There are many horror stories out there about sex predators who found their victims online, so such concern is understandable.  Worse, it may be warranted.

Because the Internet allows anyone to be anonymous, allows predators to track down victims with the seemingly most innocent of information, and because children don’t have the experience or judgment to be wary of what are actually strangers, it’s up to parents to give them the tools they need to protect themselves, even if parents also choose to use parental controls or Internet filtering software.

Sure, you could lock your child in her room and never let her on a computer, but even that might not protect her.  After all, the Internet can be accessed from practically anywhere, and you don’t even need a computer to do it.

That being the case, parents should educate their children as to the dangers out there.  Parents should consider showing their children the local online sex offender registry.  It’s one thing to talk about predators.  It’s another thing to show them photos…and how close they are to home.

Parents also need to teach their children how to keep personal information to themselves.  Not only should children know not to put their name and address online, but they also need to know and accept that they shouldn’t fill out online surveys or enter online contests.  They also shouldn’t provide information that would identify their school, their town, their friends…nothing.  Online sex predators are excellent at figuring out who someone is from the simplest of information.  For example, if your child reveals that she is a cheerleader for the Bobcats and her email address is in the Kansas City area, it’s not hard to figure out where your child goes to school.

Above all, parents need to let their children know they are loved and can talk to their parents about anything.  Children who feel loved are far less likely to be vulnerable to the online sex predators out there.

The best way to monitor your kids online is to actually sit with them when they’re online. If you start when they’re young and explain the ins-and-outs of the Internet to them, including the dangers, you may not have to monitor them as they become older because they have chosen to be trustworthy.

Indeed, if you treat your kids as though you trust them, they will more often than not try to be trustworthy so as not to let you down. This is why it’s also a good idea to set up the rules with them, even negotiating on occasion. Yes, you’re their parent so you can set up any rules you want, but don’t you want your kids obeying them? Also be willing to revise the rules as they get older. A 12 year old simply doesn’t need the same rules as a 6 year old.

Since sitting with your kids all the time when they’re online is probably not going to happen, keep the computer hooked to the Internet in a public area where people are around and can see what they’re doing. It’s a lot harder to hide things from your parents and siblings when they’re always around. Kids may argue that they “need” to be able to access the Internet from their bedroom from school, but they don’t. They can save anything they need to a flash drive and take it to the computer in their bedroom.

Most operating systems nowadays also have built in parental controls. You can literally restrict access differently for every kid in your household, blocking the younger ones from some things, allowing the older kids to have more access. You can even restrict the hours each kid can have access to the Internet and, once that time is up that day, the Internet itself gets blocked.

Should you become concerned about your kid’s behavior, you can even purchase 3rd party computer monitoring parental control software that offers a wide variety of monitoring, blocking and filtering options.

But, keep in mind, the first and most important step is for you, as a parent, to spend time with your kids when they’re online so that they know you trust them and only want to protect them. Your time is the best “monitoring” option out there.

Inappropriate online conduct includes such things as bullying and stalking as well as sex predators and child pornography.

The first thing to always keep in mind is that, if you think your child is in imminent danger, call 911 immediately.  Your child’s safety comes first.  Don’t assume the problem will clear up by itself.  Take prompt action.

Sexual predators and child molesters need to be reported immediately to the police even if you don’t feel your child is in immediate danger.  Should your child want to meet an “online friend,” just say no. 

Other inappropriate online conduct, while perhaps not an emergency, can be quite serious and should also be reported promptly.  Online bullying and harassment, for example, can have serious consequences, particularly with emotionally vulnerable teens. 

Bullying includes threatening messages, having rumors spread, having embarrassing (included altered or faked) pictures posted, or even pretending to be the victim.  The inappropriate behavior can be meant as a joke in poor taste or a deliberate attempt to cause harm.

Every effort should be made to identity the bully and punish them.  Report the behavior to the police, your Internet service provider, to any moderators or service agents, and, if appropriate, to the school.  Make sure you document the harassment by making screen prints, taking notes, recording dates and so forth.

In non-emergency situations, there are several things you can do to report inappropriate online conduct.  This includes hate sites as well as fraud and phishing attempts.  In cases like these, you should report the emails or websites to the appropriate source, which would be the website’s hosting service or the sender’s email provider. 

To contact the email provider, simply send an email to support@ and the sender’s domain name (which is what appears after the @ in the sender’s email address) 

Tracking down a hosting service by yourself is a bit more difficult, and requires using ‘traceroute’ and a Regional Internet Registrar.  However, you simply can call your own ISP and ask for their help.  Once you’ve found out, you can go to the hosting service website and file a complaint.

Whatever the inappropriate online conduct, reporting it can help stop it. Not reporting it won’t make it go away.

Indeed, discovering that your kid or teen has been checking out porn sites is a good time to sit down with them and explain that porn sites are demeaning to women and don’t provide a realistic view of sex. 

