Parents Uncharted

Technology has changed dramatically in just a few years, but has our approach to parenting kids online kept up?

This week on Parents Uncharted, Sarah sits down with Dr. Devorah Heitner, author of Growing Up in Public and Screenwise, for a nuanced conversation about raising kids in an increasingly connected, tracked, and AI-powered world.

Devorah explains why the explosion of generative AI has created new challenges for families, particularly as chatbots increasingly simulate friendship and emotional connection. But she also cautions against making fear, avoidance, or delay our only parenting strategy. Kids need opportunities to build judgment, independence, digital literacy, and the ability to navigate technology when parents aren’t watching.

Sarah and Devorah also explore the growing culture of parental surveillance: location tracking, reading texts, monitoring grades, and receiving constant updates about children’s lives. While technology can sometimes support healthy habits, Devorah argues that having access to information doesn’t necessarily mean parents need to see it, and that too much monitoring can increase parental anxiety while undermining children’s independence.

The conversation also gets practical, covering group chats, phone etiquette, location sharing, digital reputation, comparison culture, device boundaries, and the conversations families should be having as kids head back to school.

Ultimately, this episode isn’t about being anti-tech. It’s about shifting from monitoring kids to mentoring them, and helping children develop the skills they need to eventually navigate the digital world without us.

More About Dr. Devorah Heitner

Dr. Devorah Heitner is the author of Growing Up in Public: Coming of Age in a Digital World and Screenwise: Helping Kids Thrive (and Survive) in Their Digital World. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and CNN Opinion. She has a Ph.D. in Media/Technology & Society from Northwestern University and has taught at DePaul and Northwestern. She is delighted to be raising her own teenager and she lives with her family in Chicagoland.

Connect w/ Dr. Devorah Heitner

Website

Substack

Instagram

Connect with Sarah Adams:

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Chapters:

00:00) Introduction

(00:59) What has changed since Growing Up in Public?

(01:31) The explosion of AI in kids' lives

(04:27) When AI starts acting like a friend

(05:54) The problem with AI being a constant “yes person”

(08:35) Why parents feel so anxious about technology

(10:05) Why delaying technology isn't enough

(12:13) Mentoring vs. monitoring kids online

(15:42) Is tracking actually making parents more anxious?

(20:11) Back-to-school digital conversations families need

(22:16) Device zones, bedtime, and healthy tech habits

(23:50) How kids can navigate toxic group chats

(27:40) Teaching tweens and teens phone etiquette

(30:16) Snapchat, Instagram, and location sharing

(31:54) Teaching kids about digital reputation and privacy

(34:42) Why kids, and adults, should periodically clean up their feeds

(36:21) Comparison culture, achievement, and college admissions

(39:02) One digital habit parents should stop

(41:59) What gives Devorah hope about this generation

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How much of your child's school day is actually happening on a screen, and is that technology helping them learn?

This week on Parents Uncharted, Sarah sits down with Emily Cherkin, former middle school teacher, author of The Screen Time Solution, founder of The Screen Time Consultant, and writer behind First Fish Chronicles, for a conversation about the rapid expansion of EdTech in schools.

Emily explains why giving children more technology isn't the same as teaching them how technology works, what may be displaced when lessons move onto Chromebooks and digital platforms, and why parents should be asking harder questions about effectiveness, privacy, student data, literacy, and the growing integration of AI into classrooms.

They also discuss the difference between EdTech and tech education, the loss of long-form reading, why teachers can become trapped inside technology ecosystems they didn't choose, and what parents can realistically do if they want a more tech-intentional education for their children.

If you've spent years thinking about screen time at home but haven't considered how much technology your child is using at school, this episode is an important place to start.

Chapters

(00:00) – How Much of the School Day Is on a Screen?

(02:33) – The Screen Time Parents Aren't Thinking About

(04:26) – What Actually Counts as EdTech?

(06:41) – Why Is YouTube Being Used in Classrooms?

(08:25) – How EdTech Became the Infrastructure of School

(11:55) – Is There Evidence EdTech Improves Learning?

(13:48) – Is It Effective, Safe, Legal, and Better Than a Teacher?

(17:16) – Why Parents Should Care About Student Data & Privacy

(20:47) – What Are Screens Displacing?

(22:21) – AI Chatbots Are Already Entering Classrooms

(23:21) – EdTech, Teacher Workload & the Promise of a Quick Fix

(27:12) – EdTech and the Literacy Crisis

(32:35) – Are Adults Modelling the Behaviour We Want From Kids?

(36:07) – EdTech Is NOT Technology Education

(39:40) – Can Parents Actually Opt Out of School Technology?

