My wife and I went to an eye opening forum last night. It was a MySpace safety forum. Rick Anderson, a retired cop from St. Paul and currently working with Internet Safety Consulting, LLC,presented this forum on Internet safety and our children. He spoke with the kids during school and then the adults in the evening. Even though I was aware of some of the dangers our kids face on-line I was still amazed at what our kids are doing on-line and how vulnerable they are. Rick brought us to some chat rooms under an alias he uses to police chat rooms — an 18 year old girl. Within minutes of signing on we had about 10 guys wanting to chat and view his web cam. He warned us that some pornographic material may pop up with these web cams and said he would removed them as fast as he could (nothing ever did pop up that was offensive). He said that is one way our kids can easily stumble across sexuality explicit material. Rick also talked about parents watching very closely at what our kids put on the Internet. Anyone can pull images off and use information to stalk and seduce our children. He also shared some horror stories that really got our attention.
If you want some more information about these issues, check out Rick’s website (which I linked to above). He shares a lot of resources to help us keep the Internet a safe place for our children. The site shares links for various resources such as cyberbullying, Internet monitoring software for the home, and places where you can report suspected abuse. The Internet is an important tool for children (and everyone) but it can also be very dangerous.
So because of the danger of predators being able to pull images off any web site and use them for child pornography, I have decided to remove my photo albums of my niece and nephew from my blog. I enjoy showing them off to the world, but I am not willing to put them at risk. I wish I was more conscience of this before and hopefully nothing will come of it. My niece and nephew mean the world to mean and it would just devastate me if anything would happen to them. So please watch your kids and talk to them. Ask them what they are doing on-line and don’t let them be a victim.
Times are definitely different from when I grew up. "Internet safety" was not even part of our vocabulary. But as adults today, we have to keep up if we hope to protect our children and prepare them for the world. Take the time to keep up — our futures depend on it. God bless and have a great day. -edh-
The Heart of a Pastor 
I appreciate what you have done. Andy and I have watched an episode on T.V. similar to the conference you described. Many parents admit that they are not as computer saavy as their children. Parent need more education on computers and how to get to certain programs so they can more carefully monitor their children online. Also, take the computers out of the kids’ rooms and put them in a main area (the family room). It’s not an invasion of privacy, it’s protecting our children. When you are a parent, you are not invading their privacy, you are being a parent.
This is a valuable piece. Keep up the good work. I have had a blog since last September and from the beginning was sure I would not post my picture. (While I am an adult – older than many; I still did not want my photo “out there”.) In a former life I had a newspaper column and had heard comments from professionals in the newspaper game about people obsessing over columnists or others with re-occuring photos in the papers. It happens!
Judy D. Hanson
Your welcome, Julie, and I couldn’t agree more with you.
Judy — thank you for the vote of confidence. I’m glad you found this post valuable. I too think about my picture being “out there” and maybe I should be more concerned. But if someone is going to get obsessed with me, there is very little I can do to stop them. But I do understand your concern. And from the stories I heard at this forum, your right, “It happens”.
Thanks for stopping by again. Take care.
Eric