Episode 2230 - Digital Parenting in the Age of AI: Protecting Kids Online with CyberFareedah

In this exclusive, high-impact episode of The Ash Said It Show, host Ash Brown sits down with award-winning Internet Safety Expert, Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, and Sekuva founder Fareedah S. Shaheed (widely known as CyberFareedah) for a game-changing conversation on protecting children, teens, and privacy in the fast-evolving age of artificial intelligence.

As generative AI, deepfakes, and sophisticated online grooming transform the digital landscape, traditional technical restrictions like software monitoring apps, firewall filters, and screen bans are no longer enough to guarantee youth safety online.

Bridging technical threat intelligence with deep emotional awareness, Fareedah introduces parents and caregivers to her revolutionary human-centric "SAFE Method," establishing that psychological safety and genuine parent-child trust are the ultimate firewalls against digital risks.

Fareedah opens up about her personal turning point as a teenager—a pivotal moment when she nearly fell victim to an online predator but chose to confide in her mother instead. She reveals the exact non-judgmental, calm response her mother offered that prevented her from shutting down, preserved their family connection, and ultimately sparked her lifelong career in cybersecurity.

Moving beyond basic technical controls, the discussion dissects the biggest misconceptions parents hold regarding youth online behavior, unpacking how children primarily seek belonging, identity, and peer validation rather than reckless trouble in digital spaces.

Listeners gain actionable strategies for navigating the modern balance between necessary parental digital oversight and a teenager's growing need for independence. Fareedah provides clear guidance on shifting from intrusive surveillance to collaborative digital mentorship, establishing transparent home boundaries, and leveraging native privacy tools while maintaining open lines of communication.

The episode concludes with a powerful look at systemic digital culture, emphasizing the urgent need for "Safety by Design" architecture across social media platforms, tech company accountability, and a collective shift away from parent-shaming toward shared community protection.

Essential listening for parents, educators, and guardians, this exclusive interview equips families with the practical tools and emotional framework needed to foster a secure, resilient next generation in an AI-driven world.

Web: https://www.cyberfareedah.com/

About: Fareedah Shaheed, widely recognized as CyberFareedah, is a Forbes 30 Under 30 Internet Safety Expert, cybersecurity strategist, and international speaker dedicated to keeping children safe online.

As a teenager, Fareedah experienced the hidden dangers of the web firsthand when she connected with an online predator posing as a friend. Seconds away from running away from home, she chose to confide in her mother—a life-changing conversation that sparked her lifelong passion for digital safety and family protection.

Drawing from her personal experience and extensive background in cybersecurity and threat intelligence, Fareedah developed the SAFE Method. This unique approach positions parent-child trust and open communication as the cornerstone of youth internet safety, translating complex cybersecurity concepts into actionable strategies for families.

Fareedah has shared her expertise with premier global organizations, delivering keynotes and workshops for brands like NASA, Mozilla, FedEx, H&M, Common Sense Networks, and Love146.

Her work has also been featured extensively across major international media outlets, including CNN, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, NASDAQ, Cisco, FOX 46, NBC4, and Yahoo!.

Beyond her corporate and technica

Speaker 1: What it is?

Speaker 2: What are you?

Speaker 3: Cyber World? It is your girl, the one and only

as Brown And this is the ash set It Show.

Over twenty two hundred episode since twenty fourteen, seven hundred

thousand streams globally. None of this is possible without you, guys,

So I thank you so much for all of the love,

all the shares, the cares. It makes a huge difference today.

I feel like I'm back in the nineties. Jay's a

very special episode of the ash set It Show. We've

got the Internet safety expert herself. We've got Farita Shaheed. Hey, Friita, Hi, Hey,

thanks for having me. Thank you so much for joining us,

and I tip my hat to you helping protect our

children's safety. I'm always talking about safety and everything. You know,

you're a bit younger than me, but I was kind

of like, maybe like a preteen ish when the Internet

was in its infancy stage. To kind of know and

see it there, and to see what it's developed into

and how it's continuing to evolve. It's kind of freaky,

because yes, it's really freaky because there's just so much

stuff that is accessible to children. And I've got a

number of nieces and nephews and stuff that are up

in age and teenagers and things of that nature. So

it's always a conversation I'm having with their parents about stuff,

or if I see something that they've posted, I'm like, okay,

you need to have a conversation. Pull to the side

that this needs this needs to be deleted immediately, expeditiously,

as t I would say. So I want to go

back to the beginning as far as the main thing

that happened or the event that happened, and that moment

that you chose to confide in your mom, that catalyst

being it for your career. What did she do that

made the conversation make it feel like it was a

safe place for you to just kind of open up

to her.

