PLEASE: Take children's computers out of their bedrooms and put it into the main part of the house. That will also give them support to deal with cyberspace bullying and may even prevent it being perpetrated on a home computer. Australia-wide survey of 13,000 girls found that 42 per cent of respondents had experienced some form of cyber-bullying.

 

1.0 Child safety on the web, mobile phones, sms and GPS games

Internet 101 for complete beginners, parents of beginners and safety tips for all.

Translate sms & text lingo, chat speak and emoticons into English.

Vulnerable children are being groomed by pedophiles, cyberstalkers, initially posing as 13 or 14 year children. They cruise web chat rooms or text messaging mobiles, mobile chat rooms and mobile games sites with GPS.

These guys are sophisticated, patient and cunning. Often well to do, sometimes even pillars of society. A typology of sex offenders from forensic psychology source is here.

They are well supported by coaching and networking in pedophile clusters and are more than ready to travel significant distances to meet their target or pay for their target to travel to them. They work to maintain a long term relationship, often with the child's family as well, in order to manage the risk of being caught.

Rachel O'Connell gave the example of the mother who had permitted her child to meet another 'child' who had befriended her on the Internet and dropped her daughter off at the meeting place. But to her horror, as she drove away she saw an extremely seedy looking man approaching her child. The mother got out of the car and ran back in time to prevent the man making the planned contact with her daughter. This is an example of the intent alone needing to be enough for someone to be prosecuted.

Pedophiles network with each other (reported by The Lucy Faithful Foundation). The offenders involved seek the assistance of other pedophiles if children they are attempting to prey on via the Internet, seem to be breaking out of the grooming process. That is, they will instantly call in help from other pedophiles who, also in the guise of children, move in on the child to add to the persuasiveness of the initial pedophile's!'The way pedophiles talk it is clear their aim is to despoil innocence. They rationalise that the child initiated the sexuality of the activity and in their minds, absolving themselves of responsibility.

2.0 Resources