While Massachusetts mother Lindsay Clancy waits for 12 jurors to decide whether she should be held criminally responsible for killing her three children, a Virginia mother landed on her state&#8217;s child abuse and neglect registry for letting her son take a walk.
<a href="https://reason.com/2026/09/02/virginia-mom-gets-6-month-suspended-jail-sentence-for-letting-5-year-old-walk-to-the-pond/">Karyann Parkinson</a> told her 5-year-old son, Sam, that he could walk down the street in their gated community in Williamsburg, Virginia, to look for feathers. They had walked down that same street together hundreds of times, she said — including six times that morning — and at eight months pregnant, Parkinson just wanted to stay home and get lunch ready, so she allowed Sam to walk by himself.
That short walk quickly set off a chain of events: someone saw the boy and alerted one of the community security guards, who took Sam home and scolded Parkinson for allowing him to walk alone, Reason Magazine reported. He also reportedly told Sam that his mother was wrong to allow him out alone and that bad people might do something to him if he didn&#8217;t have an adult with him.
&#8220;This scared the crap out of him,&#8221; Parkinson explained.
Later, a police officer arrived, and Parkinson made it clear she&#8217;d had enough: &#8220;I don&#8217;t have any interest in talking to you.&#8221;
And then the cavalry showed up: multiple police and Child Protective Services (CPS) workers arrived at her home to investigate.
Parkinson called her husband to come home, and he did. &#8220;I told [the authorities] that kids need to be able to take reasonable risks in order to grow up non-anxious,&#8221; her husband said.
Police charged Parkinson with &#8220;contributing to the delinquency of a minor.&#8221; CPS investigated her for abuse and neglect, and because it ultimately found the allegations to be &#8220;substantiated,&#8221; it placed Parkinson on the state&#8217;s child abuse and neglect registry. She will remain there for seven years.
After a judge convicted her on the above charge, he immediately suspended the sentence — but even though she will serve no jail time pending good behavior, the punishment for the mother is a steep one, and her conviction remains.
The fact that her name is on the child abuse and neglect registry likely means that she will be barred from volunteering at her children&#8217;s schools. Her conviction could also prevent her from getting her law license — she&#8217;d also been preparing for the bar exam when the incident occurred.

child in the rain collecting autumn leaves, view from the back

Mom Lands On Abuse Registry For Letting Her Kid Take A Walk

child protective services

karyann parkinson

lindsay clancy

parenting

virginia

There is dirt on my kitchen floor again. My 17-month-old son, Calvin, tracked it in and I am delighted: My plan is working.
These days there is no shortage of ways to indoctrinate a child into climate dread. I could stack my son’s nursery shelves with titles such as &#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Climate-Change-Babies-Baby-University-ebook/dp/B08CL5B7K7">Climate Change for Babies</a>&#8221; or &#8220;<a href="https://www.getepic.com/book/64046930/baby-loves-green-energy">Baby Loves Green Energy!</a>&#8221; I won’t waste my money. The two very small cowboy boots sitting by the door are the best environmental education I can give him. His childhood is the largest conservation project I will ever run, and it costs me nothing but time.
Nearly every policy I’ve ever worked on expires in an election cycle or two. My son will defend Daniel Boone National Forest for the next 80 years. This is where he first watched his daddy build a campfire, and he learned to love it before he could say its name. I hire young conservationists constantly and can tell within 10 minutes who spent time outside as a kid. Those are the ones who feel responsible for a place and take action. The others just feel guilty about existing.
As an employer, I am not paying people to feel bad. Climate guilt is cheap, it is useless, and it burns young people out so fast that they go looking for a new cause within three years. I would rather hire people who view the land as their national inheritance, as a part of themselves they need to protect. This is why my organization has never bet everything on what happens in Washington, D.C., but instead has built a nationwide grassroots network of people who love their hometowns. Durable policy is the result of people like them, not the other way around. Policy may come from Capitol Hill, but the conservationists who write it are made outdoors. The problem is, we are making fewer of them every year.
A <a href="https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/162385/cdc_162385_DS1.pdf">Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study of 2021 survey data</a> showed that nearly four in 10 kids aged 3 to 5 get an hour or less outside on a weekday. Fewer than half get three or more hours on any given Saturday or Sunday. Screens are the easy answer. The bigger problem is that childhood is more structured than ever. As I wrote for the Institute for Family Studies, our children are being <a href="https://ifstudies.org/blog/a-free-range-childhood-is-key-to-civic-infrastructure">supervised, programmed, and scheduled nearly all of their waking hours</a>.
Their childhoods also lack the risk and independence that shaped previous generations. American parents know that if the helicopter parents don’t get you, the legal liability will. As <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/04/hey-parents-leave-those-kids-alone/358631/">The Atlantic</a> has documented, a preoccupation with safety has stripped childhood of independence and risk-taking without making it safer. This culture of fear and risk aversion also extends to how we’re teaching kids about the natural world. Today’s climate curriculum leads with catastrophe and alarmism, so children learn to feel guilty about nature before they ever learn to like it.
I am raising my son to love nature the way I did as a child. No indoctrination necessary. He’ll be in good company: conservationists born and raised hunting, fishing, hiking, riding, and caring for the land. Affection cannot be assigned. When we indoctrinate a child into caring for the land instead of letting him find it himself, he becomes compliant. But conviction works better than compliance. The difference in mindset between “you bear responsibility for this land” and “you are part of a plague on the land” matters, and I know which I’d rather send my son into the world with.
Those with conviction care for the land in tangible ways. Last year alone, hunters and anglers put roughly <a href="https://www.nrahlf.org/articles/2025/3/20/hunter-backed-pittman-robertson-act-provides-13-billion-for-2025-conservation-funding/">$1.3 billion</a> into state wildlife conservation through Pittman-Robertson and Dingell-Johnson excise taxes. No one shamed them into it, but their idea of a good weekend is one spent in a stream or a tree stand, and they pay for the privilege through hunting tags and fishing licenses. An afternoon outside shows up as a funding stream.
None of this is complicated. It is a habit, and habits are set at home. 
The numbers are moving our way. Participation in outdoor recreation <a href="https://ncoae.org/blog/outdoor-recreation-participation-is-at-a-record-high-now-comes-the-real-work/">hit a record</a> last year, and youth participation rose 5.6 percent. That trend will become a fad if we fail to cement it. This is the responsibility of parents. Calvin doesn’t have the words to express his love of the outdoors yet. But each morning he grabs my hand and leads me to our back door, then looks up at me expectantly. Soon he will work the latch himself, and then it is out of my hands. I am not raising an activist. I am raising a boy who will notice when the creek runs low.
So here is my environmental agenda, and it will cost you an afternoon: Take a child outside this week. Do not actively teach him anything. Let him get muddy, and let him track it back into your kitchen.
The opening and closing of your screen door will do more for our future than any government program could.
***
Danielle Franz is the CEO of the American Conservation Coalition.
This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