Speaker 1: Well, One, she didn't freak out.

Speaker 2: I was expecting to freak out because she told me

not to talk to people online and talk to guys,

and so I was basically doing everything that she said

not to do.

Speaker 1: So what I was telling her what was.

Speaker 2: Going on, and I wasn't telling her just to tell her.

Speaker 1: I was just letting her know that I'm.

Speaker 2: Gonna leave and I'm gonna, you know, move in with

this guy. I'm gonna meet him, and if I like

him enough, I might move with him. And I just

want to let you know. So it was really I

wasn't intending to have any other conversation other than I'm

gonna leave it. I just want you to know like

you you, I owe you at least. That that was

really the conversation, and so her reaction was more she

was just like, oh, okay, well, thank you for letting

me know. I didn't know that you were talking to someone.

I'm assuming you like him, And so the way that

she was asking the questions, it felt like I was

talking to someone who was like my college friend when

I was in high school, you know, a.

Speaker 1: Cool college friend.

Speaker 3: Yeah, gotcha. You've moved from technical cybersecurity to human centric

safe method. How do you convince parents that emotional connection

it's more of an effective firewall than software.

Speaker 2: Well, I mean, it doesn't take too much convincing, only

because I tell them they don't have to be tech

savvy and it's not another thing on their plate, so.

Speaker 1: They're usually in.

Speaker 2: However, of course tech is involved, but it's not needed.

I don't believe it's needed actually at all, to protect

your kids online.

Speaker 1: I do believe it's.

Speaker 2: A great thing to have, and it's a great tool,

but if you were to never The way I think

of it is, if you were.

Speaker 1: To take this out, could you still protect your child

online with a safe method?

Speaker 2: If you took away safe spaces, could you protect your

kids online? Never? If you took away accountability, could you

protect your child online never? If you took away fun

could you protect your childs online never? If you took

away impathy, could you protect your child online never?

Speaker 1: But if you took away.

Speaker 2: Parental controls or parental monitoring, could you still protect your

child online?

Speaker 3: Yes?

Speaker 2: And so that's why I say it's not needed.

Speaker 1: It's wanted, it's helpful.

Speaker 2: I recommend it. I think it's great.

Speaker 1: But if you're not tech savvy, if you don't have it,

I don't.

Speaker 2: Think that that one thing is going to make your

child so unsafe online that you might as well hang

it up type thing I like to I like to

look at things from a domino effect, Like, what's.

Speaker 1: The biggest domino that if you were to push that

domino down and pushes all the other ones down.

Speaker 2: In front of controls and frontal monitoring, they're just not

big enough to fit.

Speaker 3: That as someone who grew up on the inside of

those digital risks. What is the biggest misconception parent may

have about what their kids are actually doing online.

Speaker 2: I think we're forgetting that it is their world.

Speaker 1: So we're looking at the online spaces.

Speaker 2: Like the part of the world, but the online space.

Speaker 3: Is their world.

Speaker 1: It's for instance, it's kind of like thinking of school

is just a part of their world. It's like, no,

that is their world. It's their world. It's a part

of it, but it is their world.

Speaker 2: And so you can't really take school and say, Okay,

what happens in school days in school, and we don't

have to discuss school right now, we're going to discuss

your life. It's like, well, how can we discuss the

child's life when they're in school and not discussed school.

So I think the biggest misconception is feeling like what

goes on on the device is a completely different world,

and we can shut off that world and without understanding

and know that it's.

Speaker 1: Just it is their world. So understanding that kids can

develop relationships, friendships, develop their own.

Speaker 2: Sense of imagination, their careers on it. And so the

biggest misconception is that, oh, there are good things that

my kid can do, and.

Speaker 1: Well, let me talk to my kids about the bad

things they shouldn't do versus Okay, how do you navigate

this world?

Speaker 2: Instead of trying to prevent them from ever going through something, you're.

Speaker 1: Trying to help them navigate it.

Speaker 2: So I think it's really having conversation with kids understanding

that that's just a world, that is their world.

