Is Your Child Flirting With A Pedophile?
by Matt Marshall
If you think you know what your child is doing on the internet, you may want to think again.
Karen Berry's job was to work with kids who had been molested. She had all the proper training and she knew all the signs.
So before her son was allowed to use the internet, she purchased all the popular internet protection software. She checked on him frequently.
So how did her son end up as a victim of
sexual abuse?
It all started quite simply. At 13, Justin Berry was a normal kid. He wasn't very popular and he was concerned about fitting in.
His internet provider sent him a free webcam for using their service. He placed a photo online in the hopes of finding a girlfriend.
Instead, he was flooded with inquiries from older men. At first, the requests were simple. One man offered to send him $50 bucks if he would take his shirt off. From there, everything went downhill.
Eventually, Justin Berry was stripping naked, masturbating and even having sex with female prostitutes in front of his webcam.
One man even tricked Justin's mom into sending Justin to a computer camp. When Justin arrived at the computer camp, the older man picked him up, took him home and molested him several times.
NOT an isolated incident
Authorities estimated that 1 in 5 children have been approached by online predators. And even the most vigilante parents can't protect their children 100% of the time.
Consider the case of Katherine Tarbox. At 14, she was at the top of her class. And she was molested by an online predator who she'd been communicating with for over 6 months.
The online predator never mentioned sex during their chat sessions. He played her confidant and friend, slowly winning her trust.
Turns out, Katherine was going to bed very early in order to wake up early and chat with this online predator first thing in the morning.
This serves as a prime example that you can't always be available to monitor your kids.
So what can you do? You can't always be there in person. Traditional internet protection software only blocks harmful websites and does NOT prevent online predators from contacting and chatting with your child.
To truly protect your child, you've got to be 100% aware of everything that your child is doing online. And the only way to do that is to fight fire with fire.
Some parents might not like the idea of knowing exactly what websites your child visits, knowing exactly what's being said during chat sessions and knowing exactly what emails are being sent.
But for those parents who do want to know and believe it's vitally important to stay 100% aware, there are now companies that offer sophisticated computer monitoring. This allows parents to be 100% aware of what their kids are doing online at all times.
Matt Marshall is the author of "Behind Your Back & Under Your Nose: What Your Kids Are Really Doing Online." He teaches concerned parents how to protect their kids from online threats. To get your free report, please visit http://www.WhatEveryParentMustKnow.com
Article Source: http://www.abcarticledirectory.com