(41:16) – The Question Parents Should Ask Their School

(43:52) – Emily's Unplug EdTech Toolkit

(45:30) – What Emily Wants Every Parent to Know

More About Emily Cherkin

Emily Cherkin, M.Ed., The Screentime Consultant, is leading the fight for a Tech-Intentional™ childhood. Emily works with schools, families, policymakers, and advocacy organizations to ensure the future of education prioritizes skills, safety, and relationships over screens, EdTech, and A.I. Emily is an author, speaker, consultant, and associate professor of public policy at the University of Washington. She is also co-chair of Fairplay’s Screens in Schools Action Network and the lead plaintiff in a class action lawsuit against one of the largest EdTech companies in the world. Emily is also the creator of the UnPlug EdTech Toolkit.

Connect with Emily Cherkin

Website: www.thescreentimeconsultant.com

Instagram: @thescreentimeconsultant

LinkedIn: @emily-cherkin

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Back-to-school season used to mean pencils, notebooks and maybe a new pair of shoes. Now, open TikTok or YouTube and you can find kids displaying hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars worth of clothes, makeup, skincare and accessories in elaborate “back-to-school hauls.”

But this episode isn't really about one teenager with a pile of shopping bags, it's about the culture we've created around our kids.

In this solo episode of Parents Uncharted, Sarah explores the growing intersection of childhood, consumerism and influencer culture, and how social media has transformed advertising from something that interrupts entertainment into the entertainment itself.

Kids aren't simply being sold products. They're absorbing messages about what success looks like, what their bedrooms should look like, what they should wear, what they should own and, increasingly, what a “good life” is supposed to look like.

At the same time children are being encouraged to constantly buy more, replace more and keep up with the next trend, they are also growing up amid climate change, extreme heat, wildfires and environmental instability. From fast fashion and textile waste to a culture that normalizes buying things we already own simply because a new version is trending, this episode asks whether the values being reinforced online are compatible with the future we say we want for our kids.

Because underneath the hauls, affiliate links, TikTok trends and endless packages is a much bigger parenting question: what do we want our children to believe a good life looks like, and is the version we're modelling compatible with the world they're inheriting?

Chapters

(00:00) — When Back-to-School Became a Haul

(02:15) — Wanting vs. Needing: What Are Kids Learning?

(05:55) — Social Media Supercharged Consumerism

(07:25) — When the Advertisement Becomes the Entertainment

(10:35) — Materialism, Happiness & Well-Being

(11:10) — Parents Are Part of This Culture Too

(13:30) — The Environmental Cost of “More”

(17:45) — What Parents Can Actually Do

(18:30) — Teach Kids to Recognize the Sales Pitch

(20:45) — Shop Your House Before Shopping the Store

(22:55) — Look at Their Feed—and Yours

(24:25) — Model What “Enough” Looks Like

(26:00) — What Do We Want Kids to Value?

(27:25) — Raising Kids for the World They're Inheriting

Connect with Sarah Adams:

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Why can watching someone online begin to feel like knowing them, and when does that attachment become unhealthy?

In this episode of Parents Uncharted, Sarah speaks with Dr. Jess Maddox, an associate professor of media studies at the University of Georgia and founding editor-in-chief of Creator and Influencer Studies.

Jess explains what parasocial relationships actually are, why they are not inherently harmful and how social media has intensified them by making interactions with creators feel increasingly reciprocal. Together, Sarah and Jess explore how influencers and platforms cultivate intimacy to build engagement, loyalty and profit.

The conversation examines why family content creates especially powerful attachments. When audiences watch children grow up and are invited into intimate family moments, they may begin to feel like relatives or stakeholders in that child’s life, even though the child never chose that relationship.

Sarah and Jess discuss “TikTok aunties,” the anger audiences sometimes express when parents remove their children from social media, and how children themselves form parasocial relationships with kidfluencers. Young viewers may struggle to distinguish friendship from entertainment and advertising, especially when content is designed to feel casual and authentic.

They also explore Reddit snark communities and “anti-fandom,” where intense dislike can begin to resemble fandom and escalate into harassment, surveillance or stalking.

The episode concludes with practical guidance for parents and creators: teach children that the people they follow are not their friends, remind them that social media is a curated representation of reality, advocate for stronger digital literacy education and always prioritize a child’s dignity and safety over audience growth.

Chapters

(00:00) Introduction

(01:32) What Does “Parasocial” Actually Mean?

(03:38) Why Parasocial Relationships Are Not Always Bad

(05:26) When Online Attachment Becomes Unhealthy

(07:05) The “1.5-Way” Social Media Relationship

(09:04) Influencer Fandom, Loyalty and Online Teams

(10:15) How Creators Cultivate Parasocial Relationships

(12:49) How Platforms Encourage Emotional Attachment

(14:12) Why Family Content Feels So Intimate

(16:33) When Viewers Feel Entitled to Parenting Decisions

(17:18) The Difference Between Intimacy and Exploitation

(20:38) Can Parents Ethically Build Parasocial Relationships Around Children?

