Par-a-noia... There's nothing like it for that minty after-taste!
So I have been doing some exploring this afternoon...I was originally doing research for a piece I'm writing that involves information on sex offenders, so I was looking up state sex offender registries and the like. Being that I'm far more familiar with Kansas and the people there than I am with the great state of Washington right now, I looked a lot at the KBI site and the information there. It's crazy scary to me that when I looked up Phillipsburg, where I grew up, there were entries for there, and one of the guys lives with in a few blocks of a school. It also bothers me that there were 43 matching entries for the Manhattan/Ogden area alone. Troubling news, that's for sure.
One of the links that I came across was for the national center for missing and exploited children. On the site, they have these games that you can play to see how savvy you are at protecting yourself or your children from predators on the Internet.( http://tcs.cybertipline.com/ ) I played the game a few times, just to figure out what the tricks of the game were, and after having played it, I understand now.... EVERYONE ON THE INTERNET IS A SEXUAL PREDATOR! That's right. The only way to win at the game is to deem everyone a predatory threat.
I suppose there is a certain logic to it, but it is an isolationistic logic at best. I understand that children inherently want to make other people happy... there are a lot of adults like that too, by the by. And yes, I'm aware that the Internet has allowed sexual predators to get closer to kids than ever and I'm not saying that parents shouldn't watch what their kids are doing or even monitor their email at times, and that they shouldn't watch over who their kids are IMing with, not at all.
You have to be straight with kids. Ask them about their friends, who they are talking to, what's going on in their life. You might have to be direct and ask them. They're not usually going to just volunteer, but if you show a general genuine concern for the subject, normally they'll let you in. They won't talk to you about it? Then odds are, you've done something wrong as a parent. You've made them feel isolated from you. I've always been able to tell my parents about my friends and the things in my life. It didn't stop molestation from happening. It didn't stop rape from happening. But even though those things happened, the communication between my folks and I was never strained I could still tell them about them and they could get me help. Those things happen, and yes, they happened long before the information age ever took hold. It's sad, but it's true.
Keeping your kids offline isn't the answer. To deny them access to information, in my opinion, is a form of intellectual neglect and abuse. The Internet has scary stuff, but it also has good things too. My nephews spend time on NOGGIN's website often and it has improved their reasoning skills, reading, and their visual learning acuity. You can't let them run free, but telling them everyone in the world is out to get them isn't the right mentality either. The combination of fear and ignorance can be more explosive than putting gunpowder near an open flame. What it comes back to again is, parents need to take responsibility for their kids. If you can't care for them, financially, emotionally, medically, or whatever... if you can't take care of them, then don't have them. If you're not going to raise them to have common sense or raise them to know that, yes there are dangers, but not everyone is a bad person in this world, then don't bring them into the world.
There's a case of a mother who is suing MySpace for almost 20 million dollars because her daughter left home with someone she met on the website. Initially, I thought perhaps she might have a legitimate case, if her daughter was kidnapped, or if she was raped, etc. No. This girl got in to disagreements with her mother all the time and she RAN AWAY FROM HOME. She's staying with a guy she met on the website. Yes, he might be older than her, and yes, overall the situation makes my skin crawl, but here's the thing. It's not MySpace's fault. When kids run away from home, it's tragic, but this girl is especially bad. She is posing pictures and updates... never enough information to tell anyone where she is from, but enough to taunt her parents. Let me repeat this. She is TAUNTING her parents. Her mother uses MySpace to leave her notes, and to tell her that she loves her, etc, and yet at the same time is SUING the company. Hypocrite, no? I'm sorry this happened to their family, but it's not MySpace's fault. It's the mother's fault and the father's fault for leaving this girl in a vulnerable position where she was open to the suggestion of a sexual predator. If their family life had been the way it should be, if they had been decent parents or if they had done the kind of parenting they should have, she wouldn't have run away. There was a breakdown of communication and it made the girl vulnerable to the sexual predator, and even more, that left her open to his suggestive manipulation that she should run away from home. Kids don't leave home unless there is a problem. This lawsuit shouldn't exist. It's asinine.
Not everyone on the Internet is a predator. They might be a pervert, but I maintain that most people are perverted in some form or another. Even given that supposition, it does not mean that just logging on is an immediate danger. Logging on, under the age of 14 without supervision might put your kids in danger, so the remedy is to PARENT THEM. DO YOUR FUCKING JOB. That's how you fix it. Kids 16-18, well if you've DONE YOUR FUCKING JOB... then they should know their head from their ass about the way people are online and they should know where to go and where not to. It all comes down to parents who need to stop being so damn lazy. It's not the school's job to raise your kids, it's not the government's job, and it's not a babysitter's job. It's yours. You popped them out, adopted them or foster care for them, Do your job. Otherwise... Don't have sex, don't adopt, and don't take kids in just for the money (which, if you're not raising them, is the only reason you have them).
