It happened right here in our quiet, somewhat sedate little village of Pinehurst, North Carolina. A fourteen year-old girl met a man on the Internet, developed an online relationship, and was lured into running away from home with him. Luckily, this particular story had a happy ending. Even though the girl had erased all the information off her computer, the SBI (State Bureau of Investigation) was still able to use her computer to trace her online footsteps. She was found safe in Louisiana and returned to her family within a few days.

The whole episode sends a shudder down my spine. It makes me realize how vulnerable our children are; how deceptive some grown-ups can be; and how the technology that benefits us in so many ways can be used for evil purposes.

A recent Commerce Department report showed that ninety percent of the 47.4 American children aged five to seventeen use the Internet. It doesn’t matter anymore whether you live in the big city or a small sleepy town. The Internet is affecting us all.

How can we keep our children safe? The first thing that most people think of is using a software program to keep children from the shadier side of the Internet. Yes, there are some good software programs like CyberNanny, which will limit a child’s activities on the Internet.  However, running out and purchasing a program will not necessarily be the only step that parental caretakers will want to take. The best program for the online safety of children may not be a computer-related program at all. It may well be an old fashioned program of parental involvement. Based on over thirty years of computer and parental experience, I propose five simple things that any parent can do to help keep their children safe online:

1. Educate your children about Internet safety. Make sure they know it is unwise to give personal information to anyone. Let them know that they should avoid the dark areas of the Web and educate them about the dangers of chat rooms. Make them aware of the dangers of becoming personally involved with strangers through e-mail or Internet messaging and/or chatting.

2. Keep the online computer in a central room in the house, where everyone will have full view of the computer screen when it is in use. Be around as much as possible when your children are on the computer. Expect some opposition to this location of the computer. When my own children were growing up, they were not allowed to have either a telephone or television in their bedrooms. I was constantly advised that “everyone else” had these items in their rooms. By forcing the children to use the telephone and television in the main part of the house, I knew what they were watching, who they were talking to, and how much time they invested in each of these activities. How much more important this is with an online computer! A child with an Internet accessible computer in their bedroom has 24-hour a day, unrestricted access to a wealth of pornography and hate sites, not to mention the proximity to many warped grown-ups that go online with the express idea of taking advantage of naive youngsters.

If you are routinely out of the house during certain times, like the after school hours, how about making a rule that your children cannot access the Internet during those times? Just to back up the rule, be sure to let the kids know that your Internet Service Provider (ISP) keeps a log of the times when your account is online. Most ISPs not only keep such a log, but also will allow you to access it.

By the way, when your kids claim they must have their own individual computer in their room to do their homework, how about buying them an inexpensive older computer that will handle word processing and spreadsheets? Just be sure to get one that doesn’t have a modem that allows online access.

3. Know your children’s passwords. If a child has nothing to hide, they should gladly share their passwords with you. Keep a list of their passwords and occasionally check to make sure that the passwords haven’t been changed. Privacy issues come into play here, and I don’t mean to infer that you should be reading your children’s e-mail, but if they know that you can, it may help keep a child on the straight and narrow.

4. This important fourth point is not to be overlooked and may, in fact, be the most difficult for some grown-ups. Parents, learn to use the computer. Investigate, learn, and practice until you know how the computer works and how to use it effectively. As you learn the computer, you will find that the computer itself has functions like history lists that can be used to see which Web sites a young surfer has recently visited. You will also become more aware of the dangers of the Internet so that you can protect your children against them. Remember, a computer-savvy youngster can easily pull the wool over the eyes of an inexperienced computer user. Be sure that you are as proficient on the computer as your children.

5. Investigate what your schools and libraries are doing to make the Internet safe for your children. To find out what our local schools are doing, I contacted Anita Alpenfels, the Director of Public Information and Community Services for Moore County Schools. She explained that most of our Moore County Schools have filtering systems in place and all will have them in place by the end of this school year. She told me that teachers in our county have the responsibility of monitoring students whenever they access the Internet on a school computer. Moore County Schools has also joined one of our private schools, the O’Neal School, in offering ChildLures, a curriculum to educate children about the lure of the Internet. Obviously, our county is concerned and is implementing programs to help our children. If you find that your county is lacking in this area, speak up and make sure your voice is heard.

Our children are precious. Let’s do everything that we can to protect them.