Strangers in the Net

Parents

Know your child’s screen name?
Know what a “buddy list” is and where you can find it?

Does Your Child

Spend a long time on the Internet?
Communicate with strangers?
Shut off the computer when you come nearby?
Visit web sites with names you don’t recognize?
Spend too much time in their rooms alone?

Learn Your Child's Internet Activities!!!

In the past few years, more than 10,000,000 children have gone “online” and many have had inappropriate encounters with strangers on the Internet. Some of these “meetings” have led to abusive, even deadly, encounters.

The “net” is here to stay! Most children have access to it – even if you don’t have a computer at home. They can “log on” at a friend's, at school, at cyber cafes. If you don’t know anything about the INTERNET, it is critical you learn now!

Most pedophiles know that children are “surfing” all day long. They can “lurk” in children’s chat rooms (web sites where written “dialogue” takes place between individuals and which are usually “monitored” by staff of the website) and convince them to “switch” to “private” chat rooms (unmonitored). They have been known to persuade children to meet them in person at some designated location.

Explain the Facts of the Internet to Your Child by

Compare communicating on the Internet with safety on the street ---
THEY WOULDN’T TALK WITH STRANGERS ON THE STREET, DON’T TALK WITH STRANGERS ON THE ‘NET!
Telling them that the information that they give out over the Internet can go to total strangers.

Tell Them Not To

Give out personal information such as their name, address, age, telephone number, or a sibling’s personal information
Post their pictures on the Internet
Download photos from unknown sources
Arrange to meet in person someone they met on the Internet who they don’t know

Learn

How to use child protection safeguards that your Internet provider offers
How to put child protection software on your computer
How to check the “History” of sites that your child visits