Yet again..another poser!!

I have a 17 year old daughter and thank God I can trust her,however even the most trustworthy kid can make a life altering mistake,as we adults can also.I have a program on her computer that keeps track of every keystroke she makes,I go in and read everything from time to time.I did catch her chatting through my space once with a 30 year old guy that said he lived in Ireland.I asked her about this and she told me she met him through her friends my space and he was her uncle.I of course had to check all this out for myself to be sure and as it turned out he was this girls uncle and did live in Ireland.Since I was able to read everything she ever typed to him I was also able to see that it was innocent,he just listened to her complain about school and stuff,and they often chatted about her friend his niece so I was O.K. with this.However if I was not able to track everything she typed to him I may have been left to wonder.I also once caught an instant messenger conversation she had with a boy that lived one town away from us.I knew who this boy was we had met him through other friends of ours.After reading the conversation I was able to see that my daughter was very naive because she wasn't following what he was typing.He was very perverted,and I was pleased to see that when she figured it out she told him she didn't want to chat with him anymore and blocked him. I feel so far I am one of the lucky parents,too often children are looking for more then what they have in their own home or school.They are looking for love and acceptance that they don't feel they are getting.( not necessarily because they aren't getting it,just they don't feel they are ) they go looking for it in the wrong places,I wish they never came up with my space,and I wish there were better ways to stop these kids from meeting strangers online.But there really isn't much that can be done even if you monitor it at home,what about when they are at their friends house or the library?They can do what they want there.I think the best a parent can do is continually explain the dangers to their children and hope they listen.The parents you were talking about obviously pay attention or they never would have caught it and it would have been too late for their daughter. Jas

We can protect our children by knowledge. I always made sure my children heard, whether on the news or in the newpaper, of things that have happened to others because of trusting everyone. But even in doing that things happen. My daughter, who is now 25 years old, went through a bad experience when she was 15 years old. She met a guy on the computer and talked to him several times and then gave him our phone number. They started a friendship over the phone and after he got her trust he had her invite him over to our house when my husband and I weren't home. Now we always told her to not have friends over when we weren;t home, but you know kids will try anything and they don't always listen to us. So she invited him over when we weren't home and when she opened the door for him she saw he was not some 16 year old like he told her but a 40 year old man. She tried to close the door on him but he broke his way in and he raped and beat her. We came home, my husband and I, to the police all over the house and neighbourhood and an ambulance taking my daughter away. I jumped into the ambulance and my husband followed with his car. To make this story shorter, as it is really complicated, the guy finally got caught just two years ago. He got caught red handed this time and his DNA matched up with the DNA they got from my daughter and he is now finally in jail where he belongs. Besides my daughter and the girl he got caught with, it turns out this guy has raped another 6 girls that came forward during his trial. He is now in jail forever I hope, he got 25 years. So as much as we teach our children to be careful they will still try to do things on the internet that we don't know about so you need to be aware at all times what she is doing on it. We need to know who she is talking to at all times. It is really scarry what has happened to our world and the internet just makes it easier for those nuts to find these young children. Be very carefull with your children and always know who they are talking to.

I saw a news story this past week about a "woman" who was communicating with a man in his late 30s. They fell in love, and the "woman" travelled to meet this man. It turned out that the "woman" was only 12, and the man had to give up on his "dreams" even though he claimed to authorities that this was the love of his life. Here is a story of a man being himself and the girl posing as someone much older. I am not sure if there were any charges of luring a minor or some other such thing, but if I had been a parent of this child, I would not hesitate to lay charges, even if the girl seemed to be at fault. For sure, the child also deserves a strict punishment. The virtual world just gets scarier all the time.

It just amazes me that this girl being so young would want to put her life in danger the way she was doing. I am glad the parents caught on and interviened the way they did good for them . Not all parents have parental controls set up on their computers and they should for it's for the saftey of thier kids not knowing what sites they are visiting and whom they are chatting with. This girl probably would have wound up hurt in a very bad way if her parents didn't catch on to her. I hope she had the fear put into her and that she won't be doing this again.