(24:26) What Happens When Parents Remove Their Children Online

(25:03) “We Made You Famous, You Owe Us”

(26:19) The Problem With “TikTok Aunties”

(28:01) Comparison, Aspiration and Consumerism

(29:33) How Algorithms Exploit Vulnerable Moments

(30:46) When Children Confuse Advertising With Friendship

(33:05) Signs a Child’s Attachment May Be Becoming Unhealthy

(34:47) Reddit Snark and Anti-Fandom

(38:19) When Snark Becomes Harassment or Stalking

(40:53) Why Fans Sometimes Become Haters

(42:03) What Parents Should Teach Children

About Dr. Jess Maddox:

Jessica Maddox is an Associate Professor of Media Studies in the Department of Entertainment and Media Studies at the University of Georgia. Her research focuses on content creators, influencers, and social media platforms.

She is the author of Anatomy of an Internet Scandal: How Content Creators and Audiences Fuel the Outrage Machine (University of California Press, 2027) and The Internet is for Cats: How Animal Images Shape Our Digital Lives (Rutgers University Press, 2023).

Since 2023, she has been involved in a U.S. federal policy coalition for child social media labor laws, and has testified in numerous states on child influencer protection bills. She is the founding Editor-in-Chief of the academic journal Creator & Influencer Studies and is on the academic advisory circle of the American Influencer Council.

Connect with Dr. Jess Maddox:

TikTok: @drjess21

Instagram: @jessmaddox21

Threads: @jessmaddox21

Connect with Sarah Adams:

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What does it cost to build a platform around motherhood when your identity, marriage and parenting choices are constantly open to public debate?

In this episode of Parents Uncharted, Sarah speaks with Renee Reina, creator and host of The Mom Room, about the changing world of motherhood content and what it means to build a community while being publicly perceived.

Renee explains how the isolation of 2020 inspired her to begin creating honest, comedic content about default parenting, marriage and the less polished realities of motherhood. She and Sarah discuss why online parenting conversations have become so polarized, how motherhood content has shifted from relatable frustration toward idealized “tradwife” messaging, and why women are so often judged as either good mothers or bad mothers, with very little room for nuance.

Renee also opens up about Reddit commentary, responding to critical comments, resisting the pressure to become a traditional product-focused influencer and learning not to allow either praise or criticism from strangers to determine her self-worth.

The conversation then turns to one of the most complicated questions facing parent creators: where should the boundary be when it comes to sharing children online?

Sarah and Renee have an honest and respectful disagreement about children’s privacy, digital autonomy and the possible benefits and risks of growing up adjacent to a public platform. Renee shares how her approach to featuring her son, Milo, has evolved as he has grown older, the boundaries she maintains around vulnerable moments and real-time locations, and how she compensates him when he participates in paid content.

Together, they explore whether parents can foster a child’s interest in YouTube, podcasting and digital creation without immediately making that child public, and why learning to film, edit, perform and communicate does not require a child to build an audience.

This is a nuanced conversation about modern motherhood, public visibility and the difficult choices parents make when family life intersects with the creator economy.

Chapters:

(00:00) Introduction

(02:28) Why Renee Created The Mom Room

(06:26) How Motherhood Content Has Changed

(09:16) Why Parenting Online Is So Polarizing

(10:34) The Cost of Being a Woman and Mother Online

(14:54) Does Renee Consider Herself an Influencer?

(15:54) Consumerism, Affiliate Links and Creator Fatigue

(18:05) The Best Part of Building The Mom Room

(20:26) When Marriage and Family Become Content

(23:23) Sharing Relationship Problems in Real Time

(24:59) Reddit Snark and Online Speculation

(28:11) Fair Criticism Versus Invasive Commentary

(29:46) Why Renee Responds to Negative Comments

(31:26) Renee’s Boundaries Around Sharing Milo

(33:45) What Children Can Learn From Content Creation

(35:08) Sarah Pushes Back on Privacy and Necessity

(37:10) Personal Branding and Future Opportunities

(39:01) Brand Partnerships Involving Children

(41:36) Real-Time Posting and Protecting Private Moments

(44:28) Advice for Mothers Who Want to Create Content

(46:42) Building Better Boundaries Around Online Work

About Renee Reina:

Renee Reina is the creator and host of The Mom Room, a podcast and online community built around honest, humorous and unfiltered conversations about motherhood, marriage, parenting and pop culture.

After completing her PhD and suddenly finding herself at home with her young son during the COVID-19 lockdowns, Renee began creating comedic videos about default parenting and the small but deeply relatable frustrations many mothers experience. Her content resonated with parents who were searching for a less polished and more candid representation of motherhood.