Speaker 3: Gotcha? How can parents strike the right balance between necessary

digital oversight and fostering that independence that those teenagers crave.

Speaker 2: By the conversations, you will know which ones you have

to take over and which ones you can let your

child flowly take over with your gut feeling. And it

never has to be a decision where you have one decision,

you follow through on it for years to come, until

they're out of the house. You can change your mind

at anytime, so you can decide.

Speaker 1: Okay, I'm going to do this and then you go,

oh wait, hold on.

Speaker 2: So, for instance, for things like screen time, you can

say okay, I only want you to have one hour

of screen time a day, and then your.

Speaker 1: Child's looking back.

Speaker 2: At you like, well, that doesn't make any sense because

I have my school work, and I have this and

that and so.

Speaker 1: You change as you go. So I'm that's what I

would say.

Speaker 3: Yeah, gotcha, I like that, Yeah, you do. You have

to adjust. I think that that's a big part of it.

You have to make those adjustments because there's always going

to be some other situation, especially now with school and

everything is connected through the web. So exactly agree with

that one. Beyond individual families, what is one systemic shift

in digital culture that you believe is essential to truly

protecting the next generation?

Speaker 1: Cool? I believe.

Speaker 2: Wow, I believe putting things more internal instead of external.

Speaker 1: People are so focused on what's new.

Speaker 2: And what's coming, And I believe we go back to

the basics of like connection with yourself as a parent,

like you are connecting with your.

Speaker 1: Own self, because how can you expect your child to

connect with you if you don't.

Speaker 2: Have you don't know how to.

Speaker 1: Connect with yourself. That doesn't make any sense, right.

Speaker 2: If you want your child to talk about their mistakes

with you, then you would have to talk about your

mistakes with them, and it could be you're talking from

your your scars, right instead.

Speaker 1: Of your will, your open wounds. So you can be like, oh,

when I.

Speaker 2: Was a kid, this is why I did, or when

I was a teenager, I made this mistake age appropriate

what everything is best at that moment, but just talking

to them us going.

Speaker 1: Back to those basics and really diving deeps.

Speaker 2: Of divy, deep in technology, dive deep in that because

as AI accelerates and you want to go back to

the basics and or to check its online.

Speaker 3: Now, for Rita, what is next for you? What is

on the horizon? What can people look out forward to

seeing and connecting with you and your team?

Speaker 2: Wow, I mean I'm.

Speaker 1: Posting a lot on social media. I just revamped my

membership for just Protecting Kids.

Speaker 2: From Online Predators.

Speaker 1: Launching a podcast going into the.

Speaker 2: Hidden lives of teens online and interviewing people who have

experienced online abuse and online joy. And children are former

children now as we all are, So I'm not really

interviewing with kids, but I'm interviewing people who grew up

in digital age in their stories and to help STI

sate conversations between teens and parents so that they can

be safe in disual age and AI age.

Speaker 1: Now, to be.

Speaker 3: Honest, yes, I love that.

Speaker 2: I love that.

Speaker 3: Now, if people want to get in contact with you

or they wanted to possibly check out some those things

that you're involved in and want to get the stuff

for their teenager, for their kid. Where do they need to.

Speaker 2: Go Cyberfurita dot com. I have my fevorites or library

there that has like the grooming Risks likes I meant

as a child. I have my book, the membership and ensue.

The podcast will be there.

Speaker 1: You can contact me like talk.

Speaker 2: To me wherever you want Cyberferida dot com and then

my socials are also at cyber Frida.

Speaker 3: I love it, Frida. Thank you so much for coming through.

We so appreciate this. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1: I appreciate you so much.

Speaker 3: Yes, and of course you're welcome back. I know they're

going to be announcements and especially you know we promote

other podcasts too, so you got to come back and

tell us about the podcast and that whole everything going

on with that. So you're more than welcome back.

Speaker 1: Absolutely appreciate you, and.

Speaker 3: I appreciate each and every one of you guys. Thank

you so much for all of your love, your support.

It makes a huge difference keeping in mind anyone to

tell you that you can't do what you want to do. Look,

I'm square in the face you tell them. Don't believe me.

Just watch watch what I do. Why don't we make

it happen? Watch we make history. That's what we're doing.

This for the history books. Social media is nice, but

real life is so much better. Until next time, you guys,