Program Helps Kids Stay Safe Online
By Stan Finger, The Wichita Eagle, Kan.
Sep. 7–MySpace.
Xanga.
Facebook.
Most parents have probably heard of those popular social networking Web sites.
But what about Tagged or Bebo or Stickam?
Those are popular sites, too, and Wichita police Detective Jennifer Wright said parents and youths alike may be surprised by what can be found on them.
Police are hosting the “Shocks, Cops and Kids” program Saturday at Wichita State University to teach 250 children about Internet safety and physical fitness.
The participants — children in fourth through eighth grade — will be able to interact with basketball, softball and track athletes from Wichita State, and learn ways to make better choices and uses of the Internet, Wright said.
The interactivity of the Web has really changed things, and most of us “haven’t really thought of how that affects our youth, and how we’re kind of just putting them out there without having the foundation they need to keep themselves safe,” Wright said.
Stickam, for example, features users who have their own webcams.
“That one is just ‘wow,’ ” Wright said. “A teenager with a webcam, you’re just asking for trouble.”
Studies indicate that one in three girls and one in five boys have been sexually abused by the time they turn 18, Wright said, and sexual predators prowl Web sites in search of prey.
“When we’ve got our new younger generation putting everything online on those social networking sites, it’s a great opportunity for those sexual predators to look on those sites and isolate a potential victim,” she said.
Even Web sites that have built-in protection are not immune, Wright said. On one recent evening, one of the users in a chat room at Barbie.com had the screen name “scarlet kitten.”
Wright blocked her daughter’s ability to chat with that user, suspicious that it may have been a predator.
Wright said another damaging behavior has gone virtually unchallenged: cyberbullying.
What once stayed in the school yard now gets spread to a potentially limitless online audience, she said. Targets can be left feeling like they can’t get away from it.
Parents need to treat a child’s online circle of friends and acquaintances much as they would other friends and acquaintances, Wright said:
–Get to know who their online friends are, what they’re like, and where they like to hang out online.
–Keep the computer out in the open, where you can see the screen.
–Limit how much time children spend online.
“You’ve got to be real involved in your child’s life,” Wright said. “Know who their friends are, and know what they’re doing.”
Reach Stan Finger at 316-268-6437 or sfinger@wichitaeagle.com [mailto:sfinger@wichitaeagle.com].
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