Internet Safety
The most
difficult items to monitor, from a parent's point of view, are Internet chat
rooms. These locations allow pedophiles to easily and
readily approach children. It happens like this:
Robert, a
middle school student, enters a chat room for young teenagers and gets into the
flow of conversation. He tells how old he is and where he goes to school. He
gets a response from someone who appears to be a 13-year-old girl named
Jennifer. Her messages come with misspelled words and typing mistakes, and she
sounds like a teenager, but in reality she is a 42-year-old man who is trolling
for young teenage boys. This pedophile may select Robert out of the group and
invite him to enter a private room.
Pretending
to be Jennifer, the pedophile might talk to Robert over several nights or
weeks, becoming friendlier and friendlier and perhaps easing the conversation
into sexual topics. Sooner or later, in most cases like this, “Jennifer” may
ask where Robert lives and perhaps his phone number. Worse yet, the individual
may try to set up a meeting with Robert.
Although
this sort of scenario doesn't happen very often, parents can work to minimize
the chances of this happening by doing the following:
- Restrict the hours that kids
can spend online. As a general rule, the later at night one is online, the
greater the risk becomes for being targeted by a pedofile.
- Check with your Internet
provider to see if you can install a filter on your Internet security settings.
This will allow you to control what your children can view to a certain
extent.
- Monitor your children’s
activities.
- Ask your kids what they are
doing online. Get involved with their activities. Knowledge is often
prevention.
- Point out stories in the
newspaper about cyber predators.
o
Give
out information over the Internet that would lead a person to that child in
real life. Such information includes the child’s last name, address, telephone
number and name of school.
o
Make
secret arrangements for an in-person meeting with someone they’ve met through
the Internet.
o
E-mail
a picture of themselves to anyone you do not know.
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