You see the news stories all the time. Child or young teenager lured by sex predator over the Internet. Its very scary to parents. However, you should not panic, there are solutions that you can look to for your child’s safety.
You should not feel that you have to ban your children from using the Internet because of all the bad things you hear about. You should however open a good line of communication with your child. That goes for their offline safety as well as their online safety.
They need to know they can come to you about anything. Simply getting mad at them every time they come to you or not having the time to talk to them puts them at risk because they will stop coming to you and try to deal with problems by themselves.
And that means you will not know what is going on in your child’s life. So please, be a parent. Take the time to talk about safety and Internet safety with your child.
You should also get computer-monitoring software for your computers at home. There is software that will monitor all computer activity and give you a report on that activity so you know what is going on with your computer and your children.
The software will block inappropriate websites, images, and text content. It comes with a database of known “bad neighborhoods” already installed and you have the ability to add to the list. It will check images and text in WebPages, emails, chatrooms, and more and block that content.
You can even have it alert your cellphone or email whenever your child encounters inappropriate content. This is what is recommended. http://www.OnlineSafetyShield.com
Of serious concern is the worldwide traffic in child pornography. Problems range from chat room predators who ask children to post pictures of themselves, which serve as fuel for fantasy, to the solicitation and trading of hard-core material involving minors.
If you ever run into such material online, call the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 1-800-843-5678 or report it to any of the following websites that deal with getting these websites removed.
http://www.CyberAngels.org A well established website that deals with the child porn issue.
If you live outside of the US, here is a list of where you can report pornography in many countries. http://www.tinhat.com/children/report_pornography.html