Protect Your Child Online

Web logs blogs, as they are commonly called today, are now becoming a very popular internet medium, almost entirely becoming as widely used as static websites. Today there are over 71 million blogs indexed by Technorati, one of the leading blog search engines. Because of this new medium’s popularity and its ability to drive enormous traffic to a site, more and more webmasters are incorporating blogs into their websites. For parents, however, it is now worth looking into this new medium in our efforts to protect our children online.

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Sure the risks are there, but kids could become aware about the risks early on if we were the first ones to teach them about the dangers as well as the benefits of the internet. Teaching your child or exposing them to the benefits of the Internet is one good strategy to protect your child from the dangers online.

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Children, it is unfortunate that they are the ones more vulnerable to online predation. Each unsuspecting child who logs online is an instant target of unscrupulous online predators. With each effort to protect each child online, predators are becoming more cautious just so they can have their way and go on victimizing one child after another.

In my previous posts, I have shown that despite all the efforts to keep our children safe online, there is an increase in online child sexual molestation. It seems that online predators are all the more determined to threaten our children’s safety.

It’s an alarming reality. However, there are still some ways to at least minimize the risk of a child becoming a victim to online predators. We can start by asking which young people are more at risk or vulnerable to online predation.

According to Microsoft’s Security at Home young adolescents are more prone and are at high risk of being victim to online predation. Among the reasons cited why this is so are the facts that adolescents are starting to explore their sexuality fueled by curiosity, they are moving away from parental control and they are starting to look for new relationships outside the family. Young adolescents don’t fully understand the repercussions of careless exploration which they are often more prone to make.

Here are more specific reasons why this age group is more likely to become victims of online predators:

• These children are still finding out the things they can do online, so they are still quite new and naive about the workings of the internet. They also lack the necessary knowledge of netiquette to identify what people mean online.
• Even with less knowledge of the internet, this age group still use the internet more than other age groups.
• Younger people are more game to try out new things, regardless of the risks.
  
• They’re at that age when they’re craving for attention, and the strangers they meet online gladly shower them with the attention they long for.
• People at this age are at a more rebellious stage, and will do anything they want.
• These young adolescents also tend to feel that they don’t belong, and will usually just use the Internet to have a sense of belonging.
  
• Curiosity is also a quality of this age group, which can get them into a lot of trouble if they’re not careful online.
  
• Confusion about their sexuality will also have them experimenting more.
• Even though they’re no longer little children, they’re not quite adults yet, and can still be tricked by adults who want to take advantage.

We were young adolescents once as well. I’m pretty sure you will all agree with me that it is us who can better understand what our children need when they reach a certain age. Don’t just act that you understand them and think that it’s pretty normal for them to be curious. Actively become part of their awareness and guide them all the way through.

Personally, I’d like to think of the Internet as a parallel world that runs alongside the real world. It’s a world where one could easily hide away his identity and be someone else. The virtual world of the Internet is also a haven to ease some people’s frustrations and sorrows. Unfortunately, it has also spawned dangers that could be incarnated in the real world, with children often falling victim to. Since these dangers that threaten our children’s safety are being perpetrated online, how do you protect your child?

It’s a scary thought, but the possibility of our children being targeted already online remains. How many among us parents are truly aware of our children’s online activities? Maybe it’s high time we take actions to see if our children were now being targeted by online predators. I came across these tips to help us do some checking from Web Aware to determine if our children could already be targets by predators.

• Spending too much time on the internet
  Because of their newfound “friend,” childre who have been targeted will spend more time online, chatting with their “friend” in chatrooms.
• There are pornographic materials on your computers.
  Online sexual predators make use of these pornographic materials to convince your child that what he or she is being asked to do is okay, because other people are doing it, too. So check your computer for these horrid images, and inspect diskettes or CDs or portable drives that your child uses to store files.
• There are unauthorized long distance calls made to people you don’t know, or received calls from strangers.
  Monitor your child’s phone activities as well, and find out if someone has been calling them. Inspect your phone bill to see if your child has been making calls to unknown numbers. 
• There are letters from the mail, or packages from people you don’t know.
  Online sexual predators will stop at nothing to get what they want. They may shower your child with presents to lure them in. Sometimes, plane tickets are also sent, just so the victim will agree to a meeting.
• You notice your child socializing less and less, or is very secretive about his or her activties online.
  Online sexual predators feign concern when they’re trying to get to know someone. When a child shares a problem with the family, the predator will take advantage and make the problem seem bigger than it is, causing your child to be depressed and to trust only on that person. Also, be wary when your child quickly minimizes or closes windows on the screen whenever you enter a room. That’s a clear sign that they’re hiding something from you.
• Check what online account your child is using.
  In order to keep the “relationship” going, an online predator might send your child an online account. Make sure you know how your child goes online.

It really helps to become aware about these warning signs. Should any of these turn up, contact your local police department and report your observations right away. Talk your children into disclosing his/her online activities and monitor them. Remember, it pays to become vigilant as far as protecting your child is concerned.

You think online fraud and identity theft could only harm adults? Think again. These could potentially harm our kids as well by exposing them to online bullies and some financial troubles. These should be part of your agenda as parents in your effort to protect your child online.

