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Karen
Member
09-07-2004
| Wednesday, October 18, 2006 - 11:23 am
OK... my mom needs some help in a major way. She works with lower-functioning adults, and has a client living with her full time. This girl (let's call her Jen) is 24, with the mental capacity of an eight-year old. She has all the natural desires and cravings of a grown woman, and understands the whole concept of sex, but does not understand the negative side of it -- being taken advantage of, being assaulted, etc. Jen came to my mom a few days ago telling her she'd like to go to Vancouver for a week (about a five hour drive from where they live.) When Mom asked why she wanted to go, Jen replied, "to visit my boyfriend". Mom, never having heard of said boyfriend, inquired, naturally. "Where did you find this boyfriend?" Oh, on the Internet, came Jen's reply. Mom just about lost it. She sat Jen down and had a heartfelt talk, explaining the risks of trusting strangers, etc., to no avail. Jen kept insisting that this guy was so nice, he's sent me a picture, he's not a bad man, on and on. Mom suggested to her, "well, if you want to meet this boy, tell him to come here. He can stay in a hotel, we can all go out for a nice dinner (in public)..." Jen didn't understand why the boy (well, man, he tells her he's 27) couldn't stay in their house. Further conversation revealed that Jen had given both their address and their phone number to this guy -- and other 'friends' online. Mom's kinda panicked now. She can't physically *stop* Jennifer from going, obviously she'd have to alert Jen's social worker, but she wouldn't be able to call the police to have them bring her home. Mom is terrified about what kind of info Jen's given out, and just the overall naivity of this poor girl. I think we've avoided catastrophe with this situation, but now I'd like to help her avoid this kind of thing in the future. I've already told Mom to uninstall MSN Messenger -- Jen doesn't need it for her 'legitimate' friends, she can talk to those people at work or at church, or on the phone, and Mom doesn't need MSN for anything. But what about blocking sites? I'd be curious to hear how some of the parents here keep their kidlets safe in the online realm? I know about sites like NetNanny, etc, but how do they work? Do they automatically scan the content of a page and decide if it's safe or not? Mom is not too saavy when it comes to technology, and I can't imagine she'd understand how to do it if she had to manually add the sites she wanted blocked -- she'd have no idea how to check the history of where Jen's been online and add those to a blocked site list. I know you can put a password on IE completely, but that's not fair to Jen -- she does legitimately use the Internet for things not related to finding boys. I'm also curious if anyone has a site that they used as a good example for their little ones on why NOT to trust strangers online? Jen is a very visual person, she's kind of a "see it and believe it" kind of girl. Are there any sites that have testimonials, or dramatizations, etc, that you've used to dissuade your kids from this kind of thing? My mom is a wonderful parent, she raised three of us on her own and ran a daycare from home as well. But that was all 25 years ago -- the threats to kids these days are tenfold what they were back then. Any info / suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance!
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Texannie
Member
07-16-2001
| Wednesday, October 18, 2006 - 11:46 am
My 16 year old son got interested in internet porn. This is the best tool I have come across and it's free. http://www.k9webprotection.com/ it automatically blocks the pages you don't want them to see, plus you can add sites. to view them, you have to put in a password. you can automatically block things like myspace.com. there is very little set up involved and it's pretty maintenance free. i have been checking our history and i have only seen one or two things get through. as for articles, i imagine you could do a search on internet stalking and find some. hasn't Dateline been doing a series on something like this? as to calling the police, couldn't your mom call, explain the situation and see if they could send an officer to talk to the girl?
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Sewmommy
Member
07-06-2004
| Wednesday, October 18, 2006 - 12:39 pm
I just did a quick google search "avoiding online predators" and found this site. http://www.netsmartz.org/ It looks interesting and I'm bookmarking it to puruse more later.
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Twinkie
Member
09-24-2002
| Wednesday, October 18, 2006 - 2:30 pm
Definitely have her and the girl watch Dateline's pieces on catching online predators!
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Seamonkey
Moderator
09-07-2000
| Monday, November 13, 2006 - 4:21 pm
I didn't know y'all even had this thread but a long time online friend of mine (she was the founder of my very first web community) is an employee of Habbo which is a kids site in the UK and over the years she's been involved in any number of online communities. Anyway she just started a blog called The Watchful Eye and has gotten her first feedback.. I figure it might be of interest to some people here as well. http://thewatchful-eye.livejournal.com/410.html
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Urgrace
Member
08-19-2000
| Monday, November 13, 2006 - 6:22 pm
Wow Karen, I've never seen your post before, but I totally understand your mother's need. Jen's rights would be violated if your mother physically tried to stop Jen from going. Even the social worker couldn't do that. That is a scary situation. I hope some of the clubhouse posters have given you some good information to help, and I wish you and your mother the best.
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