The time to be concerned is if your teen begins spending an inordinate amount of time on porn sites.  After all, Internet porn addiction can be a real problem and seriously affect your child’s healthy development.

Generally speaking, porn sites are either found by actively searching for it or by going to semi-shady sites that use porn links to help make money.  For example, should your kid decide to download a free (but illegal) copy of a computer game by going to a warez site, there’s a good chance that at least some of the links, ads, and banners will go to porn sites.

If you want to see if your teen has been accessing porn sites, it’s usually pretty easy.  You can check the browser History to see what sites your kid has been accessing.  You can also check the Search history by clicking the drop down arrow on the Search box.  Even though they might know how to clear the history, most won’t remember to. 

You can also check the Favorites (bookmarks) file to see if your teen has bookmarked his favorite porn sites.  Kids will often do this so they can go back, and don’t even think that you might check.

Should you kid or teen access pornography, it’s usually deliberately.  But don’t panic.  Usually it’s just normal curiosity that can be stopped by a parent-to-child talk or, if necessary, parental control or filtering software.

Probably the most important thing you can teach your child about online safety is to never reveal personal information. Not their name, address or phone number.

Not their school, their team, their activities.  Nothing that could be used to identify your child…because predators can be very creative.

Keeping personal information private not only means from queries from individuals, but also on forms such as surveys and signup forms. Indeed, your child shouldn’t sign up for anything online without your knowledge and permission.

Children should also understand they must not arrange to meet or talk to any online friend in person, no matter how well they think they “know” them.  Certainly not all friends made over the Internet are bad people.  Not even close.  But parental involvement when meeting strangers is something your child should not just expect, but encourage.

Parents should consider restricting Internet access to computers located only in public areas, such as the family room.  They could still have non-Internet-accessible computers in their rooms for games or schoolwork.  But restricting Internet access to public areas only allows you, the parent, to keep an eye on your child’s surfing. 

While you hope not to have to use them, learn how the parental controls on your computer work.  These will allow you to check on your kid’s emails as well as the websites they’ve visited.  (If necessary, you can always consider installing more feature-filled filtering software.) 

If you establish a few simple ground rules, such as the hours your children can be online and the type of websites they can visit – and involving your children in this process makes them far more likely to obey the rules – you will have gone a long way toward protecting your child online.

Much as we love our kids, however, there are always going to be children who are vulnerable to the inappropriate attention of others, and the Internet has simply made more children vulnerable.

Sometimes children simply become addicted to the Internet itself, while not being in an inappropriate relationship.  While this is bad enough, having your child vulnerable to predators is much, much worse.

Here are some of the signs to be aware of.  They don’t necessarily mean your child is in an inappropriate Internet relationship, but they are warning signs nonetheless.

• Is your child unusually secretive about what they are doing online?  If your child doesn’t want to let you see what they are doing or they immediately flip to another screen when you enter the room, sit down with them and ask them what they’re doing.  If they say “nothing”, pursue it. 
• Is your child receiving emails, mail, packages or phone calls from someone you don’t know?  Parents need to know who their children’s friends are.  You can always call the number yourself or block the email address.  The US Postal Service, your ISP, and the local police can help you if you are concerned your child is being stalked.
• Is your child making plans to meet someone they’ve met online? This obviously can be tricky to discover, as most children will sneak around to do this.  Make sure you’ve established good relationships with your children’s friends so that they feel comfortable talking with you.  Just because your child wants to meet someone they’ve met online doesn’t mean their friends are comfortable with it. 

Even more important, make sure your child feels comfortable talking with you.  Let them know that, if they’ve made a new friend online, you would be willing to have them over but you need to talk with this friend’s parents to make sure it’s OK with them, too.  If your child starts making excuses, it’s time for a talk.

As a parent, you have responsibilities.  Don’t assume a problem will go away.  Talk openly with your children about your suspicions. Tell your children about the dangers of on-line predators.  Consider showing older children the local online sex offender registry, particularly those offenders within a few miles radius of where you live.   The photos alone may be enough to make your point.  But talk with them.

P2P (or Peer to Peer) software is designed to share files between computers and is most commonly used to download and share songs.  In and of itself, it’s harmless.  However, there definitely are concerns you, as a parent, should be aware of.

One is simply the legality of the sharing that’s being done.  For example, there have been many lawsuits filed against individuals because of illegal downloads of copyrighted material, particularly music and movies.  Even if your child is a minor doesn’t mean that you, as their parent, are not legally vulnerable. 

There have been thousands of lawsuits and expensive settlements, so make sure you have set strong guidelines with your children about what can and cannot be downloaded.

Speaking of downloads, you also might find that what is being downloaded is not just music or movies, no matter how legal.  Some of the most popular P2P software, such as Kazaa and Morpheus, includes adware, sometimes lots of it.  This so-called adware is additional programs that are automatically installed on your computer that, in turn, download ads, hijack your browser, install toolbars, and even make your computer run reeeeaaaallllyyy slow. 