One of the links that I came across was for the national center for missing and exploited children. On the site, they have these games that you can play to see how savvy you are at protecting yourself or your children from predators on the Internet.( http://tcs.cybertipline.com/ ) I played the game a few times, just to figure out what the tricks of the game were, and after having played it, I understand now.... EVERYONE ON THE INTERNET IS A SEXUAL PREDATOR! That's right. The only way to win at the game is to deem everyone a predatory threat.
I suppose there is a certain logic to it, but it is an isolationistic logic at best. I understand that children inherently want to make other people happy... there are a lot of adults like that too, by the by. And yes, I'm aware that the Internet has allowed sexual predators to get closer to kids than ever and I'm not saying that parents shouldn't watch what their kids are doing or even monitor their email at times, and that they shouldn't watch over who their kids are IMing with, not at all.
You have to be straight with kids. Ask them about their friends, who they are talking to, what's going on in their life. You might have to be direct and ask them. They're not usually going to just volunteer, but if you show a general genuine concern for the subject, normally they'll let you in. They won't talk to you about it? Then odds are, you've done something wrong as a parent. You've made them feel isolated from you. I've always been able to tell my parents about my friends and the things in my life. It didn't stop molestation from happening. It didn't stop rape from happening. But even though those things happened, the communication between my folks and I was never strained I could still tell them about them and they could get me help. Those things happen, and yes, they happened long before the information age ever took hold. It's sad, but it's true.
Keeping your kids offline isn't the answer. To deny them access to information, in my opinion, is a form of intellectual neglect and abuse. The Internet has scary stuff, but it also has good things too. My nephews spend time on NOGGIN's website often and it has improved their reasoning skills, reading, and their visual learning acuity. You can't let them run free, but telling them everyone in the world is out to get them isn't the right mentality either. The combination of fear and ignorance can be more explosive than putting gunpowder near an open flame. What it comes back to again is, parents need to take responsibility for their kids. If you can't care for them, financially, emotionally, medically, or whatever... if you can't take care of them, then don't have them. If you're not going to raise them to have common sense or raise them to know that, yes there are dangers, but not everyone is a bad person in this world, then don't bring them into the world.
There's a case of a mother who is suing MySpace for almost 20 million dollars because her daughter left home with someone she met on the website. Initially, I thought perhaps she might have a legitimate case, if her daughter was kidnapped, or if she was raped, etc. No. This girl got in to disagreements with her mother all the time and she RAN AWAY FROM HOME. She's staying with a guy she met on the website. Yes, he might be older than her, and yes, overall the situation makes my skin crawl, but here's the thing. It's not MySpace's fault. When kids run away from home, it's tragic, but this girl is especially bad. She is posing pictures and updates... never enough information to tell anyone where she is from, but enough to taunt her parents. Let me repeat this. She is TAUNTING her parents. Her mother uses MySpace to leave her notes, and to tell her that she loves her, etc, and yet at the same time is SUING the company. Hypocrite, no? I'm sorry this happened to their family, but it's not MySpace's fault. It's the mother's fault and the father's fault for leaving this girl in a vulnerable position where she was open to the suggestion of a sexual predator. If their family life had been the way it should be, if they had been decent parents or if they had done the kind of parenting they should have, she wouldn't have run away. There was a breakdown of communication and it made the girl vulnerable to the sexual predator, and even more, that left her open to his suggestive manipulation that she should run away from home. Kids don't leave home unless there is a problem. This lawsuit shouldn't exist. It's asinine.
Not everyone on the Internet is a predator. They might be a pervert, but I maintain that most people are perverted in some form or another. Even given that supposition, it does not mean that just logging on is an immediate danger. Logging on, under the age of 14 without supervision might put your kids in danger, so the remedy is to PARENT THEM. DO YOUR FUCKING JOB. That's how you fix it. Kids 16-18, well if you've DONE YOUR FUCKING JOB... then they should know their head from their ass about the way people are online and they should know where to go and where not to. It all comes down to parents who need to stop being so damn lazy. It's not the school's job to raise your kids, it's not the government's job, and it's not a babysitter's job. It's yours. You popped them out, adopted them or foster care for them, Do your job. Otherwise... Don't have sex, don't adopt, and don't take kids in just for the money (which, if you're not raising them, is the only reason you have them).