GettyImages-2085807068

Why I Don’t Worry About My Kid’s Carbon Footprint

american conservation coalition

climate change education

conservation

opinion

outdoor recreation

History is one big struggle of various groups fighting against the big, bad white man.
Here’s the harsh truth of it: We, the Boomers, Gen Xers, and older Millennials, thought we were doing good by teaching our children about the world through this lens. Some of us felt guilty about being white and privileged, so this was a correction for it.
We Boomers, Gen Xers, and older Millennials sent our children to school without really looking into what was being taught. We had a profound lack of interest in the moral values our children failed to learn. After all, our parents were hands-off, and we turned out alright. But our parents weren’t parenting in the 21st century. It’s an entirely different playing field. We didn’t have teachers who spewed terrible ideas or social media that echoed them.
And now we see that because we were hands-off, because we were passive and blindly trusted the school system, young people are lost and confused and have backward ideas about the world. They are leading the charge when it comes to the deterioration of the West.
Who can blame them? How can young people feel good about the West when they learn that it’s just an evil oppressor? This is reinforced when they log onto TikTok, where victimhood saturates every single video. Heck, young people were sympathizing with Osama bin Laden in November of 2023, when his “Letter to America” — which demonized the U.S. for funding and carrying out military operations in the Middle East — went viral. Things have become so bad that Osama bin Laden, a mass murderer who killed thousands of innocent Americans, is now seen as a victim by some young people.
We need to admit it: This is our fault. We didn’t teach young people the full history or give them real knowledge. We focused on the oppressor vs. oppressed and let social media handle the rest. Now, we cannot pretend to care about the West unless we start by caring about what is being taught in the classroom.
Over the past few years, there has been endless talk about progressive ideologies infecting college campuses.
Students at Columbia held an anti-Veterans Day protest called “Martyrs Day” to honor Middle Eastern martyrs; several professors have been fired or faced other forms of retaliation for going against progressive talking points; and only about 1 to 3% of professors at Harvard identify as conservative, with the rest of the staff being liberal to outright leftist.
While what’s happening on college campuses is shocking, the truth is that the problem with our education in the West starts much, much earlier. It begins as soon as children enter the school system.
From an early age, they learn everything through the lens of the oppressor and the oppressed.
The early U.S. settlers were bad white male colonizers who did horrible things to the native population.
Women were oppressed, and through the suffrage movement, they defeated the patriarchy and gained the right to vote.
The white man has repeatedly and exclusively enslaved Black people.
The good news? There is still time to turn it around for the younger generations.
Parents: Now that you know the dangers of being passive, be proactive about your children’s education. See what they are learning in school. Don’t be afraid to question it. Switch schools or homeschool if you have to. And for goodness’ sake, monitor what they are looking at on their phones. Or give them a dumbphone so you don’t have to worry.
If you are considering a new school, look at their curriculum and how the children behave in that school. Are they respectful towards their teachers — and each other — in the classroom? Do they go from class to class quietly? Do they stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and know it by heart?
Teach your children the “small c” conservative values your grandparents taught you: Personal responsibility. Duty to others. Loyalty to country. Respecting elders and authority. Being a good citizen.
Do not teach the world through the oppressor/oppressed lens. Teach your children not to emphasize victimhood. Show your children they are responsible beings with agency, no matter their race or religion.
This is a civilization failure that belongs to us. We did this to our children.
But it isn’t too late. Instill in them knowledge, truth, and values, and care about what goes on in the classroom. Then, we won’t have such troubles by the time they hit college and then go out into the real world.
If we save our children, it’s clear: we’ll save the West, too.
***
Katharine Birbalsingh is headmistress and co-founder of Michaela Community School. She is known as Britain’s Strictest Headmistress and hosts the podcast &#8220;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/@StrictlyEdPod">Strictly Education</a>.&#8221;

Anti-ICE rally outside Columbia University in New York

Why The Next Generation Sees The West As The Enemy

education

progressivism

social media

western civilization

The days of the Bad News Bears are long gone. No longer can a drunk, a bail bond company, and a cigarette-smoking teenager propel an underdog team to victory in the world of youth sports. Today, it’s all about time, money, and travel. Mostly, though, it’s about over-involved parents, ones who are too often living vicariously through their little athletes.
I know this because I spent years as a soccer dad, even if our experience wasn’t quite as harrowing as the ones described in “<a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/youth-sports-private-equity-travel-leagues.html">Pay to Play Childhood</a>,” written by Caitlin Moscatello for New York Magazine’s “Intelligencer.” In her piece, she details much of what I saw. Actual team members get benched for guest players, aka ringers. Parents scream at other kids, coaches, and the refs. Families spend holidays and vacations to go to even more specialized tournaments around the country and the world. And kids, once they become teenagers, get burned out and more prone to injury.
If it was all a result of private equity, I didn’t see it. Or, perhaps, when my daughter decided to quit to dedicate her energy to choir when the club got too focused on getting the players to college ball, it was before the effects of private equity were noticeable locally. Regardless, her 12 years of soccer were not cheap. Exactly how not cheap they were, I couldn’t tell you. Sometimes it’s mentally easier to not total up every line item in the budget.
Which isn’t to say private equity isn’t coming for youth sports. It <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/09/business/youth-sports-private-equity.html?unlocked_article_code=1.71A.6BHh.lJ54c4rBRkIg&amp;smid=url-share">most certainly is</a>. People tend to recoil at the term, but there’s no guarantee it’s a bad thing. Maybe it’s good. Maybe it’s neutral. The important part is that money men started looking at all the cash being spent on youth sports and decided it was a worthy investment. We definitely contributed to that.
Not that we ever expected a return on investment. We were also outliers. Smart, successful people, often in careers with objective goals and low risk tolerance, were convinced their kids were going to beat the odds. Maybe it was the former player whose college career was derailed by an injury, maybe it was the mom who came from nothing and wanted to give her daughter every advantage possible, ones she didn’t have growing up. In either case, while private coaching and better clubs help, you can’t teach raw talent, and raw talent is what’s going to get kids into college on a scholarship and a Name, Image, Likeness (NIL) deal.
I also never saw much point in getting too caught up in the stats or the losses, so long as my daughter was having fun. She’s naturally competitive, she’s smart, and she likes rules, order, and schedules. Club soccer made sense for her even if college was never the goal. She had to stick to goals, learn to work with a variety of personalities, and follow rules, all while spending lots of time outside. The traveling wasn’t even bad. It definitely wasn’t as costly for us as others have reported, which is too often downplayed because it&#8217;s so excessive. We’ve spent many hours between games in various museums, zoos, and aquariums. Sometimes we’d walk historic downtowns, look at the architecture, and get the flavor of the area.
The only time there was ever a fight over a performance, it was my fault, I must admit. I told her, &#8220;Good game,” after a controversial loss in the final. As Moscatello writes, there’s a tendency to blame the refs. In this case, there was some merit to blaming the ref. My daughter was playing keeper and had the ball securely in her hands. The opposing team managed to knock it out, which is a no-no, but no foul was called. They scored and won the tournament because of that no-call.
She didn’t talk to me for 30 minutes for my insane suggestion that she’d played well, not breaking her silence until she got hungry. That’s when she sheepishly asked from the backseat, “Can we stop and get some food?”
On the field, though, the players constantly critique one another. Parents, despite club rules to the contrary, coach from the sidelines. Some pick fights in the group chat about coaching strategy mid-game, then storm off when the final whistle is blown, only to never be seen again.
Which is all a roundabout way of saying that the money isn’t really the problem; parents are. Clubs wouldn’t charge what they charge if parents said no. Private equity wouldn’t be interested if the money weren’t there, because parents don’t say no. Those guest players, the ringers, wouldn’t magically be on the field without having to pay for uniforms, club dues, or tournament fees if profit were the only motive. But there are also parents who will pick up the financial slack for those guest players.
It’s also not the lack of rec leagues, which is more a symptom than a cause. The growth of the club monster has two primary culprits: birthrates and overcorrection. When I was a kid, there were still enough of us to support not just rec leagues, but the impromptu neighborhood games that sparked interest. By the time I was a father, there weren’t enough children within a mile radius to put together a decent pick-up game. Travel brings together a dwindling number of children.
When I say overcorrection, that’s about Gen X, primarily, constantly extolling our toughness, our feral upbringing, our lack of rules, and doing so while giving our own children the exact opposite experience. We complain about helicopter parenting and participation trophies while not thinking about where those problems came from, then get mad and try to organize our way out of being overly organized.
Travel clubs, which leave no time for being feral and getting into the trouble that being feral invites, are also hyper-competitive and devoid of any sort of participation trophy, which is actually one of the best things about club sports. And because we overcorrected and didn’t procreate enough, we end up driving a few hours to play tournament games that include a final against a team from the same town as we drove from. If it seems silly, it is, but kids also don’t want to play in a tournament that features a grand total of three teams, which is what would happen if there were no travel.
America is awesome, and our desire to be amazing isn’t an impulse we should squander, even if it sometimes produces insane results like youth travel sports, which no one could afford if it weren’t for our proclivity toward being amazing. That impulse also needs to be periodically evaluated. Famed UCLA Bruins head coach John Wooden had a saying: “Don’t mistake activity for achievement.”
When it comes to travel ball, even if winning is the ultimate goal, activity is often mistaken for achievement. We just need one more practice, one more session with the coach from the local university, one more night watching game tape. What the kids actually need is for their parents to let them be kids, instead of seeing them as a product to be developed through relentless activity. Earl Woods is not the example to follow here.
We never pushed our daughter into soccer. She started in a program called Happy Feet, offered at her daycare. She fell in love. Happy Feet was a feeder league for Legends. Legends wasn’t concerned with winning or team play to the point that the kids would be twirling circles on the field, trying to complete their required foot skills tasks, while the opposing teams racked up double-digit victories over them. This led to a schism and the creation of a new club, which meant new uniforms, new backpacks, and the like. If you think the kids led this uprising, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.
My kid was eventually cut from that club and then ended up on the greatest team she ever played for. They won, sure, but they were all having fun doing it, mostly because the parents never made it about us. We never treated it like the most important thing in the world. It was just soccer. For example, the night before the finals of one tournament, the coach and some parents spent a few late-night hours at a burlesque club across the street from the hotel rather than obsessing about the next two games, games we ended up winning to take home the championship.
The club ended up disintegrating after some defections to other sports and an influx of new parents — and if you think it was the kids who led that uprising, you’d again be wrong — and my daughter ended up back on the team from which she’d been cut years before, although the paid coach had been replaced by two passionate fathers. This time, she was recruited … after playing a couple of matches as a guest player. She just wanted to get out there and have fun. And then, when the focus wholly turned to the next level rather than the current one, when it ceased being any sort of fun, she retired. We didn’t argue with her.
***
Rich Cromwell is a writer living in Northwest Arkansas. He produces the Cookin&#8217; Up a Story podcast, which you can listen to <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cookin-up-a-story/id1624969096">here</a>. You can also follow him on X: @rcromwell4

The Bad News Bears

How Gen X Broke Youth Sports

club soccer

gen x

private equity

youth sports

TikTok Parents

It’s Time To Mansplain Parenting To TikTok Moms Who Resent Their Own Kids

motherhood

tiktok

More and more moms are getting diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) alongside their children, saying that when they saw what their kids were going through, something just clicked.
The New York Post shared the <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/08/25/health/moms-are-being-diagnosed-with-adhd-because-of-their-kids/?utm_medium=social&amp;utm_campaign=nypost&amp;utm_source=twitter">story</a> of one woman, Cassie Blakely, who was diagnosed at 37 — all because she recognized things from her own childhood as her daughters went through the process of getting answers for themselves: &#8220;I realized through them &#8230; watching both of my daughters struggle kind of felt like my own childhood was being repeated in front of me.&#8221;
Blakely is one of many adults living with ADHD — which is officially classified as a <a href="https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/attention-deficit-hyperactivity-disorder-adhd">neurodevelopmental condition</a> that can change how the brain is able to regulate things like focus, attention, impulse control, and physical activity — and the number of adult diagnoses has grown dramatically in recent years, nearly doubling between 2018 and 2023 to over 15 million.
So why the explosion in diagnoses? Many of the adults being diagnosed in recent years grew up in the 1980s and 1990s — when such diagnoses were relatively scarce, particularly among women. In the 1980s, approximately one child in 20 was diagnosed with the condition — but current numbers are closer to one in nine.
The major factors driving increased diagnoses among children include greater awareness of the condition itself, better diagnostic tools, and a broader range of indicators that can trigger further examination.
For example, in the 1980s, the typical ADHD case was most likely a boy who routinely displayed behavior that was disruptive enough to land him in the principal&#8217;s office at school.
But because girls with ADHD typically present with different symptoms — they&#8217;re often inattentive rather than disruptive — they were simply labeled as &#8220;lazy.&#8221; Teachers and parents would lament that the girls were smart, but still somehow failing to live up to their obvious potential. Girls who were dismissed as daydreamers or space cadets were struggling internally with other ADHD symptoms like executive dysfunction — meaning that they could fully understand how to execute a task but feel paralyzed when it came to either starting the task or seeing it through to completion.
<a href="https://www.calgaryadhd.com/post/why-your-adhd-was-missed-in-the-80s-it-wasn-t-just-neglect">Diagnoses were also missed</a> in part because the parenting landscape was very different in the 1980s and 1990s. The Baby Boomers were raising children during those decades, and most of them had been raised by World War II veterans and survivors of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, meaning that they had all been taught to tough things out — and expected the same from their own children.
Inattentiveness or daydreaming — which today might be flagged as a sign of executive dysfunction — was written off as laziness. Physically acting out was often, at least at first, attributed to a lack of discipline or respect.
Children were different in those decades as well — raised primarily without technology, they were often expected to entertain themselves and encouraged to solve their own problems. Many found ways to mask their ADHD symptoms, either by becoming perfectionists or by procrastinating and relying on adrenaline surges to help them get things done at the last minute.
So what is the <a href="https://www.apa.org/monitor/2023/03/adult-adhd-diagnosis">benefit</a> of getting a diagnosis years later? Many of the children who slipped through the diagnostic cracks in the 1980s and 1990s grew up feeling like they had done something wrong. After years of being called &#8220;lazy&#8221; or being told that they just needed to work harder, they can finally get some answers that explain why their brains did not function the same way other kids&#8217; brains did.

