Out Think Media

I was relentlessly bullied through most of elementary school, so the idea of cyber bullying is a nightmare. Bullies want to make you small and think poorly of yourself; the only place where I could escape that was outside of school. I was so good at it that a childhood friend told me that she had no idea I was bullied at school, because I was her role model for self confidence at the time I battled it daily. I gained that confidence at theater and other activities, well away from the bullying at school. If I couldn’t have escaped, if my bullies could have followed me online, I certainly would have been vulnerable to online scams, and predators. Honestly, I was very loved at home and had involved parents, but would I really have been immune to falling for a romantic scam? I do know that if my parents had tried to tell me it was not real, or I was being scammed, I would have shut them out immediately. What is Sextortion, or Romantic Scams? How do Groomers Build Trust? When Does it Turn Dangerous? Clues that your Child Might be at Risk of Grooming Dialogue: Preparing Your Child Against Grooming What is Sextortion, or Romantic Scams? I tell you all of this to explain why this can happen to anyone. Every day in parenting groups, someone is shocked to find how their child hid a relationship from them, or how far an online relationship has progressed. We explained grooming more in our coverage of?Colleen Bailinger, but the advocacy group?Darkness to Light: End Child Sexual Abuse?explains it as such: Grooming allows offenders to slowly overcome natural boundaries long before sexual abuse occurs. On the surface, grooming a child can look like a close relationship between the offending adult, the targeted child and (potentially) the child’s caregivers. The grooming process is often misleading because the offender may be well-known or highly regarded in the community. As a result, it’s easy to trust them. Often, the grooming happens over a long period of time, until they gain the child’s trust, and either request inappropriate photos or to meet in person. I spoke with Jennifer Lawrence, DSW, LICSW, of the advocacy group FightCybercrime to get her perspective: ”How that process typically begins, it’s really people identifying a vulnerable target. And I say vulnerable- we can all be vulnerable, right? Nobody is immune to this type of predatory behavior. the important thing is for people to be able to have the education and to be able to understand what it looks like, Lawrence told us in a recorded interview. Link in comments

In many ways, the origins of Out Think Media is tie to?Thanksgiving. I wanted to share an old favorite with my kids and learned how it isn’t that hard to explain the ways that history is written by the victors, and how the stories we think that we know?evolve over time. So when our kids started reading on their own, I knew we would need to focus on including diverse voices like?Native American?and?Indigenous Booksellers and Artists. That also helped our kids to be more open to watching Native creator-lead shows like Netflix/YouTube’ show’s?Spirit Rangers, because they had familiarity with the imagery and stories. This is hardly an all-inclusive list of Native American and Indigenous booksellers and artists, but once you start, it’s hard to stop discovering more great media for kids. Please note that I have no affiliate links with any store or person listed here.?My referrals come from personal experience and expert suggestions. Native American Booksellers & Artists Paperbacks and Frybread Native Lumbee?Dominique Burleson?curates #DecolonizeYourBookshelf lists for all ages, and I adore the titles we have received from her. -Read more: https://lnkd.in/eT9kmhbY Birchbark Books Physical and online bookstore with a beautiful selection for?children?and adults. -Read more: https://lnkd.in/e95CE9qn Illustoria Subscription Art and storytelling print magazine that packs 3 issues/years around a central theme.?Recommended as a decolonized resource. -Read more: https://lnkd.in/ezyfRGru Spirit Rangers?on YouTube & Netflix This Netflix show with an entirely Native creative team is a genuinely entertaining introduction to Native stories and traditions. -Read more: https://lnkd.in/eWZYz5ZQ The Autry Museum: Road to American Masters?(Masters of the American West) The Autry Museum interviews Native Masters of various arts, traditions, and more. For any family wishing to expand their knowledge and exposure to Native artists. -Watch more: https://lnkd.in/e93jQq_Q Let’s do more:?If you’d like to know how you can support Native organizations and people directly, please read through?this Bluesky list?by?Kelly Hayes: https://lnkd.in/eNs_vwhy Conscious Editing/Terminology Sources:?National Museum of the American Indian (Smithsonian),?Autry Museum of the American West,?Native Governance Center,?Conscious Style Guide Read more:?https://lnkd.in/ev5URatr

Guess who's getting a wonderfully accessible website! All nonprofits and community organizations/artists can follow our journey to know what to expect if they apply for AIR next year.

I am honored to be a guest on the series "Children As Culture Makers" that?@TheColourismProject?hosts on Instagram. Jyoti G. is probing into deep questions here, and ones that I love connecting to kids' media, especially continuing the?#InsideOut2?conversation. The activities in her first book, "Different, Differenter" gave our family creative and concrete ways to think about skin color that we still use in our daily dialogues. See her invitation below and please join us or watch the replay! "Join guest Cindy and me for my third and final Live from TCP's series 'Children as Culture Makers' this June. Here're some questions we will be responding to, particularly in the context of the much-appreciated film, Inside Out 2; and why/how it stands to influence youth culture; and what we think is the one most important thing parents can learn about creating space to talk about 'culture.' ?? 1. Why are peer-to-peer conversations about culture, and in this case, media AND mental health, important? ?? 2. How do parents and educators make these spaces possible? ?? 3. Why do these spaces need to use intersectional frameworks? (e.g., gender, ability, migration, race/color)

The entire Mythical Team has set a standard for integrity in the YouTube Creator space, mentorship and investing to help smaller creators, and I'm honestly jealous that the Smithsonian National Museum of American History gets that microphone.

Enter Anxiety: Helping Kids Handle Bigger Emotions in Inside Out 2 When last we heard from Pixar’s latest sequel,?Inside Out 2, the director confirmed that Riley is?heading toward puberty. Coming on the heels of such excellent coming-of-age stories for girls lately (Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret?and?Turning Red), I couldn’t wait to meet the new emotions. I was not, however, quite ready to meet Anxiety head (or brain) on! Where Did Anxiety Come From? Along with the Fraggle-looking?Anxiety, Riley also has new emotions?Envy, Ennui, and Embarrassment?to contend with! But where did they come from? “We’re not born with anxiety,”?Mental Health Therapist Lauren Mazzarese, LPC,?told Out Think over a Zoom interview. “We learn anxiety…One of the biggest predictors of whether or not someone will experience an event as traumatic is [related to] the level of love, safety, and security they had growing up.” We don’t yet know if there is a specific moment of trauma for Riley in?Inside Out 2, but Mazzarese believes that simply attending middle school can be traumatic for some kids, with all the changes to their hormones, bodies, and emotions. Besides standing back and watching our child experience pain, what can parents do? It’s time to remind or teach your child the?emotional language?around their feelings.?“The more we can help kids stay connected to themselves,” Mazzarese continues, “through pain, discomfort, anxiety, fear, loss, all those things, the better off they will be in the future and the more equipped they will be to handle future trauma more effectively.” The key is to help your child stay connected to their emotions and themselves. Trauma makes us want to disconnect our mind from our body, but helping your child through their experiences helps them understand how?it is not the experience itself that creates trauma but our response to the experience. Read more, including how to help your child through anxiety:

The announcement that the Five Nights at Freddie's sequel will premiere on December 5, 2025, drove many new readers to the Primer that we published when the first movie came out. It covers information about the creator, the movie, the dialogues to have with your kids about it, and a short synopsis of the FNAF lore. (This lore barely scratches the surface and, in fact, is only discovered over a number of the video games and easter eggs or storylines within. It is barely covered in the movie, although with a horror star like Matthew Lillard as William Afton, you can be sure there's a prequel or extensive flashback scenes. in future films.) I will publish an extensive update soon that focuses more on horror and kids' attractions or repulsions to it, as well as a recap of the first movie. Spoiler alert: the games are much scarier than the movie. https://bit.ly/FNAFPrimer

If you want to watch Inside Out 2 but haven't started a dialogue about periods* and puberty with your children, here's our guide: And yes, it is just as important for boys to learn about periods as their peers who will experience a menstrual cycle. It isn't that hard to describe what it is and why we have them. After I see it, we'll have a specialized dialogue ready around the specifics they handle in the film, like anxiety. *I haven't seen it yet, so I don't know that periods are part of it, but puberty is front and center! insideout2 Link in comments!

We had a wonderful time last weekend at the Orlando Fringe Festival in their Kids' Fringe area! Meeting with families in person and hearing directly what they need from us, what their questions are, and who we should review from YouTube means so much!

Come visit me and my 7-year-old Orlando Fringe (The Kids' Fringe) lover for fun activities related to kids' media! There are so many cool things to do for free at Kids' Fringe, and I'm so happy we will share our first outreach table there!