Indeed, you won’t even know what’s installed unless you read the small print in the license…and who ever reads that?  This is particularly true for the free versions of P2P software.  So don’t believe it when a site advertises “adware free” – they may very well only be talking about the paid version, if that.  Indeed, they could be a scam site fooling innocent people into installing harmful software.

Even worse, there are many free downloads that, themselves, come with nasty little packages inside, particularly unexpected trojans or adult content.  In fact, you can almost bet that if you download “free” software because you want to avoid having to buy it, you’re going to get an unpleasant surprise. 

Your children should not be allowed to download anything they want without discussing it with you first or from a site you have approved.  P2P networking is great, as long as you’re wary.

However, there’s no reason that Internet message boards can’t be safe for your child if you have taken the time to explain the do’s and don’t of Internet safety and established rules with your child. 

Ground rules for allowing your child to use a message board should include

• Your child must use an alias, not your child’s real name.  That way other people don’t know who your child really is
• Your child must use what is called an avatar, rather than your child’s own photo.  Avatars can be comic characters, photos of movie stars…anything but your child.  That way other people don’t know what your child actually looks like
• Should someone on the message board seem to be a problem, you child needs to tell you so that you take appropriate action, including blocking that user from contacting your child and reporting the user to the message board owners.
• Your child can post only to message boards that you have approved.  There are plenty of message boards your child will enjoy without having to use one that might not be safe.

Should you feel you need to go further to protect your child from the potential problems they might face on Internet message boards, you can always use parental controls or Internet filtering software.  However, you should always start with trusting your child first, rather than assuming they’re going to do something wrong.  Taking the time to discuss potential problems and setting ground rules together will often be the most effective way to protect your child online, whether it be on message boards or simply surfing the Internet.

Someone new to MySpace.com would start by creating their screen name and personal page where they get to describe their various likes and dislikes, such as favorite TV shows or music.  Members can upload photos, music and the like as well as give information about themselves, such as their age and sex.

They can tell their friends about their MySpace page, plus allow strangers to sign up as new “friends.”  They can chat with each other.  They can post and respond to surveys.  And they can become victims.

It’s the sharing of information with strangers that can lead to trouble, particularly since it’s hard for teens to understand that someone they chat with all the time online is still a stranger, not a someone they know, unless they knew the person previously in the real world.

Even kids who think they’re being careful can use bad judgment on MySpace.  They may not reveal their name, address or phone number on their page…but the name of their high school and team name, where they work, the links to their friends, even the photos are all clues for a predator.  Not only that, but teens often don’t think twice about filling in surveys…and revealing personal information that way.

Worse, most kids don’t restrict what they write, but list all kinds of information without thinking.  Their likes and dislikes.  Their experiences, whether true or not.  Their relationship with their family.  And all this can be used by a predator to establish a relationship. 

You can monitor your child and their activities on MySpace by using software like Spector Pro or Capture MySpace. These programs can be installed secretly on your child’s computer and you can review the emails, private messages and profiles they visit on MySpace.com, Facebook.com and other social networks.

Predators often aren’t even sneaky about their age and goal of having sex.  Sadly, many teens suffer from low self-esteem, so turn to sites like MySpace.com for friendship.  The attention of an older man, even if for sex, can be very appealing, particularly if he has taken the information the teen provided and used it to manipulate the teen, showing “compassion” and “understanding”.

Social networking sites like MySpace.com are good sites and serve a good purpose.  But make sure your child truly understands the dangers.

The first and foremost thing your children need to understand is to not, under any circumstances, reveal personal information.  Never mind telling them not to provide their real name, address or phone number. 

Make it clear that predators can find them even if all they did was reveal their school or their friends’ names.  Predators have many tricks to make children feel comfortable with them and to get personally identifiable information from them.

Preferably your children should only use chat rooms that have moderators…in other words, people whose job it is to pay attention to chat and step in if things start getting out of hand or inappropriate.  Make sure, however, that the person in contact with your child is actually a moderator.  You can do this by going to the chat website itself and checking out the list of moderators. You can also use chat room monitoring software to watch what your kids are doing and who they are communicating with.

One especially good program for monitoring your kids chat room conversations, recording instant messaging communications, reading emails and viewing the websites they visit is eBlaster from SpectorSoft. It records and logs all of these event plus more on your child’s computer and emails you reports and images at a frequency that you determine. It really provides peace-of-mind for parents worried about chat room conversations.  

Make it clear to your children that, should someone start saying things that make them feel uncomfortable, they should leave the chat room and tell you.  Then report the behavior.  Chat rooms don’t want predators in them anymore than you do as parents.

And, finally, take the time to sit with them while they chat, particularly when your children are younger.  Even young children can be victims and they don’t have the judgment or experience to determine whom to trust or not.  The skills you teach your children when they are young will carry through when they become older, and the time you spend with them will be well spent.  Predators focus on children who are vulnerable, not children whose parents care enough to spend time with them.