ONLINE SEX PREDATORS AND CYBER BULLYING

Here are some facts to support active monitoring of kids internet usage. The article argues that we should watch our kids in the same way we monitor our houses.

• The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children reported in 1999 that one in seven children ages 10 to 17 had been solicited for sex online.
• 50% of those solicitations came from other kids, rather than predators.
• 33% of children reported being exposed to sexual material online
• The number of kids reporting cyber-bullying rose, to 9 percent from 6 percent five years ago.
• Sometimes kids make innocent mistakes - registering to win a free iPod, providing personal information or responding to an e-mail from a "friend of a friend" - and make themselves targets.

SOURCE ARTICLE