remember that we're parents right we have a responsibility to protect these children even when it doesn't seem cool and even when it's so hard that's what it means to be a parent right absolutely and I think looking into the future too if you if we leave our kids in certain environments is it really going to be shocking when they turn out with the same ideals that are taught in that environment if we give our kids access to social media is it really going to be shocking if they sign it for only fans when they're 18. I mean there's an end product for that grooming for that indoctrination that we have to be able to think about I think it's important too to have a plan we have the parenting Revolution manual coming out to equip parents with actual you know a breakdown of like okay here's where we start here's here's these issues here's the tools you can use to give them a strategy because sometimes it's just hard to take that first step and know where to begin but the warrior mentality that we're trying to inspire in parents is we've abdicated our role as parents for far too long now what's happening is a mass transfer of power from parents to the state and in California you know you're seeing they're doing these Health Centers and they can they're trying to get them in all the schools where Health Centers how to make you unhealthy actually yeah and where you can get you know your child can get a pelvic exam without you knowing about it or hormones I mean and then what happens when they pass laws where they can take your child away if you refuse to affirm them and these are a very difficult real realities happening Across America so what we have to do as parents is have a strategy because what happens if your child becomes gender dysphoric as a product of being exposed to these things or just trying to fit in right what if that's what it means to fit in now not just having social media but you got to have pronouns in your bio you gotta identify as something other than what you are are we going to go along with it where's the line we all have to write that line down so we don't forget where it is right the line is when do you actually wake up and are willing to do something and not rely on other people to do things for you I I think now is that moment I in some ways I'm actually quite optimistic because I think that the moment you start attacking our children is the moment that we wake up and I hope that that is the moment that people are aware of the fact that our kids are under attack you know really advice number one to parents if you don't like what you're seeing at the school year I guarantee you you're not the only parent and so you've got to lock arm with other parents and fight for you know the the health of your child right the space that you're sending your child to every single day lock arms with them and really ask to have the meetings in a town hall space so that you're not fighting alone because they're going to try to divide and conquer and make sure that you know you're not all organized and then once you are organized it's really important that things are recorded and you actually have specific action items and you're not just being heard because that's the second step and so step number one is the administrator would say oh let's meet alone so I can listen to you and they'll show up with a notepad like this and they'll take a bunch of notes and they'll pretend to be listening or maybe they will be listening but they'll likely do very little about about it and they'll slow play but they're not actually doing something right and so organize next thing is have an a clear understanding of what you want to get out of this town hall and demand deadlines if you can't actually give me a deadline by when I can see the change give me the deadline by when you will tell me that you're going to implement some of the change and I think those two elements are so significant you can't fight alone you've gotta you gotta do it in a town hall experience you've got to lock arms with other parents because that's what they're going to try to do that's what you guys are doing you're trying to organize the parents it's what we're trying to do here at prageru it's just get parents to understand that they're not fighting this alone we've been gaslit for far too long we also need to understand what it is that we want our kids to learn it's not only what we don't want them to learn but what are our expectations as parents right if I'm sending my kids to you for eight hours every single day you know that I'm going to have expectations out of this place and it's not going to be this vague social emotional thing without with A continuous change in curriculum based on whatever the social media mob is requesting at that point in time and so I think so many of these things are just crucial that parents can wake up and I mean we're fighting against so much evil between um you know the the bigger the bigger scope of what's happening in our culture and and the teacher unions the teacher unions who are not advocating for teachers when I was a teacher they they didn't advocate for me they're not advocating for kids I mean you can hear the head of the teacher Union speak about how they actually don't care what the kids want right so it's not for the teachers it's not for the kids certainly not for the parents and so what's left right the bureaucrats and the politicians and so but there are a lot more parents out there than teacher union members it's just the parents need to wake up and be aware of the fact that we need to prioritize our kids you're so right and it requires activism it doesn't require merely sending a letter saying I'm appalled I'm this is you know inappropriate you have to have an action plan and you also have to ask very specific questions if you're thinking about sending your kid to a private school don't assume oh it's a private school or it's religious that's not having the garbage problem solved you have to ask specific questions like do you believe you could be racist against a white person if they can't answer that question that's how you know if there's CRT there or not the specific pointed questions requiring them to admit what their values are and how they look not just saying no we don't have CRT because that's you know how The Gaslight they say oh we don't do SEL we don't do CRT or we believe everybody's you know equal we just strive to have you know this typical response tolerance yes exactly we value everyone one's opinion you know you have to really get down to the meat and potatoes of how do you handle this situation there's something incredible that you told me earlier uh it's it's actually quite frightening and we both noticed this uh in our work for you know advocacy and awareness of what's happening in schools and that is that we're seeing actual schools that are in conservative districts being targeted with this hypersexualized education I gave the example of The Conejo Valley and Simi Valley in California I know this is also happening in many schools in Nashville we've both spoken about what is happening in Salt Lake City Utah why are they targeting conservative schools with this ideology and how's it even happening if the majority of the parents are conservative why are the kids being fed a steady diet of garbage in these schools so Tennessee ruby red state right all across Tennessee we have all ages drag shows popping up in virtually a couple months every deep red pocket and I started noticing a pattern and then you know we saw them across red States but I was really interested in why they were focusing on this very conservative Bible Belt area with these all ages drag shows which many of them have this explicit adult content in front of children and I started realizing well conservative values conservative families are the last tight pockets of conservativism and family values protecting child's innocence so they really need to focus on those things if the intention is to destabilize children's identities with the gender Theory and dismantle the nuclear family they have to Target those strongest areas where the most resistance would happen and one thing that was surprising to me and a little disheartening to see is that how quickly they became desensitized like at the very beginning they're like oh my gosh all ages drag shows we can all you know recognize that drag is an adult performance art or whatever you want to call it but it's definitely not appropriate for kids everybody was out age right but nobody wanted to show up nobody wanted to protest nobody wanted to call the mayor and petition city leaders and everybody to mobilizing what we had to get done done and then it would require more and more explicit videos in the the window you know would move of what they would react to and so now if I just post another all-age drag shows people like oh that's normal another all-age drag show and that's how we get here to that next phase of desensitization so what is the next part of this what what is what is now going to be considered appropriate three months from now six months from now if we don't stand up now at this line of saying no and this isn't all this is an adult um you know subject matter performance we can't expose children to this and it's hard because you can't have you know legislative solutions for everything but when it comes to child mutilation um and child sexual you know abuse and grooming we have to have laws at this point to safeguard these Pockets because they're being targeted intentionally I mean and parents need to get involved in the schools and get on the school boards and really make sure that the schools reflect their values at every level I mean School Board Mayors every every aspect of you know Civic engagement but as a result you know the the pocket of parents that we're able to organize and other Advocates as well I mean we have now legislation being introduced uh first thing in January to ban child mutation in the state of Tennessee to ban all age drag shows where kids are present especially in places where the bars where there's alcohol served and things like of adult nature so when we come together it is powerful it works I mean the left does this very well it's hard to admit when people do things well but we have to learn from people um that we don't agree with what they do well and and adopt those same strategies and tactics that there really is utility in protest there is a utility in coming together and flooding somebody's phone line and saying we will not accept no for an answer so it does pay off in the end to just be diligent and not stop well I'm committed and I'm fired up and I'm really excited about the work that you are doing and so I think we're we're only getting started and hopefully people who are watching us are going to join us and we're not going to be doing this alone let's save our children let's do it [Music]