I have been on the internet since I was 13, my parents did step in when I was 15 and made a blind mistake, I had met someone on a online gaming site (directed toward kids) and they found out about it. My parents may not be as technology sound as I am, but I seriously misunderstood at that young age how much my parents actually knew of such dangers before they were part of a 'mainstream' problem (I was 15 8 years ago... that would be 1999/2000 area...) It is important that you keep a foothold on your child's doings on your machine. You should not have to tell them you are spying on them, as many claim you do. They are still dependents under you, and until they are otherwise, you are their caretaker. Which means you have to make sure you feed them, clothes them, put them on the road to succeed (though they are the only ones who can drive the car), and especially keep them safe. A good way to do this is to install some sort of software that keeps tabs of the activities on your internet and mails them to you, which are available. Or if you can't find that use a 'ghostwriter' which keeps a record of keys typed on the computer. You should do this while you 'setup' your child's machine before they password protect everything. Hopefully though, the parent doesn't abuse this spying thing, as if it for anything other then 'keeping them safe', just to shape them how you want them shaped... then you are overstepping your bounds. If you find them typing liberal believes, and you are a hard concervative, don't confront them on their messages (especially if they write them under an alias, cause then they'll be suspicious). Instead open political dialog with them, have debates... Unfortunately not all parents are mature enough to use their powers wisely.

My parents don't police me, and I'll be frank when I say that I don't think I need (or want) policing. I think I can handle myself on the internet--I wouldn't be naive enough to arrange a trip with someone I've never met--that's just not going to work out. When I speak with people online, I tend to stick with anonymous discussion about topics, not personal discussions focusing on each other. In fact, I wouldn't be interested at all in the latter. I think it's more important to teach your kids to be wary and cautious than it is to monitor their internet access at all times. Some critical thought will always do them good. Educating them about people who use the anonymity of the internet to do criminal acts is more important than just simple policing.

Hi ruby, Wow! Great that the parents noticed and prevented such meeting..With all the bad news happening around, it is very risky for a young girl or any girl to be meeting their chatmate! Anyway, I have no kids but I guess it is very helpful to search for any possible program that will detect and save history of any visited sites as well as conversation!

My s/o has a 14 year old daughter, and it concerns me a great deal as to who she 'talks' to on the computer. For the most part I know it is her friends from school or family, but it could be anyone. Since his computer is in the same room as my scrapbooking room, I am normally in the room when she is on the computer, it is also centrally located, in that you have to go through that room to go to our room......so, I can walk by at anytime without her realizing that I'm 'checking'. I also check her myspace to see what types of comments are being left and who is on her friends list. Eventhough she is a very smart girl, I think at times she could be too trusting in the case of chatting with someone that could be a poser. And she is getting to the age where she 'thinks' she knows so much.lol I do have the upper hand as I already raised two daughters, so you might say, been there done that! lol

This is what scares me about mine getting to the age of wanting a computer. My youngest are 7, 6 and 2, but the eldest of them has asked to be able to use a computer because there are some childrens sites that his friends go on. I have decided to invest in a laptop for them after christmas, and it is a childs laptop and comes with lots of security measures to help keep them safe. But I have already been talking to them about the sorts of things that can happen through talking to strangers on the comuter and I have also told them that the computer will be staying downstairs and that they can only go on it when either me or Dad are about. My eldest is 16, at the minute he has no computer but will be buying one next month, he knows the dangers as I have told him and told him plus he has seen some of the things that I have been sent and the nutters that I get trying to talk to me so he knows they exist!!

OMG that is so scary. I do not have small children at home anymore and my grands are not yet old enough for internet. But I can tell you that I have a niece that hooked up with someone off the internet a few years ago, it turned out ok, but she abandoned her children to do that. She no longer has custody of them. She went clear across the state to meet up with this guy, we were all terribly worried about her. She is no longer with that guy and did move back to her hometown for awhile. I just recently learned that she has taken off again, been months now, no one knows where she is.

My kids are young and only interested in playing games on the pc. Our pc is located centrally and I am very aware of what they are doing. Although I agree that it is important to set up rules and regulations - for your children's safety, I have to admit that with kids - where there is a will, they find a way. Teenagers, especially, can be very sneaky. They'll find a way to do the things that they want to do. I just think, that as a parent you should be as nosey as you can be. Don't always let your kids know, but check up on them often.

We have our children right in front of us when they are on the PC, but it is also blocked by their ages.

I think there is no safer place now especially when it is a child who would used the computer for surfing so I guess it is better to see them closely while using it because you cannot avoid those people they will meet in the net......

That is really scary. I am so happy the parents found out in time! You hear these storys all the time and it's so heatbreaking, especially when they end tragically. I hope that the media coverage of these storys will show children how dangerous it is to meet someone off the internet at such a young age.

Hey ruby. I don't have any kids of my own but my best friend has 2 teenage girls 15 + 16 and they are constantly on Myspace and I worry about them so much. They have been at my house using my computer and have showed me some of the stuff they do. I freaked. Their Mom has no real control over them at this point. They are a handful! Two teenage girls! My poor friend! What do you do? You can only watch them so much. You can put locks, blocks on the computer but what do you do lock them in their rooms until they are 30? It's a scary world we live in and I care for these kids and worry because they have no fear.