Stressed mother working from home while taking care of daughter

What’s With All The Moms Getting Diagnosed With ADHD?

What's With All The Moms Getting Diagnosed With ADHD?

adhd

health

mental health

City Of San Francisco Announces Lawsuit Against Food Manufacturers Over Ultra-Processed Foods

Mom Tries To Police Kid Lunches And The Group Chat Goes Unhinged

lifestyle

school policy

viral trend

When a child begs to play Roblox, parents often assume it’s harmless. They hear it’s wildly popular with classmates. And those blocky cartoon characters often lead parents to assume it’s a safe game for kids.
In reality, Roblox is not a single game, but a massive, user-generated platform hosting millions of varied &#8220;experiences.&#8221; Much like a YouTube for gaming, the content varies widely in what’s appropriate for children. Illicit worlds encourage users to simulate sexual violence or predatory behaviors on other players.
Roblox rolled out child-safety features earlier this year only after immense public pressure and hundreds of lawsuits. Yet these don’t address many of the risks kids still face, like predators, pressure to spend virtual currency (Robux), and addictive design tricks that keep them hooked. 
<h4>Do Roblox’s new age checks do enough?</h4>
Users must now complete an age check before accessing communication features. This is done by either facial age estimation or government-issued ID verification for those 13 and over. 
Once verified, users can communicate with others in the same age group. Ages 5-8 are placed in Roblox Kids, where the chat is disabled by default, though parents can enable it. Ages 9-15 are grouped into Roblox Select, and those 16+ are grouped into standard Roblox.
I understand why that sounds reassuring. Parents want to believe the adults have been separated from the children.
However, accuracy is a real concern. Facial estimation only verifies the apparent age of the face presented at one moment. It can’t guarantee that the same person will continue using the account. 
Roblox may ask users to repeat the check if it detects a discrepancy, but parents are still left with an important question: Is the person chatting with my child actually the person whose face or ID Roblox checked? 
I’m privileged to interface with concerned parents regularly in my work at <a href="https://www.defendyoungminds.com/">Defend Young Minds</a>. When it comes to age verification, many parents have reported that their children were assigned to incorrect age groups. One mother shared a Roblox notice saying her 13-year-old’s account had been unlinked from hers because the platform considered him an adult. Her parental controls disappeared with it. Another shared that her teen was estimated as six years old.
Some parents, uncomfortable submitting a child’s face or ID, used their own faces instead, unintentionally pushing the child’s account into an adult category. Parents are being asked to choose between two risks: hand over a child’s facial data or ID, or refuse and potentially leave the account in the wrong age group. 
Even when the age is correct, children can still chat with strangers. An age label doesn’t make a stranger safe. And mature games still evade content moderation and appear in Roblox Kids.
Not surprisingly, the new system has created a digital black market for verified accounts. 
Sellers group accounts by specific age groups and sell them for a few dollars on illicit forums or e-commerce sites like eBay. While eBay prohibits and removes these listings, some still slip past content moderation due to crafty listings. This allows an adult predator to buy an account already categorized as a minor, completely bypassing age-restricted chat filters. Many online forums provide tutorials on how to find these listings.
Remember, these reactive safeguards were added to a platform whose basic design was already exposing children to risk. Age groups don’t change that. Let’s take a closer look at these dangers.
<h4>Predators can enter your child’s play space</h4>
Most parents would never invite an unknown adult into their child’s bedroom or playdate. Yet online gaming can create the digital equivalent.
Roblox&#8217;s social features serve as a hunting ground for predators, who use in-game interactions to groom children before moving conversations to unmonitored apps such as Discord or Snapchat. This progression can lead to requests for personal information and nude images, often using Robux as bait. From there, the child may face threats, sextortion, or requests to meet in person, putting them at risk of assault or even physical abduction.
David Gomez, a former police officer who has spent years working with children and families, has seen this firsthand.
“I’ve personally arrested predators in their 30s and older who had multiple Roblox accounts for the sole purpose of finding and grooming children,” he <a href="https://www.defendyoungminds.com/post/4-ways-roblox-endangers-your-kid-cops-safety-guide-for-parents">warned</a>. He has also responded to cases involving children as young as eight who were befriended on Roblox and then lured onto other apps.
<h4>User-created content can turn sexual or disturbing</h4>
Roblox prohibits sexual content. However, the sheer volume of user-created and altered content makes moderation difficult.
Children can encounter violent material, bullying, or coded communication intended to evade filters. For example, players can type on signs (like public billboards) in real time and avoid chat filters. Kids can easily encounter sexually explicit avatar behavior and illicit “condo” games built around simulated sexual activity.
Pornography doesn’t stop being pornography because the bodies are blocky or animated.  
One reason I wrote the &#8220;<a href="https://www.defendyoungminds.com/books">Good Pictures Bad Pictures&#8221;</a> read-aloud books was to give children the ability to recognize pornography and the vocabulary to report it before exposure happens. Kids can learn a simple definition of pornography, a warning of why it’s dangerous, and a plan to stay safe that includes telling a trusted adult.
<h4>Robux turns play into pressure to spend</h4>
Furthermore, the platform operates as a marketplace driven by aggressive monetization. Its business model pressures children into spending Robux, which costs real money, by making them feel excluded or unsuccessful if they don’t buy clothing, abilities, or upgrades.
Officer Gomez has responded to homes where children have spent thousands of dollars before parents realized it. One 10-year-old memorized his father’s debit-card information and bought add-ons while he slept. 
Addictive design
Roblox never really ends. Many games have no natural stopping point. There is always another experience, reward, purchase, or limited event. Coveted items awarded during gameplay, or drops, happen at odd hours to keep players constantly watchful. Randomized rewards can begin to feel a lot like slot machines. 
Gomez has taken 911 calls involving children screaming, breaking things, or making threats when told to log off. 
Even if Roblox’s age-safety controls worked perfectly, parents still face a platform designed to keep children playing, spending, and returning.
<h4>What can parents do?</h4>
I believe the wiser choice is a smaller, private environment, like Minecraft Realms, limited to people parents actually know. Or an offline game that offers fun without constant internet access or communication with strangers. 
Parents who permit Roblox need to be prepared for a lot of oversight. They should play alongside their children, link and secure the parent account, restrict chat and spending, keep devices in shared spaces, establish firm stopping times, and review the controls regularly.
Teach children to reject requests for secrecy, personal information, and pictures. And make this rule nonnegotiable: Never, ever move a chat onto another app without a parent’s knowledge and permission. 
Predators depend on access, secrecy, and a child’s reluctance to tell. With these steps, parents can interrupt all three. 
Roblox’s new safeguards may reduce some dangers, but they don’t replace parental judgment. Or the wisdom to decide that Roblox just isn’t worth the risk.
***
Kristen A. Jenson, MA, is the founder of <a href="https://www.defendyoungminds.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Defend Young Minds</a> and the author of the bestselling <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Good-Pictures-Bad-Guide-Girls/dp/0997318783" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Good Pictures Bad Pictures</a> series of read-aloud books that help parents talk with their kids about pornography and build healthy digital habits. She has spent years equipping families to protect children in a screen-saturated world.
This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

