Keeping Your Kids Safe Online
May 31st, 2008, 3:50 am Hobbies News
School is almost out, and for many children that means they’ll be spending more time on the internet. While it can be a great tool, the web can also be a very scary place. One in seven children between the ages of 10 and 17 will be approached by a sexual predator while on the internet.
To better explain the dangers to both parents and students Congressman Ciro Rodriguez, the FBI and the San Antonio Police Department spoke at Rawlinson Middle School Tuesday.
Rodriguez says parents need to explain internet dangers to young people. He plans to introduce new legislation to officially make June National Internet Safety Month.
Allowing kids to go online without supervision or ground rules is like allowing them to explore a major metropolitan area by themselves. The Internet, like a city, offers an enormous array of entertainment and educational resources but also presents some risks. Kids need help navigating this world.
By exploring the Internet with your kids, you greatly expand its capacity as an educational tool. By providing guidance and discussion along the way, you increase kids’ online skills and confidence along with their ability to avoid risks. And you might be surprised by what kids teach you at the same time.
Kids may come across sites containing adult images or demeaning, racist, sexist, violent, or false information. It is hard for kids to distinguish reliable sources of information from less reliable ones. Some believe because information is posted online it must be true.
Some sites and services ask users to post a “profile†with their age, sex, hobbies, and interests. While these profiles help kids “connect†and share common interests, potential exploiters can and do use these profiles to search for victims. Kids sometimes compete to see who has the greatest number of contacts and will add new members to their lists even if they don’t know them in person. Users may pose as someone else — a different person or person of a different age — without others knowing. Such users have taken advantage of this and social-networking profiles to entice or sexually exploit kids.
Kids can’t “take back†the online text and images they’ve entered. Once online, “chat†as well as other web postings become public information. Many web sites are “cached†by search engines, and photos and text can be retrieved long after the site has been deleted.
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