Child Molesters and Your Child’s Computer
Kids love the Internet and so do we, but the Internet is a great place for a child molester to try and trick your child. There are some things you can do to prevent problems. To start, monitor your child’s computer usage. Check in on them and see what they are doing. When you can get time alone check your child’s computer. You can look use the search feature and type in certain words like JPG or Porn. Child molesters like to send kids porn because it opens up a discussion of sex. This is victimizing a child and it is an arrest-able offense. You can check your child’s email for names you don’t recognize. This is not really snooping. Checking your child’s computer could possibly save your child’s life, because the next steps for a molester are phone calls, sending gifts, and trying to meet the child. Watch for late-night phone calls and Internet usage.
Blogs, message boards, instant messaging, and MySpace are all places where child molesters search for victims. You can check your child’s history and see what sites they are looking at and check out who they are talking to. If your child instant messages, you can download a program called Chat Watch and monitor who they are speaking with. You do have to pay for this program, but it is worth it. It keeps a record of all conversations and you could use that if your child is talking to a possible child molester online. The police can locate people through their user names. Lastly, if your child has a MySpace account, make sure they do not have their last name or any other information a child molester could use to find your child. Your child can make the “Space” private, but tell them you need to get in to monitor the site. You do have a right to be intrusive when it comes to the Internet. Read about child molesters on the internet.