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The Hidden Dangers Of Kids’ Favorite Game

child safety online

online predator

roblox

In the memories of Gen Z and Millennials, back-to-school snacks feature fruit snacks, fruit roll-ups, Dunkaroos, Oreos, and a litany of processed foods. But years later, the science has caught up to these lab-made food-like substances, and the results don’t look good for the food dyes and processed sugar. And as the <a href="https://cdn.realfood.gov/DGA.pdf">new U.S. dietary guidelines</a> emphasize whole fruit, veggies, and protein, the next generation can do far better.
With back-to-school season in full swing, it’s time to load up on easy snacks to send along with the little ones this year — or grab for your own work bag. Here are eight MAHA snacks to add to the rotation. 
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/stores/L%C3%84RABAR/page/5A01DEC3-FD90-4D9B-999A-67933E9D116A?tag=ustxtaddt-20">Larabars</a>. A blend of dates, nuts, and mixed fruits, spices, or chocolate, these bars are perfect to tuck into any lunch box. They come in multitudes of flavors from <a href="https://www.amazon.com/LARABAR-Larabar-Chocolate-Cookie-6Count/dp/B08MRXFP6C?ref_=ast_sto_dp&amp;th=1">chocolate chip cookie dough</a> to <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Larabar-Lemon-Gluten-Vegan-Fruit/dp/B08TQ14RBL?ref_=ast_sto_dp&amp;th=1&amp;psc=1">lemon bar,</a> as well as mini sizes, and each flavor features only a handful of pronounceable, good-for-you ingredients.
Trail mix. Nothing beats the customizability of trail mix! For every flavor palette, there’s a dried fruit, nut, and chocolate chip combination that hits the spot, and for nut-free classrooms, sunflower seeds are an easy swap in for almonds or peanuts. The trick is avoiding dried fruits that have added sugars or preservatives as well as nuts that have been roasted in seed oils. Fortunately, bulk food sections and Trader Joe’s both have a vast selection of simple and organic nuts, seeds, and dried fruit. Putting bags of trail mix together is also an easy way to get kids involved in the kitchen, let them choose their favorite combinations, and teach them about the food they eat. 
Simple Mills crackers. Though the Lunchables-style mystery meat and Ritz crackers are a snack choice Gen Alpha should probably leave in the past, there are a host of healthy crackers hitting the market for a salty snack. Simple Mills has come out with a line of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/64BF600B-6B5E-45A5-A2BF-D7BCC6797164?ingress=2&amp;lp_context_asin=B08ZFM4TSM&amp;lp_context_query=simple%20mills%20almond%20flour%20crackers&amp;visitId=e9922b75-1899-4b1c-a55a-7290c2d27495&amp;store_ref=bl_ast_dp_brandlogo_sto&amp;ref_=ast_bln">almond-flour crackers</a>, and for a sweeter treat, they’ve added <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Simple-Mills-Cookies-Cinnamon-Chocolate/dp/B0D36GSVSF?ref_=ast_sto_dp&amp;th=1">graham cracker–style snacks</a> made with nut and seed flours and sweetened with coconut sugar — all made with pronounceable ingredients. 
Popcorn. If salty is your child’s favorite flavor — or if they’re a picky eater — then you can’t go wrong with a bag of popcorn. Of course, plenty of brands sell individual servings of pre-popped kernels, but when a <a href="https://www.amazon.com/NOW-Foods-Organic-Popcorn-24/dp/B004S8CMVK/ref=sr_1_6?crid=LSHSEV7CX9ZK&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.bFe9TgWHDI5faD_q4I6VndIbhlXbtnWrhF8lt-pWAZslhayYw6SyfHAqFEOCwBSbwyjCt3J1FsFZ4eut_d0LDbDuclNibY9l65Vlw6ottWb5QiiqLha6CCvK_k1tPC3P59kISg0ISyljnUJOFpR0BXJg45drDDaEH4yiYVsG3NS2g45VfiRsfMVTDyjln-KqB3-cnYqQKVBsVDw1_f4KDOp-UxWEUKc_u1D0r6BoUPJ8-o9Xp73JTdzGuxqk9c25mXwKXvKwXuUEq6sm5ywEL-SHyeDl9FZB1FQcXG0vVxE.n-yHCGJzB5B_iVLVXJnYIu39rnZPQtBiWzmQ7WL65ps&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=organic%2Bpopcorn&amp;qid=1786417016&amp;s=grocery&amp;sprefix=organic%2Bpopcor%2Cgrocery%2C395&amp;sr=1-6&amp;th=1">big bag of unpopped corn</a> costs less than $10, this can also be an easy snack to make at home and bag up for the week. And while there are plenty of gadgets to make popcorn at home, the only necessary equipment is a pot and lid — along with <a href="https://cookieandkate.com/perfect-stovetop-popcorn-recipe/">some technique</a>. Just a little coconut oil, salt, and a stove can make the perfect crunchy snack. 
Fruit leathers. The MAHA (and non-rolled) version of fruit roll-ups, fruit leathers aren’t a new addition to the snack market, but they are getting a new life as “fruit jerky” or “fruit bars.” Brands like <a href="https://www.amazon.com/stores/Thatsit/page/F393F13E-E396-4B7A-9F38-826077B88CC1?lp_asin=B0D1VWMVL7&amp;ref_=ast_bln&amp;store_ref=bl_ast_dp_brandlogo_sto&amp;bl_grd_status=override">That’s It</a> and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/stores/SOLELY/page/8F3DF9A9-65C1-4137-B180-9A42DD5BBFBC?lp_asin=B07DR5XK42&amp;ref_=ast_bln&amp;store_ref=bl_ast_dp_brandlogo_sto">Solely</a>, which tout an organic label, have given a facelift to the dried fruit snacks, but the classic versions are still around at supermarkets too. With only whole fruit ingredients, these are also a safe option for nut-free classrooms. 
Fresh fruit. On the note of fruit, there’s nothing more classic than an apple in the classroom. Just because marketing has sold us on pre-packaged snacks and variety packs doesn’t mean that a banana, clementine, or apple need to be off the menu. They’re easy to pair with some nuts on the side or a scoop of nut butter (or sunflower seed butter) in a small container for added healthy fats and protein. 
Beef sticks. If protein is your goal, nothing beats the beef stick craze. From classic full-sized <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Chomps-Grass-Fed-Finished-Original-10-Pack/dp/B07D3NS8NW/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2D3G2IQD4GH4T&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.HA6g2Pg5iEnNZYrxk5uosejCHaM_FBv4SnE5dEHnYyXmsEs5A4ztbs3aXqPJJO0VNzJK9OREScjly5_juDzJU8Q5MJit4jBm5HrlYLYNmITN8T809eSJjGNeM6LsB0wiBphXoWrlrk6DHZPAf6WfTMRONiBhdVbEhUtqQnt4LUxa-H3S29fbALs4upON3UsRZfW1BKHdQax87DrIxg1fGd74O1n0_q9wUZyVs18Ob6dMyr96ZV2MeirESR6i_4iWOR6wDyzh91UuGNXMv5nMWejGyMMXBxQmfNK7gx11OPI.OK-f-1LCO_5arT60Qir_u1Pc7bXJTERccEy_AasPjzU&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=chomps%2Bbeef%2Bsticks&amp;qid=1786416598&amp;s=grocery&amp;sprefix=chomps%2Cgrocery%2C292&amp;sr=1-1&amp;th=1">Chomps</a> to <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Archer-Jerky-Mini-Beef-Sticks/dp/B0BP3PS7SJ/ref=sr_1_2_sspa?crid=2D3G2IQD4GH4T&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.HA6g2Pg5iEnNZYrxk5uosejCHaM_FBv4SnE5dEHnYyXmsEs5A4ztbs3aXqPJJO0VNzJK9OREScjly5_juDzJU8Q5MJit4jBm5HrlYLYNmITN8T809eSJjGNeM6LsB0wiBphXoWrlrk6DHZPAf6WfTMRONiBhdVbEhUtqQnt4LUxa-H3S29fbALs4upON3UsRZfW1BKHdQax87DrIxg1fGd74O1n0_q9wUZyVs18Ob6dMyr96ZV2MeirESR6i_4iWOR6wDyzh91UuGNXMv5nMWejGyMMXBxQmfNK7gx11OPI.OK-f-1LCO_5arT60Qir_u1Pc7bXJTERccEy_AasPjzU&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=chomps%2Bbeef%2Bsticks&amp;qid=1786416598&amp;s=grocery&amp;sprefix=chomps%2Cgrocery%2C292&amp;sr=1-2-spons&amp;sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY&amp;th=1">mini Archers</a> to <a href="https://www.amazon.com/stores/Paleovalley/page/FC8E7CC0-EC03-43BF-B93A-DF68A93F508B">Paleo Valley’s</a> range of venison, beef, and chicken, there are plenty of brands selling grass-fed options that are a new twist on beef jerky-style snacks. And for nut-free schools, this is a perfect high-protein win. Just be sure to check the flavor or ingredients for anything too spicy for little ones!
Veggies. Add some sliced-up veggies to the snack rotation. Prepping a medley of carrots, cucumbers, and cauliflower at the beginning of the week is an easy way to add in an extra serving of nutrients to each day. And if your child prefers veggies with a side of dip, then hummus can add some protein or a healthier ranch such as <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Primal-Kitchen-Avocado-Dressing-Marinade/dp/B07FDP6MF2/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2COKEGCF5HK2I&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.QV6UdK-NYEeSyglXL-UyCuphZ-V_KZ-JxpufdPrt9jSi5sHqMT_iE3IiByVYoYDTwlzW7C5yKyUdlhDQfHlX46yOQtuE73aav_5cGadenujFQJb3crSiITCQ1mn0hR8JxoP4LV4-80uGfaz-Pn9Qdr0Ky7ah0csutslYD3ujrEwnSHfoYU6fTuIlabsYFNHQHxFqjLUGvkkp6MSIByqqhQNqTkkLUo58zZsN4qVXSuv6BXVy3abqcD4Z7CzGqOXxSeUKaPcqmNhT26BwFC3vaj2GmKmNczQWgC9fbIvXL1s.64greIE45MCUksOKSsMXaLUqo1hv5OOcsjWv2jX4KTw&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=primal+kitchen+ranch&amp;qid=1786417464&amp;sprefix=primal+kitchen+%2Caps%2C197&amp;sr=8-1">Primal Kitchen’s dressing</a> can add a zip of flavor. Just send along a small side container for the dip.
The truth is that real food and healthy snacks are, by their nature, simple. And when it comes to America’s next generation, whole foods and simple foods are nothing but the best fuel for growing minds.
***
Jordan Jantz is the assistant editor at IW Features as well as a freelance writer, editor, and website designer.
This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

