Monday, July 21, 2008

Safe Online

Whoaaa!!! The Crimes Against Children Research Center found that 42% of children ages 10-17 have been exposed to online pornography in the past year and 1 in 25 have received an "aggressive sexual solicitation" by a person who attempted to contact them offline. (Focus on the Family magazine, July 2008)

That is so sad.

This same article that shared those numbers also gave a few tips to help kiddos stay safe online.

  1. Tell kids to never give out personal information at all (even job, teacher etc. that could be used to locate them).
  2. Set up clear internet use guidelines. Have their passwords.
  3. Reserve right to check behavior, and keep computers in high traffic areas, for accountability.
  4. Understand technology. Explore "in" sites.
  5. Set parameters for your child's list of "friends".
  6. Visit your child's friend's pages and read their posts there.
  7. Tailor rules for age.
  8. Urge children to think about long term consequences. Online material is cached, and is often accessible even if deleted! Colleges even research kids online now - what will they see?

Thankfully we've done pretty well with this so far, but our kids are younger. We need to stay vigilant as they get older, and more and more into this stuff. One more thing to worry about, or better, pray about!

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