What Can You Do To Minimize The Chances
Of An On-line Exploiter Victimizing Your Child?
1. communicate, and talk
to your child about sexual victimization and potential on-line danger.
2. Spend time with your
children on-line. Have them teach you about their favorite on-line
destinations.
3. Keep the computer in
a common room in the house, not in your child's bedroom. It is much
more difficult for a computer-sex offender to communicate with a child
when the computer screen is visible to a parent or another member of the
household.
4. Utilize parental
controls provided by your service provider and/or blocking software.
While electronic chat can be a great place for children to make new
friends and discuss various topics of interest, it is also prowled by
computer-sex offenders. Use of chat rooms, in particular, should be
heavily monitored. While parents should utilize these mechanisms, they
should not totally rely on them.
5. Always maintain
access to your child's on-line account and randomly check his/her
e-mail. Be aware that your child could be contacted through the U.S.
Mail. Be up front with your child about your access and reasons why.
6. Teach your child the
responsible use of the resources on-line. There is much more to the
on-line experience than chat rooms.
7. find out what
computer safeguards are utilized by your child's school, the public
library, and at the homes of your child's friends. These are all
places, outside your normal supervision, where your child could
encounter an on-line predator.
8. Understand, even if
your child was a willing participant in any form of sexual exploitation,
that he/she is not at fault; he/she is the victim. The offender always
bears the complete responsibility for his or her actins.
9. Instruct your child:
a. to never arrange a face-to-face meeting with someone
they met on-line;
b. to never upload (post) pictures of themselves onto the Internet or
on-line service to people they do not personally know;
c. to never give out identifying information such as
their name, home address, school name, or telephone number;
d. to never download pictures from an unknown source,
as there is a good chance there could be sexually explicit images;
e. to never respond to messages or bulletin board
postings that are suggestive, obscene, belligerent, or harassing;
f. that whatever they are told on-line may or may not
be true.
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Office of Crimes Against Children
935 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20535
(202) 324-3666
National Center For Missing & Exploited Children
CYBER TIPLINE
1-800-843-5678
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