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Eight Easy MAHA Back-To-School Snacks Your Kids Will Love

back to school

food policy

make america healthy again

nutrition

It happened in a split second. I was sitting near the edge of my parents&#8217; pool, watching my daughter and chatting with a friend when I turned to talk — just for a moment.
&#8220;Did Abby just go under?&#8221; my friend interrupted my sentence. 
My heart dropped. My daughter&#8217;s head was bobbing just below the surface. I jumped in, pulled her out, and held her shaking body against mine while a terrifying could have pinged through my mind.
&#8220;It&#8217;s okay, Ericka, it was only a second,&#8221; my friend told me. It didn&#8217;t help. In that instant, I viscerally understood how any parent, no matter how vigilant, could lose a child to drowning.
I was lucky. Christi Brown was not. Her three-year-old son, Judah, had already taken traditional swim lessons and was wearing a puddle jumper at the pool. He took it off to dry, but jumped back in the pool without it — thinking he was safe because he was used to a flotation device. She found him underwater minutes later, and Judah died that day.
&#8220;All they taught him at the age of three was to be confident in the water, without teaching him competence in it,&#8221; Brown told me of her son’s past swimming lessons. 
That distinction — confidence versus competence — is the whole argument for why every parent of a young child should seriously consider infant survival swim lessons. These lessons are easily identified on social media by striking videos of young children being tossed into the water, where they immediately roll onto their backs and float, a technique designed to help them survive an accidental fall into a pool. 
The videos can be shocking to watch. Despite their controversial nature, I believe it’s worth the cost to potentially save your child’s life. 
Recently, influencer Emilie Kiser lost her three-year-old son, Trigg, to a drowning accident, which has caused many moms to reconsider safety measures. But Kiser isn’t alone; there are drowning incidents reported every week in this country, especially in the summer months. 
Drowning is the leading cause of death for children ages one to four, and <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/73/wr/mm7320e1.htm">the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report</a> that drowning rates in that age group jumped roughly 28% in 2021 and 2022 compared with 2019. 
It doesn&#8217;t look like the movies. Kids don&#8217;t thrash and yell; they just quietly go under in a silent tragedy. 
&#8220;It&#8217;s remarkably undramatic in nature, and most of the time it&#8217;s not recognized by people who are watching swimmers,&#8221; ER physician Dr. Scott Youngquist <a href="https://healthcare.utah.edu/the-scope/all/2024/07/what-does-drowning-look">said</a>. 
Survival swimming lessons train children as young as six months to float unassisted and swim to safety if they fall in unexpectedly. 
I spoke with <a href="https://pediaswim.com/">Pediaswim founder Joy McGinty</a>, one of the method&#8217;s best-known practitioners, and she doesn&#8217;t mince words about the flotation devices most parents rely on instead. A puddle jumper, she says, is &#8220;like cocaine — because it can kill&#8221; a child by giving him false confidence.
 &#8220;With a huge percentage of kids that drown, if you ask a parent what is the last picture they have of their kid alive, they&#8217;re in a puddle jumper,&#8221; she said. Someone took it off, and the child jumped back in without it. That is precisely what happened to Judah.
I know the skepticism firsthand — because I hesitated too. My son started traditional lessons at age one; two years and three different swim schools later, he still couldn&#8217;t have saved himself if he fell in.
<a href="https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/swimming-lessons-save-lives-what-parents-should-know-201806151630">Harvard health expert</a> Dr. Claire McCarthy, M.D., has noted that children under five simply aren&#8217;t cognitively or physically ready to learn conventional swimming. Survival swimming exists precisely because of that gap.
Critics raise real questions, and parents deserve to hear them squarely. Some object to the brief distress babies show in early sessions, calling it traumatic. Others point out that infants under one most often drown in bathtubs — a risk survival swimming doesn&#8217;t address. 
Dr. Clay Jones has argued <a href="https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/summer-is-here-and-infant-swimming-programs-are-still-unproven/">in Science-Based Medicine</a> that the marketing oversells the method and that it&#8217;s wrong to place &#8220;the onus of drowning prevention on an infant.&#8221; Concerns about so-called &#8220;dry drowning&#8221; circulate too, though <a href="https://www.redcross.org/take-a-class/resources/articles/dry-or-delayed-secondary-drowning?srsltid=AfmBOorxuEdfQzgMCyaJ_5AGEZoDszHwZI268cyLwkUStRZSdlUtZaTT">the Red Cross has pushed back</a> on sensationalized reporting that it says has needlessly terrified parents.
These are fair points to weigh, not reasons to dismiss the method outright. No one — least of all instructors like McGinty — claims survival swimming replaces supervision. It&#8217;s a last line of defense, not a substitute for watching your kids. 
&#8220;You don&#8217;t want your kid to have to use this skill,&#8221; my sister Shelby Gil, who left a nursing career to become a certified instructor, told me, &#8220;but you can know that they will have skills to save their own life if they need to.&#8221;
Unfortunately, the lessons aren&#8217;t cheap or convenient. They can run $75 to $300 a week, and instructors are somewhat scarce outside places such as Florida where pools stay open year-round. I drove 25 minutes each way, five days a week, for six weeks of ten-minute sessions.
Nonprofits like <a href="https://judahbrownproject.org/">the Judah Brown Project</a> (created in honor of the Judah in this story), McGinty&#8217;s Gift of Swimming, and <a href="https://www.hopefloats.foundation/">Hope Floats</a> now offer scholarships precisely because families keep learning about this option only after tragedy strikes nearby — a pattern that repeats itself, town by town, drowning by drowning.
When I finally enrolled my daughter, I braced for tears. Instead, she came to enjoy her lessons and her teacher. On the last day, her instructor had us dress her in boots, a jacket, and gloves — because real emergencies don&#8217;t happen in swimsuits — and she jumped in fully clothed. She floated, and I felt safer knowing she’ll always know how to do that now. 
&#8220;Don&#8217;t be us,” said Judah’s mom, Cristi. “We don&#8217;t want you to live the rest of your life without your child.&#8221; 
It’s not about guilt or shame. It’s a warning worth heeding and an investment worth making.
***
Ericka Andersen is the author of “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Freely-Sober-Rethinking-Alcohol-Through/dp/1514013363/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Freely Sober: Rethinking Alcohol Through the Lens of Faith</a>” (InterVarsity Press, 2026)
This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

