Your children are safe inside your home. The doors and windows are locked. There is no way for them to encounter a sex trafficker, right? Wrong.
Internet chat rooms, instant messaging and other online communications have provided sexual predators with easy, unsupervised access to many children they might not encounter otherwise.
According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), some predators “gradually seduce their targets,” while others “immediately engage in sexually explicit conversation.” Despite the predators’ cunning ways, parents can take many simple steps to protect their children.
One step is getting involved with what children are doing online, said Tyler Vinyard, founder of Internet filtering program Eyeblocker and Get Real 3.
“If we depend on our children to tell us what they are doing online, we’re not going to get the whole story,” Vinyard said.
Instead he encourages parents to monitor their children’s online activities using programs like Eyeblocker — available at www.eyeblocker.com.
“It tracks where your child goes on the Internet,” Vinyard said. “Then it will send you an e-mail report … so you don’t have to depend on them telling you the truth.”
The FBI encourages parents to spend time with children online to discover their favorite destinations, talk to them about potential online dangers, teach them to use online resources responsibly and keep computers in a common area instead of a child’s bedroom.
For more tips, visit www.fbi.gov and search for “A Parent’s Guide to Internet Safety.” (TAB)
Share with others: