We know so little about what our kids are doing on the internet. 
My youngest son recently joined Bebo and it seems to take up much of his free time, he really enjoys it, and assures he is only conversing with school friends. And I believe him, despite his furtiveness sometimes.
But that is not always the case, and Angela Fagan, of Kidshield Europe, warns us about the dangers of predators who seek out young victims this way.
While child safety education is a high profile topic in the USA and campaign sites similar to Kidshield in the US include Shell and BP as sponsors, the UK and the wider European communities have been so far slower to respond similarly. In fact, how many posters and leaflets do we see in public places about child safety, why are there so few campaigns in this country to raise awareness on this subject?
This is what Angela says:
Kidshield Europe was started by a group of UK mums in early 2007 to find out more about educating our children in both online and offline personal safety. As we researched material for Kidshield, we became more and more alarmed by the scale of the problem.
Prior to the internet age, paedophiles tended to operate as lone units, prowling their local area’ and close circle of like-minded companions to seek out vulnerable children to molest. The internet has provided a source for child abusers that in the last 10 years that could not have been foreseen, social networking sites, instant messaging and child sex tourism all provide a vehicle for abusers to target and molest.
Worryingly, the UK recently admitted to losing track of over 300 registered sex offenders, but Kidshield Europe offers practical advice to help parents and carers stay one step ahead of child abusers.
Kidshield Europe provides parents with a child safety program which focuses on prevention and information aimed at educating adults. This includes advice on “Stranger Danger”, social network sites, cyber bullying and parental control software.
As a parent I would educate my child to never post information online that could be used to identify them to a stranger. Information which includes their name, address, telephone number or email could be used by a predator or to conduct a cyber bullying campaign. Imagine your child standing in the middle of a busy shopping centre handing out leaflets which included their picture, name, address and telephone number, as well as information about their private life! This is exactly what many children and teenagers are doing right now in Social Networking Sites.
Children and young people often place themselves at risk online by engaging in risky, cyber sexual behaviour. These situations could have been prevented if young users had been educated to stay in control of their personal information online or recognise and take steps to protect themselves from risky engagement with suspicious contacts.
Imagine your 12 year old son or daughter leaves the room to take a private phone call for the 3rd time that evening. Would you want to know who they were talking to? Would you want to know what they were talking about? Of course you would. Don’t let the silent nature of the internet derail you from your normal parental curiosity.
Excellent post Ellee. I firmly believe that ISP’s should be held accountable for the content of the sites they publish. This would make policing so much easier. And all countries should be in agreement and work out a policy and share information to eradicate this vile inhuman practice.
More is done in posturing towards the cause of ‘Global Warming’ than in protecting children.
Pip, The shared information policy you mention should definitely be in existence and it may well happen one day, hopefully sooner rather than later. And yes, I really do feel that more should be done about advising our children and educating parents about child safety.
JS said the other day that she’s going to crack down on internet sites. Fine but the great thing about the internet is freedom of speech and should that be curtailed by Govts like your blog being banned in China? In the case of children, it must be very difficult to control what they’re looking at and the monitors offered to parents which tell them which sites the kids have been visiting are helpful if probably inflammatory to family relations. I think the schools should teach the children about the dangers involved as part of sex education!
I think we’ve got to be careful about becoming hysterical about social networking, and regarding all strangers as a threat.
Fundamentally the internet is just a medium that allows people to communicate with each other. There is no good reason why teenagers should not embrace this medium to expand their social networks outside of normal geographical constraints.
When I was 12 (before www) my school actively promoted a pen-pals service. No-one ever told us not to give these foreign strangers our address or to send them photographs.
I never used the internet until I was 19, by this time I had a car, an income and could get into nightclubs, hence I never used the internet to socialise as such. We should accept that teenagers in todays world do use the internet to socialise and meet likeminded people.
Email addresses and mobile phone numbers can be changed easily. The advice for children should be not to give out physical addresses and not to meet online friends without a parental chaperone, not to maintain absolute anonymity.
I was speaking to the Internet Watch Foundation last month and they told me that they find over 36,000 new pedophile web sites in the UK alone ever month! This is staggering.
Multiply this amount by as many nations that are on the Internet and the challenges for parents is quite large when you think about “parental control” software for our kids PCs. It just doesn’t work.
Parental control software for your kid’s PC needs you to add every web site that your kid is not allowed to go to. Considering the UK statistic above, it is not possible for a parent to enter and monitor the internet for all these websites.
As a parent, we shouldn’t feel guilty, and there are other options. I am working with a company called “WiHood” (WiHood.com) and it will be launching on February 1st a service for kids that blocks all the websites that have been found inappropriate for kids by the governments and agencies of most of the major nations. WiHood list of blocked web sites is updated every 24 hours.
WiHood provides parents with a different way of taking care of their kids even when they are not around. We as parents are trying our best, given our busy schedule and the ever changing internet world our kids love so much. WiHood might be something that works for you and your family.
I think what we’ve got to realise is that the Internet is a real educational tool and our children should be encouraged to use its full potential.
There is a difference however between being cited as hysterical over the dangers of social networking sites and waking up to the real dangers they can bring. Children and parents need to be educated to spot the signs of dangerous contacts, and then deal with them.
The very reason that predators operate online in social networking sites is the anonimity that it affords them. Children and teenagers simply do not have the experience and savvy, no matter how grown up they may seem, to spot instinctual signs that adults would pick up on.
I think Kidshield puts it well when they say that “Children and parents need to be educated to spot the signs of dangerous contacts, and then deal with them.” I have no idea who my sons’ social networking contacts are, I trust them implicitly, and I hope I am right to do so, but not everyone’s trust is well founded.
I think Kidshield puts it well when they say that “Children and parents need to be educated to spot the signs of dangerous contacts, and then deal with them.” I have no idea who my sons’ social networking contacts are, I trust them implicitly, and I hope I am right to do so, but not everyone’s trust is well founded. The internet makes it easier to open so many more doors to potential risk and danger.
Terrifying, but the trouble is, the technology will always be one step ahead of whatever we try to do. I really don’t know what the answer is on this one.
What is Bebo?
When Little C is older, I fully intend to put tracking software on his computer and a GPS device in his car.
I’m a member of the digital generation. I know how dangerous the Internet can be, even when the intentions of the child are innocent…
Hi there…Man i love reading your blog, interesting posts ! it was a great Saturday