[From Caught in the Web and One Child at Time by
Julian Sher. Click here
to find out more about these books]
The internet is like any other community: some neighbourhoods
are safe for children, others are not. Most people are friendly,
but some are dangerous.
You can't keep your child locked up in the house and off the streets
forever and you can't keep your child off the web. All you can
do is arm them with the skills and tools they will need to protect
themselves. "You just have to give them the knowledge that
they need to make their surfing experience safe," says the
FBI's Emily Vacher who spends a lot of time meeting students and
parents in schools. "No one piece of technology or trick
or tool is going to do it. It has to be about communication between
parents and the kids."
Communication that is frighteningly lacking. A survey by I-SAFE,
a non-profit foundation in America, found a frightening discrepancy
in how parents and children perceive their web activity. Sixty
nine percent of parents said they knew a lot about what their
kids do online, but 41 percent of children insisted they don't
tell their parents about their web habits. A confident 87 percent
of parents proudly said they had set firm rules for their children's
online life - but 36 percent of children insisted they had no
rules about web use. Indeed, 29 percent of children admitted their
parents would not approve of their internet activities -- if they
knew.
In August a Teen Summit on Internet Safety sponsored by NCMEC
unveiled another survey that showed 30% of young people were considering
an online encounter while 14% have already met in person with
someone they met online.
The U.K.'s CEOP offers these top tips for parents:
