Does it seem near impossible to separate your teenager and social media? Is this a situation you wish you could change? In this episode of Superpower Mommas, host Tatiana Berindei and guest Ed Peisner discuss and show ways to protect and make kids safe on social media. Ed is the founder of the Organization for Social Media Safety. He believes that parents must be armed with tools to prevent their children from the harm of cyber-bullying, sexting, and other online threats. Tune in and learn more from Tatiana and Ed on finding free courses for social media safety.

Tatiana Berindei:

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Superpower Mommas show. I am your host, Tatiana Berindei, and today my guest is Ed Peisner. And we are going to be talking about your teenager and social media. This is a very big topic. My children are not yet teenagers and this is something that I’ve been so nervous about and wary of and curious about. And so I’m just really grateful to Ed that he’s been able to come on this show and share what he has learned with us. Let me tell you a little bit about him before we dive in here.

After his long career in business, Ed Peisner founded the organization for Social Media Safety in 2017, after his teenage son, Jordan, was viciously assaulted in West Hills, California. The attack was filmed and uploaded to social media by an associate of the attacker. Jordan was left with serious and lifelong injuries from the assault. Ed decided to dedicate himself to the goal of ensuring that no other family had to endure such a terrible ordeal. Ed now proudly travels the country teaching students, parents, and educators essential social media safety skills. So welcome to the show, Ed, and thank you for the work that you’re doing in the world.

Ed Peisner:

Right? Parenting is, I’ve said this so many times, it’s the most rewarding, most underpaid job on the planet. We give of ourselves, it’s the most selfless job on the planet. But my story, my accidental advocate work began, as you mentioned in my bio when Jordan was viciously assaulted. This was at the end of 2016. Jordan was just walking home from school. He was 14 and a half and had just started high school. He was six months into his ninth-grade year. And like any typical Friday, he had called me after school and said, “Dad, is it okay if I walk to our little local center, a little local area here? I was going to walk with my friends and bop in at the restaurant, get some French fries. And then we might go to the park and skateboard for a little while. Could you pick me up at the park afterward?” Of course, I said, “Yeah.”

Typical Friday afternoon. I had picked up my daughter, who at the time was in seventh grade, I brought her home. And actually one of her friends, we were homemaking, I forget, cookies or pizza bites or something. And I got a phone call from one of Jordan’s friends and it was short and sweet. They said, “Mr. Peisner, somebody punched Jordan. We’re down here at the local center. Someone punched Jordan.” I thought nothing of it. I grabbed an ice pack thinking, maybe something, I don’t know if he got a bloody nose or if he got a bruise. I told my daughter, “I’ll be right back. Keep an eye on the oven.” And I drove down to the center and what I came upon, it was a scene from a movie in my mind.

There were two police cars. There was an ambulance, there was a firetruck. There’s just a group of kids, people everywhere. And as I’m telling you this Tatiana like the hair is rising on my arms again. I got out of my car, made my way through these kids, and went right to the ambulance of course. And there was Jordan, head to toe covered in blood. His eyes are semi-rolled back. I didn’t know what was going on. I asked the paramedic, “I don’t understand, what’s going on?” And he looked at me, he said, “Your son has a brain bleed. He’s bleeding internally. You need to get out and follow us to the hospital.” That was it.

And again, I’m dumbfounded. I was just shocked. So I jumped out of the ambulance, started to push my way through these kids and I stopped and I asked one of them, “What happened? Someone tell me what happened.” And Tatiana, they all started bringing out their phones and they said, “Look, look, she posted it.” Here’s a video of Jordan talking to a friend, standing outside of this fast-food restaurant, minding his own business, just talking to his friend. And then you see this boy walk up to him and just with all of his might he just swings and punches Jordan in the head. Jordan didn’t see it coming, his back was to him. And he hit him with enough force where Jordan’s tight-fitting beanie popped off his head. And then you hear the sound, I can’t even listen to it anymore. The sound, it just almost dropped me to my knees and you see Jordan just collapse to the ground.

But then, and then you see this boy walk away. The person who films this boy walking away and then everybody’s posting about it and sharing this video like it’s nothing. That moment, that’s etched in my brain, I could never get that out of my head. Obviously, I followed the ambulance to the hospital. Jordan, the injury was so severe they actually had to fly him from my local hospital here where I live in West Hills, they flew him to Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles where he spent six days, a few of which were in the ICU. And that, again, that moment, I guess I’ll call that my superpower in a way because it created what I am today. I’ve always been a parent. I will always be a parent for the rest of my life, but that turned me into this advocate that has to make sure no other parent or family experiences what I experienced.

Tatiana Berindei:

Wow. Yeah, it’s a chilling story and we’re going to go more into how social media has played into that and what parents can do when we get back from the break. But we are going to go for a quick break. Now, before we go to break, will you tell our listeners where they can go to find out more about the work that you’re doing?

Ed Peisner:

Yes, absolutely. Our website is ofsms.org. And that stands for the Organization for Social Media Safety. So they can just go right to the web there and see everything we have.

Tatiana Berindei:

Great. So we’re talking with Ed Peisner about your teenager and social media. More when we get back, stay tuned. This is some important conversation here, so don’t go anywhere. We’ll be right back.

To listen to the entire show click on the player above or go to the SuperPower Up! podcast on iTunes.