HUDSON VALLEY  — As the final part of three part series, the Democrat spoke to Executive Director of Fearless! Hudson Valley, Kellyann Kostyal-Larrier about sexual assault, domestic violence, human trafficking and crime vicimization awareness. 

The social dilemma

A difficult conversation happening around the country is when kids should be allowed to have cell phones, if at all. Kostyal-Larrier talked about her experiences raising children as she has a 24-year-old and nine-year-old, so she has the point of view from both the advocate and parent sides. 

She said that she recognizes the challenges that schools present and parents can’t get ahold of their kids when they are coming from a sporting event if they don’t have cellphones. On the other hand, cellphones can give potential abusers easy access to kids. 

“So we’re really in this conundrum of a double-edged sword,” Kostyal-Larrier said. “I understand the challenges that parents are facing around being able to communicate with their children. I understand the challenges that parents are facing because almost all schools are going into Google Chrome boxes and really looking for technology to create accessibility.”

Kostyal-Larrier noted that the most important thing is for parents to do everything that they can to educate themselves about the apps and devices that their kids are using. 

“This may not always be a popular opinion but from the work perspective, I’m a firm believer that phones and computers should not be in children’s rooms after hours and unsupervised,” she said. 

Kostyal-Larrier made it clear that it’s not about the trust or lack of trust of your kids, but recognizing that there are predators who are using platforms to manipulate, target and exploit children. 

She also said that keeping constant contact with your kids and knowing what they are doing on their devices is very important.

“I would keep phones downstairs and ensure you have passwords because you wouldn’t allow a complete stranger to come into your home and spend time with your children unsupervised,” said Kostyal-Larrier. “But when you give technological devices in their rooms without any parameters and without any checks and balances, that is essentially what you’re doing.”

She stated that all a child needs to do is accidentally open the wrong email or click on the wrong link and they can give live access and web access to your house, computer and information. 

“I understand parents are in a very difficult situation, but we just can’t blanketly hand over these machines,” Kostyal-Larrier said, “because these machines are almost too powerful. Powerful for us as adults, let alone young children and teens navigating the already very difficult life of having to be a teenager.”

Digital footprint

She said that the hard part for people in her generation is that there is no baseline because they didn’t have the same lived experiences as the current younger generation. 

“I didn’t have this level of technology as a teenager at all,” Kostyal-Larrier said. “So the difficulty is that we are already playing catch-up on what these things can do. We really go in with these understandings that if I have privacy on my page, no one can get that. Well, that’s actually not true.”

She said that the reality is that you can’t assume that anything that you put onto your phone or computer will remain private.

She also said that just because you set up restrictions and parental controls doesn’t mean hackers won’t find their way around it. Kostyal-Larrier said that the parental controls are really only good for low-level hackers and that highly-skilled individuals have been able to find ways around them. 

Kostyal-Larrier also noted that a lot of the social media apps that are fairly new now, like Snapchat and TikTok, default the least restrictive security measures. She said that is important to be aware of the apps your kids are installing and what settings they are on. 

“Takeout abuse and trafficking, there’s so much we have to talk about around kids’ mental health and mental wellness as well as the rise of suicide,” Kostyal-Larrier said. “So much of the impact is on social media and the harm it’s bringing. We have to have active and ongoing communication and not just put parental controls on it. 

Some of the questions that she said parents should ask their kids are, ‘What are you doing?’ ‘What’s on your phone?’ ‘Who are you engaging with?’ ‘Do you know your friends that you friended and have you ever met them before in person?’ 

“Because, again, it’s just coming at us like rapid fire,” Kostyal-Larrier concluded. “It’s definitely a scary, scary world we live in right now.”