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A Parenting Challenge: Protecting Our Children Online
"A parents worst nightmare! Stay tuned at 6 for an important story that will give you many sleepless nights".
How many times do we as parents hear this on the radio or tv and dismiss it from our minds because we have heard it all before? When it comes to protecting our children online, we would do well to pay attention to these broadcasts.
The hard reality is that parents need all of the help they can get to protect their children from the predators lurking in the recesses of cyberspace waiting for their next victim.
Over five years ago, Congress issued a report that concluded that supervision by parents was of primary importance in protecting children online. The report titled "Youth, Pornography, and the Internet," was written by the National Research Council panel headed by Dick Thornburgh a former U.S. Attorney. This report sparked interest in creating better laws and more efficient internet filtering. In spite of this, online danger to our children is increasing.
It has been over five years since this report and todays statistics are still glaring and gut wrenching. According to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, in the past year:
1 out of 33 children were aggressively solicited sexually, meaning that they were threatened, called on the telephone, received mail or gifts or were asked to meet.
1 out of 17 of our children were harassed or threatened online. These threats included threats of personal harm and harm to friends and family members.
1 out of 5 of our children were solicited for sex.
1 out of 4 of our children were exposed pornographic pictures even though many of the homes used some type of "Internet blocking software."
As parents we must get more involved with our children to protect them from these predators. We often have the tendency to back off when we hear the complain, "You just don't trust me!". We must stand firm and make outr children realize that we do trust them, it is the people we don't know that we d
on't trust.
So what do we do? The first thing is to make certain that the computer is in the family room or some other room shared by other family members. That way we can see without being too intrusive what is on the monitor.
Start Early
Younger children, say often do not have the search skills required to do in-depth searching on-line and will often welcome parental assistance. It is in these early, learning years that we have to establish guidelines.
As parents it is up to us to let our childen know that it is not proper to give out any personal information or to email or respond to inquiries from unknown people. These rules must be placed in the same category in the childs' mind as improper touching.
The Pre-teen
Pre-adolescents run the greatest risk of finding sexually explicit material. At this age they often surf the net unsupervised, and have not yet gained the experience they need to handle exposure to sexual stimuli. It is also the age when most children atart experimenting with instant messaging.
Teach them to leave chat rooms if the conversation takes the wrong turn. Check your child's buddy list and ask who each person is. The are to formative years and we must be firm in our rules. If we are too soft at this age, we may find the consequences extremely hard to live with later.
Teenagers are present special problems of their own. These will be discussed in Part 2.
Summary
It is up to each of us to take responsibility for protecting our children online. We do our best to shelter them when we are with them but, if you're like me, you often ask yourself, "Who's protecting my child from internet predators, pedophiles, stalkers, and other online offenders and kooks when I'm not there?".
Your first line of defense should be a good parental control and monitoring software. They are relative inexpensive now and getting better all of the time. One in particular I can recommend for your review is PC Tattletale.
How many times do we as parents hear this on the radio or tv and dismiss it from our minds because we have heard it all before? When it comes to protecting our children online, we would do well to pay attention to these broadcasts.
The hard reality is that parents need all of the help they can get to protect their children from the predators lurking in the recesses of cyberspace waiting for their next victim.
Over five years ago, Congress issued a report that concluded that supervision by parents was of primary importance in protecting children online. The report titled "Youth, Pornography, and the Internet," was written by the National Research Council panel headed by Dick Thornburgh a former U.S. Attorney. This report sparked interest in creating better laws and more efficient internet filtering. In spite of this, online danger to our children is increasing.
It has been over five years since this report and todays statistics are still glaring and gut wrenching. According to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, in the past year:
1 out of 33 children were aggressively solicited sexually, meaning that they were threatened, called on the telephone, received mail or gifts or were asked to meet.
1 out of 17 of our children were harassed or threatened online. These threats included threats of personal harm and harm to friends and family members.
1 out of 5 of our children were solicited for sex.
1 out of 4 of our children were exposed pornographic pictures even though many of the homes used some type of "Internet blocking software."
As parents we must get more involved with our children to protect them from these predators. We often have the tendency to back off when we hear the complain, "You just don't trust me!". We must stand firm and make outr children realize that we do trust them, it is the people we don't know that we d
So what do we do? The first thing is to make certain that the computer is in the family room or some other room shared by other family members. That way we can see without being too intrusive what is on the monitor.
Start Early
Younger children, say often do not have the search skills required to do in-depth searching on-line and will often welcome parental assistance. It is in these early, learning years that we have to establish guidelines.
As parents it is up to us to let our childen know that it is not proper to give out any personal information or to email or respond to inquiries from unknown people. These rules must be placed in the same category in the childs' mind as improper touching.
The Pre-teen
Pre-adolescents run the greatest risk of finding sexually explicit material. At this age they often surf the net unsupervised, and have not yet gained the experience they need to handle exposure to sexual stimuli. It is also the age when most children atart experimenting with instant messaging.
Teach them to leave chat rooms if the conversation takes the wrong turn. Check your child's buddy list and ask who each person is. The are to formative years and we must be firm in our rules. If we are too soft at this age, we may find the consequences extremely hard to live with later.
Teenagers are present special problems of their own. These will be discussed in Part 2.
Summary
It is up to each of us to take responsibility for protecting our children online. We do our best to shelter them when we are with them but, if you're like me, you often ask yourself, "Who's protecting my child from internet predators, pedophiles, stalkers, and other online offenders and kooks when I'm not there?".
Your first line of defense should be a good parental control and monitoring software. They are relative inexpensive now and getting better all of the time. One in particular I can recommend for your review is PC Tattletale.
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