Parents MUST Monitor Kids Use of Computers
Parents must monitor use of computers Some television stations on the East Coast still begin their nightly news broadcast with the decades-old public ser-vice announcement: “It’s 10 p.m. Do you know where your children are?” In the age of the computer, a better question for parents is, “Do you know where your children are going online?” Too many kids are providing too much personal information online. The information plays right into the hands of stalkers, sex offenders and other criminals. And too few parents are fulfilling their responsibility to protect their children from harm. Parents simply must monitor their children’s computer use. Numbers are sobering Consider these statistics from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. In the past year: - 1 in 5 teens received a sexual solicitation over the Internet. - 1 in 33 were aggressively solicited online. In those cases, a solicitor asked to meet them, call them, or send mail or gifts. - 1 in 4 had unwanted exposure to pictures of naked people or sexual activity over the Internet. - 1 in 17 were threatened or harassed over the Internet. Those statistics should frighten every parent with a computer in the house. False sense of security Youngsters in this community — like teens across America — have discovered online chat rooms where they feel safe meeting new friends, exchanging information and just hanging out. They might not realize they are providing sensitive information to sexual predators looking for a next victim. It can, and does, happen in this community. Detective Jason Glantz of the Washington State Patrol’s Missing and Exploited Children Task Force said a Washington teenage girl recently traded names, addresses and other private information with a person she thought was another teen. It turned out to be a man, and when the online relationship turned sour, the cyber-stalker threatened to kill the girl and her family. A 42-year-old Olympia man was arrested for trying to meet a teen at a local shopping center. He was not aware the person he was corresponding with was a police officer posing as a teen. The man admitted that he had made a similar arrangement over the Internet with another girl. He had sexual contact with that girl. Myspace.com Of particular concern right now is a teen chat room called myspace.com, where teens from 14 to 22 play games, visit chat rooms and create their own Web page for networking and blogging. Al Lynch, the principal at Northwest Christian High School in Lacey, recently expelled two students for posting information on myspace.com that violated the private school’s code of conduct. Lynch warned parents about myspace.com, saying naive young people are ill-equipped to recognize the threat that cyberspace predators employ to trap their teens. Parent Lisa Gosiaco of Tenino forced her daughter to abandon her myspace.com Web site. “The issue was that people were stumbling into pornography just a click or two away from my kids’ sites,” Gosiaco said. “I was absolutely shocked.” Many parents might be shocked at the amount of personal information their children have unwittingly given to others. There’s only one way to find out. Parents have to closely monitor their children’s computer use. Put the computer in the family room where there is lots of activity. Install parental controls. Use passwords. Monitor the sites visited by teens. To those parents who feel that prying is spying, go back and read again the statistics on the number of teens who have been sexually solicited, harassed or exposed to pornography online. http://159.54.227.3/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051205/OPINION/51205020/1005