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By Diane Griffith, HealthAtoZ writer
If your child uses computer chat rooms, there's a one in five chance he or she has been approached by a pedophile (an adult who is physically attracted to children). Surprisingly, only one out of four children who are contacted by a predator tells an adult.
Many parents now believe that keeping their children safe from Internet predators is as important as having them wear seatbelts in the car. This is because predators gather details about children from their online profiles - things like age, gender, location and hobbies - then use that information to bombard children with e-mails and instant messages, trying to befriend them.
Internet pedophiles offer children kindness, sympathy, gifts and even help with homework in an effort to gain their trust. They will go to great lengths to set up a meeting. Many will travel long distances to meet with the child or arrange for the child to come to them.
About 95 percent of Internet predators are male. They generally range in age from 13 to 65.
MySpace
Most parents are aware of MySpace.com, an online community where children can create their own Web pages, interact with friends and make new ones. MySpace has millions of members and is constantly growing.
Sites like MySpace may be great places to meet new friends, but they also can provide online predators with a wealth of information. A mistake most kids make when they set up their accounts is to include the names of their schools. By taking this information and reading comments from friends, a predator can gather detailed information about a child. Some kids even go so far as to list their addresses. This should never be done.
Although MySpace has age limits, there's no way to be sure that the person opening an account is the age he or she claims to be. The younger a child is, the more likely he or she is to be taken advantage of. MySpace is constantly working to address this problem, and to supervise site safety.
What parents can do
- Keep the computer in a common area. Children are less likely to accept messages from strangers if they know you're watching.
- Tell your kids about the dangers of Internet predators. Tell them to let you know if a stranger contacts them.
- Buy and install monitoring software that lets you to track your child's Internet activity.
- Buy and install filtering software that prevents your kids from visiting certain Web sites.
- Monitor your child's MySpace profile. Make sure no personal or identifying information is included. Don't allow your child to post photos.
- Make sure your child's user name is general and does not give away any personal information.
- Let your child know that people who want to be "new friends" are still strangers and people who appear to be children or teens may actually be adults.
- Make sure your child communicates only with people he or she knows.
- Be aware of phone calls or mail deliveries from strangers. Predators will call or send gifts to gain your child's trust.
- Tell your child's school not to use your child's photo in any way without your approval.
- Limit your child's time on the Internet. Never allow your child to have a computer with Internet access in his or her room.
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External Sources
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American Academy of Pediatrics
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i-SAFE Inc.
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Myspace-safety.org
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This article was reviewed and updated June 2007.
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