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Do you own a computer that has Internet access? Do you have children? If you answered yes to both of these questions you need to be extremely careful!
Every day we hear about children being lured in by child molesters. We hear about young children who have run away to be with their "boyfriend" or "girlfriend" from the Internet. Two weeks later their bodies are found in a ditch. This could have easily been avoided if the parents had only gotten involved.
If you leave your child unattended at the computer ... STOP DOING IT! Monitor what your child does on the computer, and find out who they are talking to! Don't leave a child under the age of 15 on the computer alone. Make sure they aren't going to "inappropriate" websites. Make sure their best friend "Jenn" isn't teaching them how to build bombs, or "Tom" isn't teaching your daughter how to send him pictures over the Internet.
Talk about Internet safety with your children. Tell them to NEVER give their real name, state, city, or school. Tell them that a good many people on the Internet are adults pretending to be children. Tell them never to meet with someone from the Internet. They might even think it's a "safe" place (like McDonald's), but no place is safe to meet a stranger.
No matter how much you tell your child to be careful, they forget. Don't rely on your child to have the sense to not fall for someone's tricks. We recently had a young college student (yes you read that right... COLLEGE STUDENT) disappear after going to go "help" his Internet "friend". Even the smartest child can get caught up in a scam.
So please, don't rely on your child's "good instincts", or your ability to "trust" your child. The reason children have parents is because children don't have the skills available to always make the wisest decisions. Please monitor your children while they are on the Internet. It could save their lives.
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