What is online predator?
According to Wikipedia, an online predator is an adult Internet user who exploits vulnerable children or teens, usually for sexual or other abusive purposes, online predators tend to be:
MaleSeductiveIntrovertedSadisticSexually indiscriminateHow do they approach your child?
Usually, online predators approach children through chat rooms, instant messaging or their profiles in sites like Myspace and Facebook, children tend to publish detailed information about themselves in these sites, like where they live, their hobbies and the things they like, pictures of their homes and friends and many other things. online predators use these information to do a throughout research about their victim before approaching them. Online predators tend to do anything to gain the trust of their victims, they are usually armed with knowledge about latest trends and hobbies, and they use it to look attractive to their victims and capture their attention. they tend to sympathize with their problems. they could pose and pretend to be of the same age as the victim. And a bit by bit, with a lot of patience and persistence, they end up gaining their trust. And then they offer pornographic materials, and often end up meeting with your them. Online predators are so dedicated to the process that they spend a lot of time and money to get to their victim, they could even send gifts to them. According to eMarketer, "75% of children are willing to share personal information online about themselves and their family in exchange for goods and services", and predators tend to capitalize on that. some predators take their time to seduce their victim, while others do it much more quickly. How to tell if your child is becoming a victim to one of them? Fortunately, there are many things that shows on your child when he/she talks to an online predator:
Your child spend a lot of time online: has the time your child spend online increased lately, are they more reluctant to leave the computer more than ever? this could be a sign that something is getting them attached and make them want to be online as much as possible. Online predators are very good at enticing children to do that.
You caught your child watching some pornographic materials: there's no reason a child could download and see pornographer material on their own, in most cases, there must be someone who sent it to them. if that happened, ask them who sent it to them, but don't intimidate or punish them, remember they are victims after all.
Your child receives phone calls from a stranger.
Minimize the tab whenever you approach the computer screen: they could be watching the pornographic the victim gave to them, or even worse, talking to the predator.
How can you protect your children from online predators?
Talk to your kids about sexual predators and potential online dangers.
Carefully choose the chat rooms your children use, if they must use any.
Instruct your children to never leave the public area of a chat room. Many chat rooms offer private areas where users can have one-on-one conversations.
When your children are online, visit the same chat room they use and see what they're doing, this could give you an insight of what kind of people they talk to.
Monitor Internet usage: many software gives you the ability to monitor internet usage of your children, and they offer the ability to capture keystrokes, online chats, E-mails, and much more, one of the prominent internet and computer monitoring software is PC Pandora.
Make sure the computer your children use is in a public area in your house, like the living room, this makes it harder for online predators to establish relationship with your children.
Teach your children never to respond to instant messaging or emails from strangers.
If all precautions fail and your kids do encounter an online predator, remember that they're not to blame in any way. The offender always bears the complete responsibility for his actions.