Online Threats: Chat-room predators are only one menace

Cyberspace presents an array of risks that may be hazardous to your child's well-being.

As reported by the San Francisco Chronicle:

"The Internet once was seen as a golden "information superhighway" transporting the next generation to the Promised Land. Now it may feel more like a minefield -- seductive on the surface, but seeded with subterranean hazards.

Few families have escaped the warning sirens about sexual predators stalking children via the computer. It's hard to miss roadside billboards claiming that 1 in 5 children has been sexually solicited online, although only a tiny fraction of those involve aggressive solicitations from someone believed to be over age 25. What experts fear is that parents remain relatively unaware of the much more ordinary hazards for their children in cyberspace:

>> Online bullying, with kids taking harassment from the playground to an exponentially wider audience.

>> Profiteers who run online pharmacy and gambling sites -- and couldn't care less about the ages of their customers.

>> Computer addiction, as players of elaborate online games such as World of Warcraft and City of Heroes become hopelessly obsessed.

>> Web sites in which teens reinforce self-destructive behavior -- for example, "Friends of Ana" sites advocating anorexia.

>> Blog blowback from hip cyber social registers such as the wildly popular MySpace.com, in which kids become confessors and poseurs -- at their peril.

American parents always have fretted over the newest recreation fad. A quarter century ago, they worried that Pac-Man and Donkey Kong fostered attention deficit disorder. A century ago, they panicked that a new pool table would trigger truancy, tobacco use and trouble in River City.

Defenders of cyberspace -- including its frequent young inhabitants -- say it encourages creativity and personal expression, and helps kids with similar interests connect across the globe, in a forum where race, accent and other physical attributes are irrelevant.

Fair enough. But adults and kids alike should be aware of potential pitfalls."

Safekeeper helps inform parents how their kids use the Internet and how they may be facing threats they don't know how to handle. With Safekeeper, sites are pre-blocked and easily customized by parents as they decide is best for the family.

Try Safekeeper today and help protect your kids online.

To learn how to stop cyberbullying threats to your children, go here.