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Representative Cramer, a nationally recognized child-advocate, founder of the National Children's Advocacy Center and the National Children's Alliance, and the chairman of the Congressional Caucus for Missing and Exploited Children is encouraging parents and guardians to talk with their kids about the dangers of the internet.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has put together the following tips for parents and kids on protecting children from online sexual predators.
Tips for Parents:
- Place the computer in a family area of the household and do not permit private usage.
- Openly discuss potential dangers of the Internet with your child.
- Enter into a safe-computing contract with your child about his or her use of these sites and computer use in general.
- Know each of your child's passwords.
- Monitor what your child's friends are posting regarding your child's identity.
- Often children and their friends have accounts linked to one another, so it's not just your child's profile and information you need to worry about.
- Enable Internet filtering features if they are available from your Internet Service Provider.
- Install monitoring software or keystroke capture devices on your family computer that will help monitor your child's Internet activity.
- Know what other access your child has to computers and devices like cell phones and PDAs.
- An interactive educational safety resource is available for children ages 5 to 17 at the NetSmartz Workshop.
Tips for Kids and Teens:
- Never post your personal information, such as a cell phone number, address, or the name of your school.
- Be aware that information you give out through instant messages, e-mails, social networking sites and blogs could put you at risk of victimization.
- Never meet in person with anyone you first "met" online. Some people may not be who they say they are.
- Remember that posting information about your friends could put them at risk.
- Never respond to harassing or rude e-mails. Delete any unwanted messages or friends who continuously leave inappropriate comments.
- Never give out your password to anyone other than your parent or guardian.
- Only add people as friends to your site if you know them in real life.
- Think before posting your photos. Personal photos should not have revealing information, such as school names or location.
- Check the privacy settings of the social networking sites that you use.
- An interactive educational safety resource is available for children ages 5 to 17 at the NetSmartz Workshop.
Parents and guardians need to report all incidents of suspected child sexual exploitation to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's Cyber Tip line. The Cyber Tip line serves as the national clearinghouse for tips on Internet crimes against children, and is operated in partnership with the FBI, the Secret Service, ICE, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, and others.
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