By Lana Hollerud

Crime Victims Resource Center

It is astonishing to realize that our pre-teen and early teen children have never known a time without the Internet. Now as never before they can easily communicate with people all over the world about any topic imaginable. This also means that there are a myriad of ways that children can be harmed through their Internet use.

There are steps that parents can take to lessen the harmful effects of the Internet. To effectively monitor their child’s Internet usage, parents need to become familiar with different types of social media and other things children tend to access on the Internet, i.e. Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, blogs, instant messaging, Google hangouts, and online gaming.

It is helpful for children to have guidelines about how often and how long they are allowed to be on the Internet, and where they are allowed to go. The computer should be in a conspicuous place in the home, and, if they have a smartphone, perhaps taking it away at bedtime to avoid late night unsupervised communication. Have a discussion with your children about what personal information they are allowed to share online and communicate clearly to them that there is no privacy on the Internet. It should be stressed that there is no guarantee of security on the Internet, and once words or pictures are on the Internet they are there forever and can be accessed by virtually anyone at any time and used for whatever purpose anyone wishes with virtually no recourse.

There are predators that use these same Internet tools to prey on underage children by misrepresenting themselves; your child has no way of knowing if that cool kid from London really is a 12 year old with a lot of their same interests. Here are some warning signs that you can watch for that indicate something isn’t quite right with your child’s online activity.

If your child is obsessed or secretive about being online, receives phone calls or gifts from someone you don’t know, or receives pornographic pictures from somebody they “met” online, it would be important to have a discussion with your child about what these behaviors mean.

We are available at the Crime Victims Resource Center (507-437-6680) for information and options if you have concerns about difficulties that your child is experiencing through the Internet. Also, check out our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/CVResourcecenter for more information.