Internet Safety: Keeping our children safe from Predatory Entrapment

 

Did you know that Cyberbullying refers to the new and growing practice of using technology to harass and bully someone. Bullies used to be restricted to methods of physical intimidation, through mail, the use of telephony, but with the advancement of computer science and technology electronic communications such as email, instant messaging, social networking web sites, and photo sharing web sites such as Flickr add to the arsenal of harassment and possible create life threatening situation.

Cyberbullying is considered a school offense and is included in most of the public school bullying policies. About 94% or 1,317 of the school bullying policies have defined the following:

• 87% define specific forms of bullying (i.e., physical, emotional, verbal, electronic, cyber, etc.),

• 78% define the term “harassment” in regard to bullying, and

• 63% define the term “intimidation” in regard to bullying.

Forms of Cyberbullying can range in severity from cruel or embarrassing rumors to threats, harassment or stalking. It can affect any age group; however, teenagers and young adults are common victims, and Cyberbullying is a growing problem in schools. In the Commonwealth of Virginia, Cyberbullying or sometimes referred to Cyber-harassment is a Class C felony.

The following information facts are based on surveys from a local media cable company:

Teens readily post personal information and photos of themselves online.

Nearly 2/3 of teens or 64% post photos or videos of theme selves online.

Half or more teens post information online about the city and town where they live (58%) and name of the school (49%) they go to.

Nearly one in 10 teens (8%) have posted their cell phone number online.

Many teens are unconcerned about Internet Safety or about others using their personal information.

Majority or about 58% said they do not think posting personal information and photos on public networking sites such as MySpace.com is unsafe.

About 47% said they are not worried about other people using their personal information online in ways they don’t want them to.

Half or 49% reported they are unconcerned that posting personal information online might negatively affect their future.

Other interesting Facts:

About 25% said their parents know “little or nothing” about what they do online.

About 41% said their parents have talked to them “ a lot about Internet Safety”.

 

What parents can do:

Parents can reduce the exposure to child predatory by simply talking to teens.

Discuss the potential ramification of exposing personal information online such as photos and personal information online can exist online and be cached indefinitely for a period of time. We have seen information as dating back as far as 1999. Once the information is accessible in the public ~ it stays online indefinitely at least in computer time.

Learn about the mechanics of how PCs and Personal Laptops work.

Leave PC’s and Laptops at a common area. Do not make the mistake of having PCs and Laptops at their own room. This is a big “no no….”

Create Administration accounts on your teen’s PC or Laptop to access log files and view internet cache files in Internet Explorer or Firefox.

Install and configure a PC firewall. Most firewall software is easy to configure. It you don’t have a modem/firewall, buy one. These days these hardware devices are relatively inexpensively, easily configured, and can be purchased for less than $50.00.

Install Virus/Malware protection software. Check out Symantec online on your PC/Laptop.

To understand Instant Messaging (IM) lingo go to http://www.netlingo.com/emailsh.cfm or http://www.web-friend.com/help/lingo/chatslang.html  to find out what LOL, POS, etc means.

Follow your 6th sense ~ Again, all these software and hardware cannot prevent your teen from becoming a victim. Use common sense and sensible judgment.

Other Web Friendly Sites for Teens and Kids:

Children’s Television Workshop, http://www.ctw.org

Cuisenaire Learning Place, http://www.cuisenaire.com

Disney Daily Blast, http://disney.go.com/Preview/index.html

The Exploratorium, http://www.exploratorium.edu

Family Internet, http://www.familyinternet.com

Franklin Institute Sciences Museum, http://sln.fi.edu

Freezone, http://www.freezone.com

Globalearn, http://www.globalearn.com

Internet Family Fun, http://www.worldvillage.com/familyfun/sites.htm

Internet Public Library Youth Division, http://www.ipl.org/youth

Internet Weather, http://cfa165.hardvard.edu/weather.html

KidsCom, http://www.kidscom.com

Library of Congress, http://www.loc.gov

NASA, http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/Redirect_Spacelink.html

PBS Online, http://www.pbs.org

White House for Kids, http://www.whitehouse.gov/kids

Date Published: 2008-02-06 06:00:00

Section: Education,