Cyber safety expert: Early screen use and fentanyl are major threats to kids' safety

Parents have a lot on their plate these days. It is hard to keep up with technology. There are a couple of existential threats to your child's development and safety that you need to be aware of.

The founder of Cyber Security Cop is a retired law enforcement officer. Clayton Cranford worked for the Orange County Sheriff's Department for 20 years.

He says there are two things you need to be aware of when it comes to your kids. One-- too much and too early screen devices and two--fentanyl.  

"Nobody is talking to students about making good choices and the issues. And no one was talking to parents about how to parent their children online. So, I was confronted with situations every day where parents and kids were in over their heads," Cranford said.

As a result of what Cranford saw, CyberSafetyCop.com came to exist. It is now nationwide. 

Instructors with backgrounds in law enforcement and education go to schools to do in-person assemblies for students on cybersecurity, vaping, marijuana, fentanyl and preventing violence through behavioral threat assessment.

"What I'm finding is that children are getting devices earlier and earlier. We're having a complete collapse of our children's mental health. We have a doubling of depression. We have a tripling of anxiety in the last 10 years with our kids. And it's strongly correlated with the amount of time they're on social media and the early introduction of cell phone," said Cranford.

Cranford recommends kids stay away from social media and cellphones until high school. He recommends 16. Disconnect from screens and reconnect with people.

"I think phones during the day in school are a distraction. It gets in the way of learning and it's a problem. Safety issues as well. It would be helpful is if parents as a group, maybe in that school in our community, got together and said, 'Hey, let's just support each other and let's just say as parents, we're not going to give our kids phones until high school,'" said Cranford said.

Cranford said there is a link between phones, social media use and drug use in kids.

"The leading cause of death for young people is drug overdose. Fentanyl is by far the cause of this," said Cranford.

This synthetic opiate is 50 times more powerful than heroin. It's showing up in nearly every illegal drug you can buy on the street, including marijuana and counterfeit pills.

"We have students who are maybe minding their own business on Snapchat or Instagram getting message by drug dealers. They'll send them a list or images. We have children who are buying counterfeit pills thinking that this is a pharmaceutical, like Percocet or Adderall, but they very well could be counterfeit," Cranford said.

Back in 2022, of the pills that the DEA tested that contained fentanyl, 60% of those were lethal. With lack of good decision-making skills – coupled with risk taking behavior – this is serious problem.

"It’s different than when we were kids. There was a there was a rather low threshold of danger. Now we live in a world where a child could try one drug, one pill, and it could end their lives," Cranford said.

For parents trying to stay on top of all these things on their own, it can be overwhelming.

But there is help there. Apps like "Our Pact" are always working in the background – looking for problems to immediately alert you.

"Our Pact will grab screenshots. Even if your child's using, Snapchat, it will grab a screenshot of their possibly disappearing message and Snapchat analyze what's happening on that screenshot with, you know, optical character recognition and then alert you if it sees something on there that's problematic. Your child in the digital world is making choices that they would never make face to face. You put that kid online, then everything is out the window. And I've sat across from parents who are just blown away by what happened to their kid. They don't get it. You need to apply some accountability," Cranford said.

To learn more about Cranford's work, visit CyberSafetyCop.com and his book Parenting in the Digital World.