Through The Mom Room, Renee has developed a recognizable voice in the online motherhood space and has interviewed a wide range of parents, experts, creators and public figures.

Connect With Renee:

Podcast: The Mom Room

Instagram: @themomroom

Personal Instagram: @thereneereina

Connect with Sarah Adams:

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Video games are often treated as one more screen to limit, a source of family conflict or a threat to children’s well-being. But what if parents are asking the wrong questions about gaming?

In this episode of Parents Uncharted, Sarah speaks with Dr. Rachel Kowert and Arana Shapiro from Games for Change about how families can approach video games with less fear, more curiosity and better information.

Their new white paper, Raising Good Gamers: What Families Need to Know About Video Games and Wellbeing, found that parents looking online for gaming advice are five times more likely to encounter negative messaging than practical, evidence-based guidance, even though nearly 60% of children say they want their parents involved in their gaming experiences.

Together, Sarah, Rachel and Arana examine why all screen time should not be treated equally, what children may be learning through play and how parents can distinguish enthusiastic gaming from genuinely problematic behaviour. They also discuss violent video games, online friendships, Roblox safety, collaborative boundaries and the often-overlooked social, cognitive and emotional benefits of gaming.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Why gaming is fundamentally different from passive screen use

• The disconnect between gaming research and the advice parents encounter online

• What games like Animal Crossing can teach children about reading, math, resource management and problem-solving

• How to recognize when gaming is beginning to interfere with sleep, relationships or basic needs

• What decades of research say about violent video games and violent behaviour

• Why the quality and context of gaming matter more than an arbitrary number of minutes

• How games can build cooperation, communication, conflict-resolution skills, identity and resilience

• Why online friendships can be meaningful sources of social and emotional support

• How parents who do not enjoy gaming can still show interest in their child’s digital life

• How to set limits without turning gaming into a constant power struggle

• What parents should know about safety concerns on Roblox

• The SPACE framework for healthier family gaming

This conversation is not an argument for unlimited gaming or for ignoring legitimate platform risks. It is an invitation to move beyond blanket fear and become more informed, curious and involved in the spaces our children value.

Because raising healthy gamers does not begin with controlling every minute. It begins with understanding what our children are doing, creating boundaries with them and staying close enough that they continue talking to us.

Chapters

(00:00) Introduction

(01:40) What is Games for Change?

(04:50) Why parents are still asking the same gaming questions

(06:39) The biggest misconceptions about video games

(08:20) What children can learn from Animal Crossing

(11:13) Healthy gaming versus problematic gaming

(15:04) Do violent video games cause violent behaviour?

(17:23) Why quality matters more than quantity

(20:53) The social, emotional and cognitive benefits of gaming

(23:42) How video games help children practise resilience

(24:04) Creating boundaries without constant conflict

(27:30) How non-gaming parents can connect with their children

(28:54) Online friendships, autonomy and safety

(33:38) The SPACE framework for healthy gaming

(35:16) When parents or co-parents have different gaming rules

(37:03) How parents should approach Roblox

(40:10) What every parent should remember about gaming

(41:06) Where to find Games for Change and Raising Good Gamers

About the Guests:

Dr. Rachel Kowert

Dr. Rachel Kowert is a research psychologist, award-winning author and the research director at Games for Change. For more than 15 years, her work has focused on mental health, online safety, trust and social connection within digital games.

She has presented her research to organizations including the United States Congress, the United Nations and the Department of Homeland Security. Her work helps translate academic research about games and digital communities into practical guidance for families, educators and policymakers.

Arana Shapiro

Arana Shapiro is the chief operating and programs officer at Games for Change. She is an educator and social entrepreneur with more than 20 years of experience using games, play and game design to transform learning.

Arana previously helped develop Quest to Learn, the first public school built around a game-based learning model. Her work focuses on helping young people, educators and families use games as tools for learning, creativity, citizenship and positive social impact.

About Games for Change

Games for Change is a nonprofit organization that works to demonstrate how games and immersive media can create social impact beyond entertainment.

Its work brings together game developers, researchers, educators, policymakers and young people through initiatives including the annual Games for Change Festival, youth and educator programs, and Raising Good Gamers, an initiative designed to help families better understand video games and build healthier gaming environments.

Resources and Where to Connect:

Games for Change: gamesforchange.org

Raising Good Gamers: raisinggoodgamers.org

White paper: Raising Good Gamers: What Families Need to Know About Video Games and Wellbeing

Connect with Sarah Adams:

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What happens when the person giving you health advice is also making money from your fear?

Wellness influencers often appear relatable, confident and deeply invested in helping their audiences live healthier lives. But behind the personal stories, aspirational routines and seemingly educational content, there may also be affiliate links, unregulated products, exaggerated claims and carefully constructed sales funnels.

In this episode of Parents Uncharted, Sarah sits down with Mallory DeMille, better known online as @this.is.mallory, to examine how wellness influencers build trust, spread misinformation and turn parental anxiety into profit.

Mallory shares how following wellness influencers negatively affected her own relationship with food, fitness and body image, even with a background in marketing. She explains why personal testimonials can feel more persuasive than scientific evidence, how influencers position themselves as more trustworthy than medical experts and why contrarian health claims perform so well online.

Sarah and Mallory also explore the troubling intersection between wellness culture and family content. From parents sharing children’s private medical information to using children as testimonials for supplements, treatments and wellness products, this conversation asks what happens when a child’s diagnosis, disability or health journey becomes part of a parent’s business model.

Together, they discuss:

• Why wellness influencers can feel more trustworthy than qualified experts

• How anecdotes and parasocial relationships influence health decisions

• The red flags parents should recognize in online wellness content

• Why conspiratorial and contrarian claims spread so effectively

• How algorithms amplify fear-based health messaging

• The rebranding of diet culture as wellness

• The influence of wellness content on girls’ and boys’ body image

• How parents are using children’s medical information to sell products

• The long-term privacy implications of sharing a child’s health history

• Why a large following does not equal expertise

• How parents can help children build stronger health and social-media literacy

This conversation is an important reminder that misinformation does not always look extreme or obviously deceptive. Sometimes it looks like a beautiful home, a healthy family, a personal transformation and a discount code.

Our children need to understand that confidence is not the same as credibility and that the person appearing on their feed may not have their best interests at heart.

Chapters

(00:00) — Welcome and introduction to Mallory DeMille

(01:26) — How Mallory entered the wellness influencer world

(03:15) — Social media’s impact on body image

(05:41) — Passive scrolling and algorithmic influence

(07:44) — The misinformation that changed Mallory’s perspective

(10:59) — Why Mallory began publicly challenging wellness culture

(13:21) — Why influencers can feel more trustworthy than experts

(16:03) — When educational content is really a sales funnel

(17:37) — Red flags in online wellness advice

(20:02) — Teens, health content and parental influence

(22:40) — Monetizing children’s diagnoses and medical journeys

(25:27) — The crunchy-wellness and conspiracy pipeline

(27:24) — Is diet culture being rebranded as wellness?

(29:23) — Looksmaxxing and treating the body like a business card

(34:41) — Children being used as product testimonials

(36:56) — Medical privacy and permanent digital footprints

(40:19) — How fear-based marketing targets mothers

(42:08) — How algorithms deepen wellness rabbit holes

(43:42) — Teaching families who to trust online

About Mallory DeMille

Mallory DeMille is a content creator who utilizes her background in marketing and social media to make commentary on how the wellness industry markets itself, specifically through wellness influencers with discount codes. She is perfectly happy being the person DMing a wellness company asking “are your affiliates allowed to make this claim?”.

Far from being “anti-wellness”, in addition to her business degree, she has a diploma in Fitness & Health Promotion and many years of fitness instructing under her belt. As an evidence-based wellness girlie, she cares about truth in advertising and protecting your health and wellness from bad actors with slick, convincing marketing.

Connect with Mallory DeMille

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/this.is.mallory/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@mallorydemille

Connect with Sarah Adams:

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Ray-Ban Meta glasses are being sold as stylish, convenient and increasingly inevitable. But when an ordinary-looking pair of glasses can record the people around you, who is responsible for consent, and who carries the risk?

In this solo episode of Parents Uncharted, Sarah examines the growing normalization of camera-enabled smart glasses and why parents should be paying attention. Unlike a phone held up to record, smart glasses can remove the social cues that tell us a camera is present, leaving children, families and other bystanders unaware that they may be captured.

Sarah explores why a small recording light cannot replace meaningful consent, what these devices could reveal about a child’s identity and daily life, and why wearable cameras are entering a world where women and girls are already disproportionately recorded, sexualized, stalked and harassed.

She also discusses the influencer economy surrounding Ray-Ban Meta glasses, including Kylie Jenner’s partnership with the brand and the growing number of influencers and momfluencers presenting surveillance technology as fashionable lifestyle content.

In this episode, Sarah discusses:

• Why face-worn cameras create a fundamentally different consent problem

• Why children cannot meaningfully consent to being recorded by strangers

• How seemingly harmless recordings at daycares, playgrounds, pools and sporting events can expose other children

• The future risk of combining wearable cameras with facial-recognition technology

• Why women and girls may experience disproportionate harm

• How celebrity and influencer partnerships make surveillance feel stylish, harmless and inevitable

• What schools, childcare centres, camps and sports facilities should consider

• What parents model when adults criticize children’s technology use while placing even more technology on their own faces

This is not an argument against every possible use of assistive technology. It is a demand that convenience never come at the expense of children’s privacy, women’s safety or our collective right to move through the world without unknowingly becoming someone else’s next viral video.

