Dateline NBC has been running a series on Child Predators and how they operate. Many people have seen these sting operations. Basically, they enter a chat room posing as an underaged child and wait to be contacted by adults. Once contacted, they start chatting. The conversation meanders into the “explicit” and a personal meeting is scheduled. The lengths to which these adults are willing to go is incredible! Some of these adults travel for hours to meet the underaged child – or so they think. Once they arrive at the house, they are confronted by Dateline, asked to explain themselves and then arrested and charged with a felony.
Many of them admit that this is not the first time they have done something like this.
Parents were advised to monitor their child’s Internet usage. Do you know who they are chatting with? Do you know what they do while on the Internet? You cannot possibly physically watch them every minute, but there are steps you can take to help you out:
- Keep the computer in a central location.
- Know what chat rooms your child is entering.
- Make sure you have spam blocker and anti-virus software installed.
- Filter images and image searches. This is a popular way around “blocking” software.
- Install software that will monitor your child’s activity for the times that you cannot be around.
Following these guidelines will help you keep your child safe. The Internet is a valuable tool, but that tool can also be misused by predators. Here is a link to Dateline’s Online safety kit which will give you more tips.
