With the school year coming to an end, a growing number of children & teens will be left at home with easy access to a cornucopia of internet vices!
The internet is, to say the least, one of the greatest informational resources available and is as essential today to our children’s education as the library was to our generation; inextricably tied to their future, careers and in truth, their very lives.
Unfortunately, as with most things, there is a dark side, and the amount of harmful material has been growing rapidly – an amazing source of revenue for some, it’s no wonder that an estimated 266 new porn sites are launched each day!
In 2007 the fastest growing website was a brand new porn site which logged 4,958,285 visitors during the month of December. The 4th fastest growing site was also a porn site that grew by 14,177% to 10,280,138 visitors in December, 2007!
As staggering as these numbers are, the bigger problem is the ever widening technological gap between parent and child and the lack of awareness this creates.
You might think that your child is too young and you really don’t have to worry about this issue, or your child is a “good kid”, or you think that you only have to worry about boys, or perhaps, you think it’s just a normal part of growing up; you know, “boys will be boys”.
In that case, you would probably be surprised to learn that the average age of first exposure is 11, with children as young as 8 included in that average. That first exposure is very often by accident. For example, a child looking for information on Nintendo’s Mario Bros. Might innocently enough go to www.mariobros.com which would put them 1 click away from “Chat with Hot & Sexy Singles from Your ZIP Code for Free”. Again, this site at least requires your child to dig deeper. The vast majority of these links take them straight to the inappropriate material! Once exposed, it becomes a slippery slope… Pandora’s Box has been opened.
You might also be surprised to learn that 80% of 15-17 year olds have had multiple hard-core exposures or that 1 in 3 visitors to porn sites are female!
Most surprising of all would be the material that is within a clicks reach of our children. We’re not talking about the nude pictures found in the Playboy magazine of your youth, we’re talking about full motion video and photographs of acts so depraved, degrading and disgusting, that it makes you wonder how it could even be considered “sex”.
As if that wasn’t enough, add gambling, anonymous IM “friends” and chat rooms to the mix and you have a situation where any caring parent would want to yank this pipeline of filth from their home.
But that is not the answer, the good that can come from this very same pipeline far outweighs the bad. You simply need to do what parents have always done; protect your children from the bad.
A good number of on-line resources exist to help you develop safe internet rules for your home and to help you talk with your kids about what is “out there”.
Almost all internet providers offer some kind of free parental controls - learn to use them properly, monitor them closely and you’ll be taking the first steps towards protecting your kids.
A variety of Internet filtering and monitoring software packages are available to help – as with the parental controls, learn to use them properly, keep them updated and monitor them closely and you’ll be taking the first steps towards protecting your kids.
Two options exist for those parents that are either technologically challenged, don’t have the time required to stay on top of the filtering and monitoring process and/or whose kids have found a way around their various attempts at controlling their children’s internet activity.
The first is to go with one of several specialty regional ISPs which offer pre-filtered internet to your home. While some folks find them too restrictive, these companies do a great job of stopping inappropriate material from reaching your children.
One of the newest tools available to you is from our sponsoring company, they offer internet filtering as a managed service. In essence, they take over the task of filtering and monitoring the internet for you, while allowing you to continue using your existing internet service provider (ISP) – you pay a small monthly fee and they take care of the rest. Find out more at http://www.myinternetdoorman.com
So as summer draws near, arm yourselves with the information, tactics and tools you need to protect your children and allow them to safely enjoy the internet and all the wonders it has to offer!
Your Hosts,
Carlos A. Mendoza
Eduardo Mendoza