Keeping Your Child Safe on the Internet

Recently I attended a presentation on child Internet safety given by a local police officer. Because I'd been to two similar talks over the past few years, I wasn't sure I'd learn anything new. But, reasoning that things might have changed since then, I decided to go—and ended up very glad I did.

As with the previous presentations, this one featured a fictionalized but reality-based demonstration of how much information anyone could learn about a child with a MySpace (or other social networking) account. Starting with searches of the child's user name and progressing to searches of user names of "friends," the child's school, sports information, chat rooms, and so on, obtaining the child's real name, address, and phone number—as well as details on exactly where and when the child might be in a particular place—was relatively easy, taking only 20 minutes.

What I hadn't heard about before, however, was the lengths to which online perpetrators sometimes go to obtain the information they seek. For example, if a "friend" request is turned down, a perpetrator may create one or more pages on social networking or other sites specifically geared to the interests of the child in question. The perpetrator may also try to become a "friend" of the child's other "friends," indirectly gaining access to the child and eventually becoming accepted as a "friend." Sometimes, to build up trust, a perpetrator will cultivate an online relationship for months, or even years, before suggesting an in-person meeting.

In addition, although a child may feel "special" and that he or she has a unique, exclusive relationship with the perpetrator, the reality is that most perpetrators pursue many children simultaneously in hopes that one (or more) of them will "pay off." As adults, perpetrators are far more sophisticated than even the most streetwise teens and take advantage of their relative inexperience and gullibility.

Perhaps the most important take-home message of the presentation was that no information is private or safe on the Internet—and that there is often much more personal information available there than kids or their parents realize. If your child receives questionable communications from potential predators, contact the CyberTipline at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children—and don't wait.

Police in Middle School: Disciplinary Overkill?

A story in last week's Seattle Times reported that five public middle schools in the area will have a police presence on their campuses. According to the report, the officers will "wear 'soft uniforms' that look more like street clothes," and their job will be "to counsel and mentor" rather than simply enforce the law.

Seattle has a gang problem, and the idea behind this new measure is that having police on site will deter at-risk middle school students from committing acts of violence. In today's paper, Jerry Large's column acknowledges the potential utility of this plan while noting that using other means to address the underlying issues contributing to youth violence would be a preferable solution.

It's a problematic situation, and one that may have unforeseen consequences. Yes, having police officers on campuses may prevent a small percentage of students from becoming involved in criminal activity. It may also make other students feel—and actually be—safer, which could well be the most important consideration.

But a police presence in middle school conveys the message, to relatively young and impressionable students, that both their environment and their classmates are potentially dangerous—too dangerous for their principal, counselors, and teachers to cope with on their own. Paradoxically, this may actually make nonviolent students feel less safe; more important, it may also weaken school officials' authority, inflate criminal youths' sense of power, and, ultimately, have no effect—or even a negative effect—on the incidence of youth violence.