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The Pool Safety Myth That Could Cost A Child’s Life

child safety

drowning prevention

emilie kiser

swim lessons

It was once generally touted that successful cheating demanded more effort than simply learning the class content, but that is no longer true. If you’re the parent of a secondary or college student, you’re likely somewhat invested in your child’s education. At the very least, I assume you would hate for your student to be suspected of illicit AI use on an assignment, and you would be willing to go to lengths to minimize that possibility if you only knew where to start. But AI moves fast. Its capabilities have quietly expanded, and it takes diligent study to understand exactly how. 
I taught high school English at a private Christian school during the height of AI’s debut. Since the birth of my son, I’ve stepped into a remote position requiring me to devote a staggering percentage of work time to authenticating suspicious student work. My aim is to come alongside you in the endeavor of understanding student AI use so that you can feel equipped to enter the coming school year. While a student will generally get out of their education what they put into it, that yield will almost certainly be no more than what you’re willing to put into it yourself. Here’s what we want you to know.
First, AI’s temptation does not discriminate. If you’ve made it this far but still believe your student would never dream of cheating, I would encourage you to reconsider. As a general trend, there is little discrepancy between the number of “standard” students and the number of honors students suspected of using AI. These honors students often bear other distinctions as well: National Honors Society participants, student government officers, team captains, or otherwise beloved and highly regarded members of a school culture. It is simply a desire to do well, not a desire for expedience, that does them in. These are the students whose need to succeed overrides their moral compass: They know it’s wrong, but AI feels like the only way out for a student whose day is filled with extracurriculars and stacks of honors and AP homework.
Parents, if I have just described your student, my recommendation here is twofold. First, do not mistakenly assume your student will always overcome the temptation to use AI. Capable as they seem, they still need your oversight and your encouragement. Second, check in with your student; no number of resume-building pursuits will be able to distract from an academic integrity infraction. And while developing grit is important, developing virtue is crucial. Your student may be silently craving the space to act virtuously without feeling that their efforts will fall short. 
Next, signs of cheating may not be what you think. You won’t catch your student copying off their friend’s assignment. Even work that appears to be human-written may have been authored by AI. “Humanizer” tools have been cleverly crafted to turn those predictably robotic AI writing patterns into variable, choppy, and even error-ridden passages. Why? This makes a piece far less likely to be flagged as AI content by an AI “detector,” and, unfortunately, less likely to draw a teacher’s eye. Now run that same piece through a humanizer tool multiple times, or through several different humanizer tools, layer in some student edits, and you have a patchwork piece that will fly under any number of radars.
Thorough teachers will notice when a piece that may initially appear human does not actually correspond with the particular individual’s writing style. We get to know our students’ voices well, but the bright side to this is that you can do the same: Familiarize yourself with your own student’s “writing” voice, review their final work, and get acquainted with their stylistic quirks. And if this feels daunting, consider at least checking their browsing history from time to time; this only takes a moment, but it could be the supervision that causes your student to decide AI is not worth the risk. 
Additionally, just because your student spent hours on an assignment does not prove its authenticity. Students have realized that copying and pasting AI content directly into their online document can be caught by a teacher with access to that document’s “version history,” an embedded log that captures, edit-by-edit, the document’s evolution over time. This viewable version history once provided clear-cut evidence for a conviction: One moment, a page would be entirely blank; the next, paragraphs of perfectly polished prose would appear all at once — an entire essay crafted within minutes. But students caught on to us.
Now, rather than copying and pasting, they manually transcribe AI-generated content they have open in one tab into a document waiting in a different tab. This creates a human-looking writing process captured by the version history even though the piece is, by no means, human. Parents, look just a bit more closely at your student’s screens: Do they have only their document up, or are they switching back and forth between tabs? Knowing what to look for may allow you to intervene before your student fully commits to a deceitful choice. 
Finally, parents, we want you to know that we dread confronting you. My coworkers and I regularly work long hours beyond what we are compensated for, pouring ourselves into lesson plans, providing comma-level feedback on writing submissions, and designing new experiments to see what we can improve upon. We do this not out of necessity, but simply because we are dedicated to our craft and to our students. But the increased volume of AI infractions, along with the general rise of disengagement and disrespect, has put us at odds with the job we love. Often it is not the cheating itself, nor the students who double down on their deception, but the reactions by parents whom we have to confront over their students’ use of AI that are the most crushing.
Parents have personally insulted and hastily attributed the worst possible motivations to good teachers in response to raised suspicions surrounding AI use. These reactions have the potential to erode the passion that keeps devoted educators in the classroom. Good teachers can succeed elsewhere, and they are the ones who will eventually throw up their hands in defeat after too many disheartening battles with the families they desire to serve. You will be left with teachers who complain recreationally about your students behind their backs but will never bother to enforce AI infractions. 
By all means, plead your student’s case. They are innocent until proven guilty. But know what it is that you’re arguing first. Have conversations with your student to make sure they’re not so overwhelmed by extracurriculars that they feel the only road to success is dishonesty. Get to know their writing style. Check their browsing history. Keep an eye on what tabs they have open. And when you’ve done all that, I implore you, conduct yourself as one who is simply in search of the truth, whatever that may be.
The teacher on the receiving end will be tremendously blessed, but the real beneficiary, in fact, is your child. Regardless of what his or her actions may have been, they’ll have the opportunity to watch you go to bat for them while still demonstrating civility. They’ll see, in practice, that virtue outweighs grades — and emotions. And they’ll be reminded of that boundless love you have for them, a love that doesn’t fluctuate according to grades or supposed infractions. Remember, they’ll get out of their education what you put into it, and maybe they will come away with just a little bit more after all.  
***
Emily Hunker is a former high school English teacher who currently supports her department in developing curricular processes and upholding academic integrity.
This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