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Online child molestation is real. Predators satisfy their satanic lust with innocent little children and only use the Internet as a channel through which they and all the rest of perpetrators all over the world could trade their sickening merchandise. All the efforts to protect your child online should be accelerated and uniformly addressed to put a stop to this nightmare once and for all.

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Protecting your child your online is an issue that has been around for almost as long as the Internet gained popularity over a decade ago, creating widespread concern to every parent everywhere. It’s an issue not only confined within one territory involving only one nationality, but involves everyone whose child is capable of exploring the Internet.

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The reality of more and more children going online is overwhelming. The number is getting larger and the age of children getting online is getting younger. Even a four-year old who has been exposed to too much online activities by parents working at home on the computer could easily familiarize his way around the Internet. This makes protecting your child online a more taxing job for many parents who choose to work at home. But you just can’t tell a child to just stay offline. After all, he is born in the Internet age, and the Internet is paving the way for his future.

Because now we can pretty much see that the Internet is really here to stay and that it will probably play a huge role in our children’s future, educating them on how they could endanger themselves online should be done now before it’s too late for them and for us to reverse the consequences. How do children expose themselves to online dangers when not supervised by adults?

When a child goes online, he is alone in a virtual world where he is exposed to grown-up matters like violence on news sources, pornographically themed sites and social networking sites that when not regulated could seriously harm our children. They could become vulnerable when they post too much information about themselves. It allows them to become easy targets for online predators. Children could also easily become exposed to inappropriate pictures of people, thus, could also give them an idea that it could be okay for them to also post inappropriate pictures of themselves.

What can we do?

Talk your child into giving you his MySpace or other social networking sites password. This allows you to monitor his networking activities.

Become part of his buddy list. By becoming part of his network of friends, you could keep track of who your kid is hanging out with online.

Encourage your kids to talk to you whenever he encounters something that is off online. Kids get exposed to a lot of things online. Out of curiosity, he could enter a site where there are things that appear strange to him. This could be a trap. Your child should tell you about this and once you’ve confirmed the site to be dangerous keep tab on it.

Tell your kids not to disclose too much information on his online profile like phone numbers, personal email addresses and home address. In fact, posting too much pictures of himself without disclosing too much personal information could still give online predators a way to track you child.

Remember that educating yourself first on the dangers of the Internet is the first and best step to take to protecting your child online.

Staying proactive is the best way to protecting your child online. However, things can really get out of hand sometimes. A lot of times, kids can really get sneaky no matter what we do and do the things that we thought we’ve already kept away from them.

Okay, so what if things did get out of hand? Or what if you were not able to really impose safety measures that would safeguard your child from the dangers online? Is there a way for us to tell that our kids could be in trouble or have gotten into trouble already?

Here are some of the signs that a child has been victimized sexually as presented by Innocence en Danger:

• The child is always complaining of physical pains, such as stomachaches.
• The child exhibits fear of a certain person or a particular place.
• Behavior has changed drastically.
• The child is depressed or withdrawn.
• Constant occurrence of nightmares.
• The child starts regressing, and acts like a younger child again.
• He or she exhibits an inappropriate interest in sexual activities.
• The child masturbates excessively.
• A physical checkup reveal an infection or irritation in the child’s genitals.
• The child exhibits difficulty in bowel movement, urinating, or swallowing.

Older children may also exhibit the following signs:

• Self-mutilation
• Eating disorders
• Suicide attempts
• Discipline problems
• Running away
• Sexually transmitted disease
• Promiscuity
• Pregnancy
• Sexually victimizing other children

Being very vigilant is key in protecting your child online. Let us do all that we can to curb child pornography and sexual abuse and create a better and safer online environment for them.

In the real world we train our kids on how to properly socialize with other people to become better persons. At school, they are also taught the same by their teachers. In your effort to protect your child online, it is just as important to discuss the application of good behaviors and social etiquettes online as they also socialize with people on the Internet. In fact, more and more kids today socialize more online than offline. Remember that the people our kids meet online are also real people.

Staysafe.org is a great website that gives advice for teenagers to stay safe whenever they’re on the internet, especially in social networking sites. Here are a few tips:

* The Golden Rule, as old as it is, is still very much applicable. Every teenager knows how mortifying it is to have gossip and rumors spread around about him or her. So if they don’t want to be the victim, they shouldn’t spread rumors about other people as well. This makes them less prone to underhanded attacks online.
* Tell your teen to be careful about the way they present themselves online. People can easily form opinions on people from their online profiles.
* Educate your teen about privacy settings that social networking sites offer. They don’t have to keep their profiles public, which can give anyone access to their profiles. This increases the chances of being contacted by malicious characters on the internet.
* Teenagers today should be careful about the content they upload. Photos or videos can give away their locations, which can be used by online criminals to track them down and attack them. Tell them to avoid uploading photos with street signs or known landmarks on their profiles.
* Teach your teen to strike a balance between their online life and real world relationships. While blogging and staying online is fun, having dinner with friends and family, or watching a movie at the theater should still be part of their life.
* Tell your teen to be careful about the things they say or the information they provide online. Even though there are security and privacy settings, the internet is still a dynamic medium, and may still be hacked by experts. Make sure that the things they put online are things they can be responsible for.

Keep in mind that protecting your child is not only about making them aware of the many dangers they could encounter online. It’s also about exposing them to the benefits of the opportunities the Internet offers.