The Internet Can be a Scary Place

Every so often a special news story gets the attention of a lot of people and becomes “water cooler talk” for several days. Perhaps no story has done so more recently than the hidden camera story done by Dateline NBC on internet predators. Watching the news this morning, a preview was shown of their next installment–this time catching predators on the West Coast.

The internet is a wonderful tool. So much can be gained from it. You can learn history, music, art, a foreign language. You can research libraries of information about nearly any subject in the world. Bible students with little money can have a wealth of information to help them learn more about God’s book. What a great tool the internet can be.

But what a scary place it can also be. Dateline’s story chronicled men, most of whom were at least 30 years old, who were seeking sexual encounters with under-aged teenagers, both girls and boys. They chatted with the “youngsters” (who were really adults working for a watchdog organization posing as young people) and then were invited by the “children” to a house. When the adult arrived at the house, he was met by the host of Dateline and, eventually, the hidden cameras came out. Most of the men fled.

What happened to the men after the story? You can read that by clicking here.

Dateline has promised that fifty-one men were caught in their West Coast story (compared with 19 in the story before). This was done over just three days in both places. One man even admitted that he watches Dateline and has seen the stories before!

What are parents to do? The internet is too important a tool to simply say to a teenager, “you can’t use it.” Here are some tips for parents to keep these things from happening. Some may seem a bit extreme, but you will be grateful you did them in the long run.

• First, talk to your child about proper use of the internet. Despite what a lot of people tell parents today, you still have a great impact on the decisions your children make. “Train up a child in the way he should go,” Solomon wrote. Tell your children there are chatrooms and websites that do not need to be visited…ever!
• Second, do not let your child have the internet in his/her room. Even if you check his history, it can be deleted. Even if you have certain programs that block some websites, she can still visit others. Have the computer that uses the internet in a public part of the house, so you can keep an eye out for your child’s safety.
• Third, limit the time your child spends on the internet. Most of the time, a child “gets in trouble” on the internet because he or she spends a great amount of time there and begins to get “bored.” It is then that they begin to search for certain things that are not becoming of a Christian.
• Fourth, always be with your child when he or she visits chatrooms. Even if she is going to one that is entitled “for teens only” (or some other similar name), predators are probably there. If he is visiting one on basketball or his favorite band, predators are probably there, too. They go where they think young people will be.

While it seems like an impossible task to catch all online predators, I hope it happens. These people (not all are men, but the vast majority are) are sick and are causing many children to lose their innocence much too early. Parents, let’s make sure our children are safe when they are online.