[THE ARKANSAS WOMAN] Children & Online Safety

[VIKIDIDIT]

Todays post is the first of several on the subject of internet safety. I have chosen to keep my observations and insight for a later post. This is a very serious subject and one that I feel should be thoroughly understood. I have chosen several very informative internet sites which deal with this subject. I could not add to their material so I will send you along to them without my input. That will come later.
The links below will give you a guided tour and will, if you spend some time at each one, acquaint you with the facts about interacting on the inernet. I cannot let you go with Enjoy" or "Have Fun" because this is not at all a lighthearted subject. If, and we will never know this, one child is saved from an internet predator then that child's heart will remain a child's happy, hopeful one.
This post is an introduction about caring, confronting, communicating and controlling children and their interactions in cyber space. We cannot leave it to them to figure out for themselves. Please No! Their concept of visting a chat room, posting pictures of themselves, creating a personal blog or MySpace site is driven by the need to be social and to be a part of a group. This is normal behavior for a child or teen. The danger lies with the abnormal person at the other end of the online conversation or encounter.
That is where I will begin. Viki Teague

http://www.netsmartzkids.org/indexFL.htm
http://www.netsmartz.org/safety/drsharon_videos.htm

http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/protecting_children_online/framesource.html

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Posted By VIKIDIDIT to THE ARKANSAS WOMAN at 4/16/2008 08:48:00 PM