How Vulnerable Are Our Children Online?

Here's one (of many) ways. This is a summary of a true story, told to me by a friend:

• a "tween" aged girl (11 years old) had a conversation with a friend via social media.
• she divulged three critical pieces of info: where she played soccer, when she played, and what her number is.
• an under cover police officer (thank goodness!) used this information to find her and follow her home.

You can imagine the shock felt by the family when the police officer knocked on the door and informed them how easily their girl could have been taken, if he had been an Internet predator rather than a cop.

Scary.

One of my objectives with this blog is to collect such stories to not only share them with other parents, but with my kids as well. They need to think about things such as:

• what shouldn't the girl in the story above have revealed?
• what would have been another way to arrange a meeting with her friend, without giving away her location?
• just because you don't give out your name, address and phone number, is everything else safe to talk about?

I don't think it's possible (nor is it entirely beneficial) to keep our kids entirely off the internet. Instead, we need to teach them to think before they type.