Chapters

(00:00) Why Sarah is talking about Meta glasses

(01:40) Surveillance technology disguised as fashion

(02:05) The central problem: meaningful consent

(03:20) Why the recording light is not enough

(05:00) What strangers could capture about your child

(07:20) Accessibility benefits and the need for nuance

(09:10) The troubling daycare recording example

(10:35) Data collection and the facial-recognition future

(12:05) Why women and girls face greater risks

(13:25) The hidden human reviewers behind wearable AI

(14:55) Kylie Jenner and the influencer normalization of surveillance

(17:50) What parents can do right now

(20:55) What are adults modelling for children?

(23:15) Children deserve privacy, consent and digital safety

Connect with Sarah Adams:

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What happens when a child’s disability, diagnosis, medical journey, or private care needs become content online?

In this episode of Parents Uncharted, Sarah Adams is joined by author, speaker, content creator, and disability advocate Sarah Todd Hammer for an honest conversation about disability representation, social media visibility, and the ethics of parents sharing their children’s lives online.

After acquiring a spinal cord injury from acute flaccid myelitis at age eight, Sarah Todd began advocating for disability awareness as a child. Today, she uses her platform to educate others about disability, accessibility, inclusion, and what it means to share your own story on your own terms.

Together, Sarah Adams and Sarah Todd discuss the highs and challenges of being a disabled creator online, the importance of authentic representation, common misconceptions about disability, and why disabled people should be at the centre of conversations that affect their community.

They also examine one of the most difficult questions in the disability community: when does sharing a child’s disability online become exploitation rather than advocacy?

This conversation explores medical privacy, informed consent, caregiving content, online safety, the pressure parents face to seek support, and why awareness should never come at the expense of a child’s dignity.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Sarah Todd’s experience acquiring a spinal cord injury at age eight

• Growing up online and becoming a disability content creator

• The benefits and risks of visibility on social media

• Building boundaries around privacy, location-sharing, comments, and public access

• Why authentic disability representation matters in media

• Misconceptions about disability, independence, happiness, and caregiving

• The return of ableist language online and why it matters

• Whether disabled people are expected to constantly educate others

• The difference between sharing your own disability story and sharing someone else’s

• Parents sharing children’s diagnoses, care routines, hospital visits, and medical histories

• Why “raising awareness” can become a justification for violating a child’s privacy

• How parents can seek community, funding, and support without making their child content

• Why disabled adults’ perspectives should lead conversations about disabled children

• Social media age limits, online community, and safety for marginalized young people

This conversation is an invitation for parents, caregivers, and anyone who cares about children’s privacy to pause and consider who benefits when a child’s most personal experiences are shared online. Sarah Todd offers an essential reminder that disability advocacy must be led by disabled voices and that dignity, autonomy, and consent should always come before views, validation, or visibility.

Chapters

(00:00) Introduction 

(02:12) Sarah Todd’s story: acute flaccid myelitis and disability advocacy

(04:41) Growing up online and finding a public platform

(08:51) The highs and risks of being a disabled content creator

(11:02) Online boundaries: safety, privacy, and the block button

(14:41) Negative comments, Reddit, and being recognized in public

(18:02) Why disability visibility and representation matter

(22:32) The harmful myths society still believes about disability

(28:41) When parents make a child’s disability into online content

(30:23) Caregiving, intimate moments, and informed consent

(37:39) Seeking support without violating a child’s privacy

(41:40) Why sharing your own disability story is different

(44:01) “What if my child can never consent?”

(46:32) Medical privacy, hospital content, and clickbait culture

(48:49) What disabled adults say about being posted as children

(51:13) Social-media age limits, safety, and marginalized communities

(54:20) Where advocacy ends and exploitation begins

About Sarah Todd Hammer

Sarah Todd Hammer is a published author, speaker, content creator, and disability advocate. At age eight, she acquired a spinal cord injury due to acute flaccid myelitis, a neurological condition that can cause sudden weakness and paralysis.

Since childhood, Sarah Todd has used storytelling and advocacy to raise awareness about disability, accessibility, inclusion, and representation. She began by co-authoring books with a close friend who has a similar disability and later expanded her work through writing, speaking engagements, and social media.

Today, she creates thoughtful, accessible content about disability, daily life, advocacy, and the importance of respecting disabled people’s autonomy, privacy, and lived experience.