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Parents, Here’s What Teachers Wish You Knew About AI

academic cheating

artificial intelligence in schools

When I was 36 weeks pregnant with my third child and too exhausted to argue, my husband packed his GoPro for our family vacation and documented the whole thing. He recorded the ride down, the condo antics, and the cuteness of our kids splashing in the surf. He recorded mini golf and a boardwalk ice cream stop; he interviewed the kids and family members who came along. He then edited it all, added music, and made us look like one of those influencer families. I love having the memories, but it was a lot of work for everyone.
Those videos still exist somewhere on YouTube and have approximately 100 views total if we&#8217;re lucky. Half of those are from family members. If you would ask my children tomorrow if they wanted to become influencers, they would say, &#8220;Yes! Please!&#8221; But just because they want something, that doesn&#8217;t make it good for them.
In &#8220;Like, Follow, Subscribe,&#8221; the buzzy new book about the potential harm of influencers showcasing their kids online 24/7, author Fortesa Latifi highlights families across the internet who record their kids and share their lives for clicks. Some, like the LaBrants, are well-known. Others are only familiar to hardcore YouTube fans.
The children Latifi interviewed almost all have mixed feelings about growing up under the watchful eye of the internet. They say they didn&#8217;t love it but in many cases felt guilted into it because of the income and opportunities that could only come from sharing their entire lives online.
I’ll start with the extremes because Latifi does: Ruby Franke, of the channel 8 Passengers, was arrested on child abuse charges. But even the influencers doing everything right still might be doing something a little wrong. 
One influencer identified only by the pseudonym Sam said she once bribed her kids, offering them $500 to dance on camera while promoting a product, which would earn the family $40,000. The kids said no. Sam said she then had to &#8220;manipulate and guilt trip the kids.&#8221;
&#8220;This is our business. This is what we do,&#8221; she told them. &#8220;This is our family job. If we owned a farm, you would all be out milking cows. No questions asked … so get in line and let&#8217;s do this.&#8221;
Sam admitted that she watched her &#8220;moral filter&#8221; go out the window as the money began pouring in. She also noted that the longer she stays involved, the easier it is to justify. &#8220;The deeper you get into it, the more you numb out from it,&#8221; she told Latifi. &#8220;There&#8217;s no room for misgivings. There&#8217;s no room for a conscience.&#8221;
At least Sam is honest about the lasting damage she&#8217;s likely inflicting on the entire family, even if she&#8217;s not brave enough to own it by using her real name. Other influencers featured in the book had even less shame and more justifications.
There&#8217;s the unfortunate fact that negative content gets more clicks, and then more money. A video titled &#8220;Our First Pet Died&#8221; featuring a thumbnail of an adorable one of the LaBrant children sobbing has racked up 34 million views, as the author notes. This turned out to be clickbait — because it&#8217;s not the family dog that died, but rather the goldfish.
It gets way worse than that. Family Fun Pack filmed reactions to their children&#8217;s grandmother&#8217;s funeral and earned just under 2 million views.
Another influencer named Jordan Cheyenne faced backlash after accidentally uploading a video of herself coaching her son to cry after finding out his dog was fatally ill. &#8220;No, Mom, I&#8217;m seriously crying,&#8221; he can be heard saying, and Cheyenne instructs him to look sadder and, above all, focus on the camera. &#8220;Come closer for the video … let them see your mouth,&#8221; she can be heard saying.
Some kids are happy to go along with what their YouTuber parents are doing, but what choice do they have, and what alternative do they know? Many have been on camera for the world since they were in utero. These influencers often justify their kids&#8217; inclusion by pointing out that they don&#8217;t complain. But some of them actually do complain.
The book is filled with shocking anecdotes that make a strong case for throwing all influencer parent iPhones into the ocean, but the author somehow also manages to fixate on conservatives. She positively quotes progressive journalist Taylor Lorenz&#8217;s book, &#8220;Extremely Online: The Untold Story of Fame, Influence, and Power on the Internet.&#8221; For all the negative things Latifi could say about the LaBrants, one of her chief complaints is that they are &#8220;almost impossibly&#8221; blond with blue eyes and that they &#8220;love Jesus&#8221; and choose to include that in their videos.
Latifi takes the most offense to tradwife mommy bloggers, as many liberals tend to do. &#8220;While perhaps it&#8217;s not a feminist act to create paid labor out of unpaid labor, it is an act of agency within the confines of the patriarchy. It&#8217;s why so many mom influencers and family vloggers are Mormon,” she writes. (What is she even talking about?)
&#8220;The trad wife performs an imitation of the past because the present is so uncertain,&#8221; Latifi goes on. &#8220;She drapes herself in prairie dresses and flowing aprons, smiles into the camera that captures her every move even as she insists she&#8217;s not working at all.&#8221;
She concludes that these influencers are wrongly promising &#8220;there is meaning and beauty to be found in motherhood.&#8221; There is, of course, meaning and beauty in motherhood, but — she&#8217;s right — not by oversharing for clicks on YouTube.
By the final chapters, that anti-conservative streak stops being subtext and becomes the whole argument, veering so far from the subject of family vlogging that it ends up saying more about the author&#8217;s politics than about kids on camera.
&#8220;As I&#8217;m writing this, Donald Trump is president for the second time, and the experience of American motherhood has never been more threatened,&#8221; she writes. &#8220;Pregnant women are dying from being denied access to abortions. They&#8217;re bleeding out in hospital parking lots and crossing state lines to access care.&#8221;
None of that has much to do with whether a nine-year-old should be coached to cry on camera about a dying dog or whether a toddler should grow up dancing for diaper brands. Those questions don&#8217;t need a chapter on the current occupant of the White House. They need what every parent already has: a phone in one hand, and the willingness to put it down.
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