Clayton Cranford joins Dr. Sandie Morgan as they discuss how children need trusted adults who explicitly tell them that if something goes wrong online, it's going to be okay—because what predators exploit most is a child's fear of reaching out for help.
Clayton Cranford
Clayton Cranford is a former Orange County Sheriff's Department Sergeant, school resource officer, and juvenile investigator with specialized expertise in behavioral threat assessment and online safety. He is the founder of Cyber Safety Cop, a program dedicated to educating parents, schools, and communities about how digital platforms can expose children to exploitation, grooming, and trafficking risks. With over 20 years in law enforcement and years working directly with youth and families, Cranford has trained tens of thousands of parents and educators nationwide on digital parenting strategies, social media risks, and emerging threats such as sextortion, encrypted apps, and AI-generated content. He is the author of Parenting in a Digital World and a recognized speaker at major school safety and cybersecurity conferences. His work aligns closely with prevention-first strategies and community collaboration, making him a valuable voice in the intersection of technology, youth safety, and anti-trafficking efforts.
Key Points

Boys are disproportionately targeted for financial sextortion schemes where predators impersonate young girls, quickly establish relationships through unsolicited images, and then extort victims for thousands of dollars, sometimes leading to tragic outcomes within hours.
Online predators use sophisticated grooming tactics on girls over weeks and months, often employing multiple fake personas to build trust before exploiting victims through threats of exposing images to friends and family, creating a cycle of exploitation that can last for years.
Parents must explicitly tell their children that no matter how embarrassed they are or how serious the situation seems, nothing will stop their love and support—because what children know intellectually about online safety often doesn't align with their emotional responses in the moment.
AI companion apps have become widely adopted by teens, with nearly three-quarters having tried them and half using them regularly, yet these apps lack regulation, age verification, and safeguards against encouraging self-harm or creating unhealthy parasocial relationships.
School resource officers serve as crucial intervention points not for enforcement but for building trusted relationships where students feel comfortable reporting concerns about peers or seeking help before situations escalate to emergencies.
The rapid adoption of smartphones from less than 20% to over 80% of teens in just three years created a gap where parents handed their children powerful devices without understanding the risks of platforms like Snapchat and Discord that facilitate anonymous contact and exploitation.
Prevention requires parents to understand how apps work, implement age-appropriate monitoring tools, ensure notification requirements for app downloads, and have concrete plans with their children about who to contact if something goes wrong online.
Legislative action is urgently needed to require age verification, transparency about AI safeguards, and regulation of technologies being rapidly deployed to children without adequate study of downstream mental health and safety impacts.

Resources

Cyber Safety Cop website and resources

Transcript
[00:00:00] Clayton Cranford: parents had no idea what they were, what they were kind of getting themselves into when they handed their kid a phone.

[00:00:06] Sandie Morgan: She calls her tattoo sleeves armor, covering years of scars from predators who convinced her they were her friends,