In our modern cyber driven world, our children, even from an early age are often more computer savvy than us parents and grandparents, who are still firmly stuck in the real world.
Unfortunately, there are some amongst us adults who would and do take advantage of our childrens naivety to pursue their own base interests.
It is for this reason that when our kids are tapping away at the keyboard, that we MUST be able to answer this question, “Who is Chatting to Your Child?”
“PAEDOPHILE TARGETS CHILDREN ON SOCIAL WEBSITES”
Newspaper headlines like the one above, are far too common in today’s self centred, self gratifying society.
As a Grandad of nine delightful, innocent children below the age of thirteen, it makes my blood boil when I hear or read such reports.
The actions and scheming of these society failures are abhorrant to all decent right thinking people.
To excuse the actions of these people (as some misguided, well meaning folk do) by saying that most of them have been abused themselves in childhood, is nothing more than a cop out.
How we deal with this form of lowlife, if and when we catch them is a subject for another report. Suffice it to say, we are duty bound, as parents and grandparents, to do all that is within our power to protect our children from these scumbags.
Points for parents to consider when planning to allow their children to surf the net are:-
1. Do NOT allow children to have computers with internet access in their bed rooms.
2. Have the computer located in a family room where other members of the family are always present.
3. Teach your children to be suspicious of messages from people they don’t know, particularly if they offer them gifts in return for photographs, names, addresses, etc.
4. If they receive such messages, tell them to tell a parent or responsible adult immediately.
5. Report any such suspicious contacts to the police.
6. Last but by no means least, install a suitable monitoring software program on your computer.