Would you leave your child alone and unsupervised in Las Vegas?  Silly question you say but, allowing your child to explore the Internet unsupervised is almost the same thing. Did you know that more than 60% of all Internet websites are pornographic and at any giving time you are about two clicks away from displaying a porn site? That’s 1 click, 2 clicks and this is why 1 in 4 children who use the Internet regularly will be exposed to unwanted sexual material.

Wait it gets even worst when it comes to chat rooms, the FBI states that your child has a 100% chance of meeting a predator with in 30 to 60 seconds of joining a chat room. Yes I said 30 to 60 seconds. This includes the AOL AIM system and others. To help protect them from this make sure there is NO personal information in their profile. Know who they are chatting with. LOOK OVER their chats and get an acronym chart so you can understand what they are talking about.  The best way to keep a child safe is by not allowing them into chat rooms.

The most dangerous aspect of the Internet is its use by pedophiles, Child molesters and predators that use the Internet to pose as youngsters themselves to communicate with your child then expose them to pornography and arrange to meet them in person. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children found that one in five children age 10-17 who regularly use the Internet have received a sexual solicitation while online. Chat rooms and instant/private messages are the two main tools pedophiles use to contact children on-line and it takes an average of 2-4 weeks for a child to be lured into meeting someone in person. Child molesters often use pornography to seduce “their prey”. It lowers the inhibitions of the victim and to serve as an “instructional manual” for when they meet. Now the shocker, 85% of kids surveyed said their parents didn’t know what they did or have done on the Internet. If you’re a parent that cares about your children, you just got a lump in your throat because you just realized how unprotected your child really is. Even with the BEST filters and parental software on your computer, you need to be involved. The Department of Justice stated that, “Never before in the history of telecommunications media in the United States has so much indecent (and obscene) material been so easily accessible by so many minors in so many American homes with so few restrictions.”    Now that I have scared you into doing something, what can you do?

1. Go into the history of your computer to find out where your child has been. If they login to any of these websites go in and delete all personal information in their profile.
2. If the website your child wants to visit has no parental controls, then do not let them visit it.
3. If the website is a social networking site then make sure there is NO personal information in their profile. Like MySpace!
4. Use filters and parental controls on your family computer and make sure they are on and cannot be turned off by your child. Beware NO FILTER IS PERFECT!
5. Avoid Chat rooms! There is this thing called the telephone!
6. Talked to your child about talking to people on the Internet that they do not know in real life.
7. Explain to them that there are websites they cannot go to and make sure they are locked out in the computer software. Like Youtube!
8. Turn on the safe search options on search engines like Google and Yahoo. Children misspell words and this can land them in the wrong part of the Internet.
9.  Monitor your child’s online activity and limit the time online.
10. Block your child’s personal information from being posted or emailed.

Freedom of speech is our right in this country and we are all responsible for protecting it and our children.