You have to be a parent online, too, official says

Parents today have responsibilities in both the real world and the virtual world, Kane County Regional Office of Education Director Phil Morris told the Elgin Academy community Tuesday.

Morris said 58 percent of 130,000 students in grades five through 12 admitted to using the Internet unsafely in 2005. Another 29 percent met face to face with someone they first contacted online.

"Kids are giving out their cell phone numbers, e-mail addresses and class schedules freely," Morris said. "This is very dangerous, and it needs to be monitored."

Morris, whose office is responsible for consulting with area schools on technical safety issues, gave a presentation titled "Keeping Kids Safe on the Internet" to a group of parents of fifth- through ninth-graders.

"When we were kids, our parents always told us not to talk to strangers. That was drilled into our heads," he said. "But now, we have to factor in what happens on the Internet."

Morris' presentation included a segment on Ryan Patrick Halligan, a 13-year-old child from Essex, Vt., who committed suicide after being cyber-bullied. Halligan's parents were unaware of the situation until it was too late.

Cyber-bullying can be more devastating than physical bullying because a sense of self is still developing, Morris said. "Middle and high school kids like that game where they see how bad they can cut their friends down."

Security settings and parental involvement are especially important in the virtual world, Morris urged. "Check your child's e-mail account on a regular basis. You're the parent; you can do that."

While social networking sites like Facebook, Myspace and Xanga can be hot-spots for sexual predators, "not everything about these sites is bad," Morris said, noting some of the most up-to-date information after the NIU shootings was found on Facebook.

"Good things do occur, but we need to make sure we're monitoring them," he said.

Morris urged the group to keep home computers in plain sight, to outline their expectations and review communications regularly with their children.

"We want to build that level of communication with their kids," he said. "If they're talking to someone they shouldn't, we want them to be able to come to us. A child should be able to listen to a parent more than a predator."