Connect with Sarah Todd 

Website:https://www.sarahtoddhammer.com/ 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahtoddhammer

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SarahToddHammer 

Connect with Sarah Adams:

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Youth sports are supposed to build confidence, resilience, teamwork, and a lifelong love of movement but somewhere between travel teams, year-round training, private coaching, highlight reels, athlete branding, and the pressure to earn a scholarship, many families are asking the same question:

Have youth sports become too serious, too soon?

This week on Parents Uncharted, Sarah is joined by Dr. Jeremy Alland, a sports medicine physician, sports dad, former collegiate athlete, and team physician for the Chicago Bulls and Chicago White Sox.

Together, they unpack the professionalization of childhood sports and what happens when kids are treated like future recruits, brands, or mini-professional athletes before they have had the chance to simply enjoy playing.

They discuss the rising pressure on parents; the financial reality of elite sports, early specialization, overuse injuries, burnout, scholarship culture, youth athlete social media accounts, and why a child’s identity should never depend on their performance.

Most importantly, Dr. Alland shares a practical reminder for parents: youth sports can still be a wonderful part of childhood, but we need to play the long game.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Why youth sports feel more intense than they did a generation ago

• The pressure to specialize in one sport at younger and younger ages

• Why “my child only wants to play one sport” may not tell the full story

• How parental tone, praise, anxiety, and expectations can shape a child’s relationship with sport

• The injury risks associated with year-round training and early specialization

• The rising financial cost of travel sports and private coaching

• The problem with turning young athletes into personal brands online

• Highlight reels, livestreamed games, “mic’d up” kids, and the privacy concerns parents should consider

• Whether kids really need social-media accounts to get recruited

• How to help children stay active, healthy, confident, and connected to the joy of sport

Whether your child is just starting out or already deep in the travel-sports world, this episode is not about taking sports away from kids. It is about protecting what makes sports so valuable in the first place: movement, confidence, connection, resilience, and joy. Dr. Alland’s message is simple: slow down, stay intentional, and remember that the goal is not to create a perfect athlete, it is to raise a healthy, happy human who can keep playing for years to come.

Chapters

(00:00) Are youth sports changing childhood?

(01:07) The professionalization of youth sports

(07:08) What youth sports looked like before year-round travel teams

(10:12) “My child only wants to play one sport”

(14:40) What is the real goal of youth sports?

(19:15) Why parents feel more stress than their kids

(23:20) The elite sports funnel starts too early

(25:35) ACL tears, overuse injuries, and burnout

(30:02) What other countries get right about youth sports

(34:50) Scholarships, college admissions, and the cost of chasing sports

(41:40) Youth athlete accounts, branding, and social media pressure

(47:45) Highlight reels, livestreams, and privacy concerns

(56:45) Dr. Alland’s advice for every sports parent

About Jeremy Alland, MD

Dr. Jeremy Alland is a board-certified sports medicine physician at Midwest Orthopaedics at Rush and an Assistant Professor at Rush University Medical Center. He serves as a team physician for the Chicago Bulls and Chicago White Sox and has worked with athletes across professional, collegiate, high-school, and youth sports.

A former collegiate baseball pitcher and sports dad himself, Dr. Alland uses his platform to help families think more critically about early specialization, injury prevention, athlete development, and the growing pressure surrounding youth sports. Through his Play the Long Game platform, he encourages parents to prioritize long-term health, joy, and sustainable participation over short-term performance.

Connect with Jeremy 

Website: https://jeremyallandmd.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jeremyallandmd/ 

Connect with Sarah Adams:

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What happens when a child is raised as content, and then grows up in front of the same audience that watched her childhood unfold?

In this episode, Sarah is joined by investigative journalist Kat Tenbarge, author of Spitfire News, for an important conversation about kidfluencer culture, creator exploitation, parasocial audiences, and the attention economy shaping the next generation.

Kat has spent years reporting on internet culture, influencer abuse, online harassment, and the systems that turn children into profitable brands. Together, Sarah and Kat unpack the cultural fallout surrounding Piper Rockelle’s rise to YouTube fame, the allegations made by former members of her “Piper Squad,” and the troubling trajectory from child stardom to increasingly sexualized adult content.

They discuss why these stories are so difficult to talk about responsibly, what happens when children are taught that their relationships, identities, and private lives are part of a business model, and why parents cannot assume that kids who grow up online automatically have strong digital literacy skills.

This episode also explores the broader “kidfluencer-to-OnlyFans pipeline,” the online culture that rewards girls and young women for sexualization, the role of male creators and podcast culture in profiting from and degrading women simultaneously, and why empathy, not condemnation, is essential when discussing young people who have been exploited online.

