“Slippery” predators wait online to gain your children’s trust.
Disturbed and determined, cold and calculating, online sexual predators have recently made their mark in Richmond. Just look to the case of 17-year-old Monica Sharp, who’s been missing from her Museum District home since Sept. 18. Richmond Police believe she may be in the company of Jeffrey Nicols, a 57-year-old Illinois man she met on the Internet. As of this week, police still have no updates in the case.
Police and other officials offer a few tips to help you protect your kids:
- Tell your kids never to give out any personal information. Even a little personal information can be enough for someone to physically find you online.
- Keep the computer in a living room, not the kids bedroom. There’s no deterrent like knowing the “rents” are looking over the shoulder.
Source: Richmond.com - Feature Story: ‘Caught in the Net ‘ for
40% of seven to 15 year olds use internet chatrooms and over a third of them think it is OK to give out personal details online. Have you talked to your kids about staying safe online and more importantly how to make sure their online interactions stay online?
Technology news - Technology - Virgin.net
A third of children usually surf the internet alone and more than a third think it is OK to give out personal details online.
A new report from Canada shows almost 4 out of 5 kids ages 8 to 12 use the internet for schoolwork. With the schools pushing children onto computers and the internet at younger ages, parents must be educated to the real dangers as well as the hype.
Elementary School Children Increasingly Rely on Internet for Homework : ArriveNet Press Releases : Business
According to the second annual Back-to-School survey commissioned by AOL Canada Inc. and conducted by Maritz Research, 78 per cent of Canadian children from ages 8 to 12 claimed they use the Internet to get help with homework and research for school projects.
The Florida Attorney General in conjunction with Macy’s and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has released child safety publication that focuses on up to date child safety strategies. It goes beyond “don’t talk to strangers” and includes a glossary for parents of the terms used by kids on the internet.
Children are routinely told to stay away from and not talk to strangers. Unfortunately, statistics show that many children are abducted or exploited by people they or their families might know. The term “stranger” can mislead children and cause them to think that they should only be wary of unfamiliar individuals. Instead, children must be taught to identify certain dangerous situations or actions, or behavior rather than particular individuals.
The booklet - SafeSteps: A Parents Guide to Online Safety, Child Abduction and Runaway Issues - is available online for free download [pdf file].
A recent survey finds that many girls 13 to 18 have been sexually harrassed online…
The project — which collected data from more than 1,200 girls aged 13 to 18 — found that 86 percent of girls surveyed said they could chat online without their parents’ knowledge. The study also found that 75 percent of the girls reported being given Internet rules by their parents, and 43 percent reported breaking those rules at least once. Also, 30 percent of the girls surveyed reported that they had been sexually harassed in an online chat room.
The girls also reportedly may give out personal information in chats because they feel that they are safe at home and don’t realize how easily that information can be used to find them.
Safety Monitor : How to Protect Your Kids Online
