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How can we protect our child from online abuse?
by Dennis O’Brien
One positive byproduct of the exposure of Florida Rep. Mark Foley’s appalling use of the Internet to prey on House pages is that parents have become somewhat more aware of the possibility of online abuse. However, according to the experts, they are not nearly as aware as they should be.
While many reading this column may believe that their children are too young to be concerned about Internet abuse, we at GRC believe that prevention is the best way to protect our children—especially because gifted children often explore new challenges before their agemates and may be more tech savvy than their parents.
So the first step is to acknowledge to yourself that the dangers are real and probably more serious than you realize. Unsupervised access to the Internet frequently puts children at risk for sexual abuse and bullying. Here are some facts provided by Sergeant Joe Laramie of the Glendale Police Department.
Laramie heads the Missouri Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, one of 46 such federally funded task forces. In addition to law enforcement, the task forces are heavily involved in prevention efforts through school-based workshops for both children and their parents.
One of every 11 children is harassed by a sexual predator online, and half of these victims are phoned, asked to meet or receive mail from a predator who learned who they are and where they live.
One of every five children is sexually solicited online – 95,000 in Missouri each year.
Girls ages 12 to 15 are most vulnerable. Children this age tend to be secretive, curious about sex, eager for attention and affection, largely unaware of the risks and feel invulnerable.
"The most disturbing thing of all may be that only 25 percent of the children who are victimized online tell their parents about it. The others try to go it alone," said Laramie.
Here are some suggestions based on my conversations with Laramie.
- Communicate with your child. "The best way to help protect your children is by being involved and talking to them," Laramie said. "Positive parent-child communication is the key. Make sure you stay connected."
- Supervise your child's online contacts just as carefully as you do any of your child's other social activities. Establish guidelines and know who communicates with your child.
- Keep the computer in a common room, not your child's bedroom. Children are much less likely to engage in risky behavior if they realize someone can easily discover it. This may be especially important for parents of gifted children because of their driving curiosity and, quite often, extraordinary ability to utilize technology.
- Impress upon your child the importance of telling you when something online feels uncomfortable.
Stay calm when something happens. Explain that it is not your child's fault and that it happens to many teens.
- Visit www.netsmartz.org with your child and review its guidelines about Internet safety. Watch and discuss the videos of real-life children who have been victims of Internet exploitation.
- Set rules and post them by the computer. Children should never give out personal information--even what school they attend. They should never visit pornographic Web sites, open e-mails from strangers, visit chat rooms or blog. Instant messaging should be restricted only to known friends.
"All chat rooms are dangerous, and chat rooms designed for teens are the most dangerous," Laramie said. "That's exactly where predators go first."
In a demonstration starting with an anonymous screen name in a chat room, it took only twenty minutes to learn the girl’s real name, phone number, address, her school and the names of all her family members. The demonstration used only the sources readily available to anyone online.
"Over the last 10 months teen blogs like facebook.com, myspace.com and xanga.com have replaced chat rooms as the most dangerous places for teens online," he said. "They readily give predators a wealth of information about children, including their interests, activities, emotional life and their friends."
- Explain that people may not be who they say they are. "I know too many cases of adult predators pretending to be teens. Kids are far too trusting," said Laramie.
Be careful about the consequences you set for a child who deliberately violates your rules for safety.
"Forbidding a defiant child to use the computer completely may just force the child to access the Internet at a friend's house, school or library," Laramie said. "We recommend monitoring software only as a last resort. Communication and education about the risks are usually more effective."
- Make it clear you will check—and do so. Look over your child's IM buddy list. Edit it from time to time, and have your child delete any you don’t know. Ask whom she is talking with. Look at the screen. Ask her to say, "Hi," from you to a friend you know.
Use the Internet Explorer’s history function to check the Web sites your child recently visited.
Above all, take it seriously, and for more information or to get your child’s school involved in prevention, contact Laramie at (314) 889-4282 or icacmo@earthlink.net.
For more information regarding Gifted Resource Council, please call the GRC office at 314-962-5920 or e-mail us at: info@giftedresourcecouncil.org.
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