Youth Protection
It Can Happen Here

Did you know that Carrollton Police recently arrested an individual that located several of our High School girls over the internet and began stalking them at Football games and around town?  We are doing our children a huge disfavor by not opening our eyes and protecting our kids from Internet predators.  The thought of  “Oh, it wouldn’t happen to my kids” is a dangerous and life threatening way of looking at our Internet usage within our homes.  The situation mention above began with an on-line diary blog on Myspace.com.  Students are utilizing these sites as ways of communicating with their friends and venting their teenage issues.  Unfortunately, in doing this, they are revealing information about themselves that make them a target for on-line predators and the information they discuss often exposes their whereabouts on a regular basis.  You may be telling them not to use their real names.  That is fine, except, they use the name of their school, their sport or club, their job location, their parent’s jobs, and much more that makes them easy to find through simple Internet searches. Please make it a habit to check your student’s on-line blog

Predators establish contact with kids through conversations in chat rooms, instant messaging, e-mail, or discussion boards. Many teens use peer support online forums to deal with their problems (Blogs). Predators often go to these online areas to look for vulnerable victims. If your children utilize chat rooms, instruct your children to never leave the chat room's public area. Many chat rooms offer private areas where users can have one-on-one chats with other users—chat monitors can't read these conversations. These are often referred to as "whisper" areas.

In addition, many of the young students are falling prey to simple inquiries by Internet predators that may sound innocent, but in fact can reveal a great deal about your child and their location.  If they usually chat with people they know and someone begins to ask questions that your student feels is unusual or uncomfortable, please ask your student to select a password with their friends to allow them to authorize that they are in fact talking to their friends and not a predator.

Online predators try to gradually seduce their targets through attention, affection, kindness, and even gifts, and often devote considerable time, money, and energy to this effort. They're aware of the latest music and hobbies likely to interest kids. They listen to and sympathize with kids' problems. They also try to ease young people's inhibitions by gradually introducing sexual content into their conversations or by showing them sexually explicit material.

Should any of the following events begin to happen, please talk to your child about his or her Internet activities and who they may be talking to.

• Your child or teen receives phone calls from people you don't know, or makes calls (sometimes long distance) to numbers you don't recognize

• You find pornography on the family computer. Predators often use pornography to sexually victimize children

• Your child or teen receives mail, gifts, or packages from someone you don't know. It's common for offenders to send letters, photographs, and gifts to potential victims

• Your child is using someone else's online account.