Parents need to be wise to ways of Internet
Your pre-teens and teens are growing up in the Internet age. To do your job as a parent, you must too.
Detective Rick Wistocki of the Naperville Police Department recently spoke to 80 parents and teachers at the Naperville Municipal Center about how to supervise your kids online. He presents the talk to the public five times a year.
It's more than watching out for the middle-aged male who introduces himself online to your 12-year-old as a young female soccer pal. Parents need to get savvy to the more prevalent threat, the 17- to 19-year-old men who use the Internet to hook up with younger teen girls, Wistocki said. These are the biggest perpetrators of Internet sex solicitation. They target girls 13 and up.
"There are 50,000 predators online at any time," Wistocki said. "By training parents, (they) become the detectives."
Offenders don't usually abduct or use force.
"They promise love or romance," Wistocki said.
At risk are youngsters whose parents don't check their teens' online activity. Parents don't know how, and cannot imagine their son or daughter is participating -- or perpetrating.
A newly worded law coming in 2008 states that indecent solicitation of a child is committed if a person 17 years or older, by means of the Internet, discusses actual or simulated sex acts with a child or someone he or she believes to be a child.
Keep in mind, Wistocki said, "predators will go where the children are." That's social sites such as MySpace, Facebook and Xanga. The predator will try to get your child out of MySpace and Facebook into instant messaging so they can converse. When pre-teens and teens post the message "I'm not home, call my cell," anyone can search the cell phone number to find where the youngster lives.
Copy and print your teen's buddy list, Wistocki advised. If your youngster can't tell you that buddy's first and last names, address, school and phone number, or if you can't find it in the school directory, that buddy should be off the list. With a hundred or more "friends" on their lists, perpetrators, including older teens up to no good, could be lurking there.
It's a red flag when your teen or pre-teen clicks the mouse when you approach. Their homework, including the online textbook, is on the tool bar, and when you approach, one click and that homework's back up. Pay particular attention to teens online after you've gone to bed.
"When they're up at 2 or 3 (a.m.) doing 'homework,' they're talking to their friends -- or whoever else," Wistocki said. "A lot of teens are making their own pornography and posting it on their MySpace account. They'll have a public account for you that looks all wholesome. Then they'll have another one."
Put a program in place to show you where they've browsed, even after they've cleared the browser pull-down list, he advises.
Teens can hide their activity even when the computer's in a public room of the house, but allowing a computer in their room is "really, really a bad thing," he says. And don't forget to check up on text messaging.
Sleepovers are prime time for teens and pre-teens to get into mischief, on the Internet and otherwise.
"My kids don't go to sleepovers," Wistocki said.
Kids, when they're together and out from under your supervision, react like bad chemicals. Children may assume that since they're juveniles, nothing can happen. But since 2000, the law allows children ages 10 to 16 who engage in criminal behavior, including Internet harassment, to be arrested.
Pre-teens and teens left unsupervised online get into trouble.
"Moms," Wistocki said, "God gave you a sixth sense. If something's not right, it's not right.
"Investigate. Follow your instincts. When they're teenagers, they need bosses. Don't fall into that friendship thing. Think back to when you were their age. Did you tell your parents everything? Don't let them BS you."