MADISON COUNTY, Miss. (WLBT) – A parent seminar titled “Keeping Kids Safe in a Digital World” was held Thursday night for parents to learn more about the growing issue of online predators and how to help guide their kids to avoid those encounters.
Mothers, fathers, and many more were in attendance to learn about those online dangers, screen time concerns, and how to help safeguard kids from exploitation.
”I’m a parent, I’m an educator, and I’m a soon-to-be grandmother and I want to keep on top of this because it changes all the time. Any parent thinks they are on top of this, they’re probably not,” Jennifer Lovitt said
Guest speakers from throughout the state also spoke, including experts from UMMC, the Mississippi Coalition Against Human Trafficking, the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office, and parents who have faced this reality.
One of those parents is Brian Montgomery who lost his son, Walker Montgomery, due to an online predator. He now speaks at events across the state to bring awareness.
“I guess early on, I just, I could put it in the hands of God and he just said, look Brian you are going to pay the price, you are going to experience the pain for this loss, whether you want to or not. I mean, it wasn’t something I could take back and it wasn’t something we could go back on. So knowing that, I knew we wanted to get as much out of it from a standpoint of helping other people as we possibly could,” Montgomery said.
Experts went through information slide-by-slide including signs of possible exploitation, types of human trafficking, and apps parents should know about.
Local mental health and digital safety providers also provided resources to attendees.
For Montgomery, he says there is no crash course to understand these dangers, which is why he continues to speak out.
“I mean, parents are always the same, they want the best for them, and so that’s why you see people paying attention, I think, more so than ever. You know, if it was anything like us, we just didn’t understand, we didn’t know. And this is an opportunity to help other people realize the opportunity to be better parents and to be more aware. And we know if we would have had that opportunity with Walker, he would still be here,” Montgomery said.
You can find more information on resources available in the links below.
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