In this episode:

• Piper Rockelle’s rise as one of YouTube’s most successful child creators

• The blurred line between scripted content, reality, and exploitation in kidfluencer culture

• Why “boyfriend,” cheating, and sexualized storylines were so profitable for child creators

• The psychological impact of growing up with every friendship, conflict, and milestone turned into content

• How child creators can become financially responsible for the adults around them

• Why fame, luxury, and viral success can still coexist with isolation and loneliness

• The pressure creators face to produce content across multiple platforms, constantly

• Why so many young viewers struggle to distinguish staged content from reality

• The risks of young audiences following creators as their content becomes increasingly sexualized

• The misleading fantasy of fast wealth promoted through platforms like OnlyFans

• Whether we are witnessing a broader child-creator-to-adult-content pipeline

Most importantly, Sarah and Kat offer a reminder for parents: we may not be able to remove every harmful message from the internet, but we can build stronger relationships with our children, talk openly about what they are seeing, and help them develop the critical thinking skills to navigate digital spaces with more resilience.

Chapters

(00:00) When a Child Creator Becomes an Adult Brand

(03:21) Piper Rockelle’s Rise—and the Early Red Flags

(15:08) Scripted Clickbait, Sexualization & Lost Childhoods

(22:48) The Multimillion-Dollar Business of Kidfluencer Fame

(30:28) The Attention Economy: Why Creators Keep Escalating

(36:39) Young Audiences, Adult Content & the Bop House Effect

(42:50) Is There a Kidfluencer-to-OnlyFans Pipeline?

(51:43) Supporting Victims Instead of Shaming Them

(1:01:11) What Parents Can Do: Digital Literacy, Connection & Conversation

About Kat Tenbarge

Kat Tenbarge is an investigative journalist and the author of Spitfire News, where she reports on internet culture, influencer exploitation, online abuse, politics, and the systems shaping life online. Her reporting has examined major creator scandals, child influencer culture, abuse allegations involving online personalities, and the real-world consequences of platform-driven fame.

Connect with Kat

Website: https://spitfirenews.com/ 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kattenbarge/ 

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/kattenbarge.bsky.social 

Connect with Sarah Adams:

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What are kids actually struggling with today?

In this episode of Parents Uncharted, Sarah sits down with school counselor, speaker, and digital safety advocate Nate Webb to discuss what he's seeing firsthand in schools and communities across the country.

From anxiety and social media to group chats, pornography, AI chatbots, boredom, resilience, and the growing pressure facing young people, Nate shares practical advice for parents trying to navigate childhood in an increasingly digital world.

Together, they explore why connection matters more than control, how parents can build healthier relationships with technology, and why the most powerful tool your child has isn't an app… it's you.

Whether you're raising a child with a smartphone or simply trying to understand the world they're growing up in, this conversation offers hope, perspective, and actionable guidance for modern families.

In this episode:

• Why parents may be more anxious than their children• The surprising ways screens are impacting resilience• What school counselors are seeing with pornography and online content• Why group chats have become a major source of conflict• The role boredom plays in creativity and development• How AI companions are changing relationships• Why connection is still the most powerful protective factor• The simple message every parent needs to hear: you are enough

The digital world may continue to evolve, but one thing remains unchanged: children still need trusted adults who are willing to show up, listen, and guide them. As Nate puts it, you don't need the perfect app or the latest parental control tool to be a great parent. Your presence, your influence, and your relationship with your child matter more than any technology ever could.

Chapters

(00:00) Introduction

(01:15) Meet Nate Webb: School Counselor & Speaker

(03:20) What Adults Misunderstand About Kids Today

(05:00) How Parents Can Start Hard Conversations

(08:00) Body Image, Filters & Social Media

(10:00) What Students Are Struggling With Most

(13:00) Why Kids Need to Feel Uncomfortable Emotions

(15:00) Anxious Parents, Anxious Kids

(20:00) Risky Play, Independence & Resilience

(23:00) The Importance of Boredom

(28:00) Modeling Healthy Tech Habits

(32:00) Group Chats, Gossip & Digital Drama

(34:30) Social Media Bans for Kids: Do They Work?

(36:00) Teaching Digital Literacy at Home

(39:00) Online Validation & Personal Branding

(46:00) Healthy Tech Use Starts With Connection

(48:00) AI Chatbots, Relationships & The Future

(55:00) One Thing Every Parent Should Remember

(57:30) Why Nate Has Hope For This Generation

(59:00) Where to Find Nate Webb

More About Nate

Nate Webb is a school counselor, father, and national speaker known for his work on digital safety and youth resilience. Through his speaking engagements, online content, and work in schools, Nate helps parents cut through the fear and focus on what matters most: connection, communication, and helping kids build the skills they need to thrive.

Connect with Nate Webb:

Website: https://natewebbspeaker.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/realnatewebb/

Connect with Sarah Adams:

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://momuncharted.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

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