Crime Stoppers with Sheriff Joe Shook
The first of this series will start with social networking. Many people, including teens and young adults, are members of My Space and Facebook. These are social communities that allow users from anywhere to communicate with one another. It works like this: you sign up and develop a "profile". This profile allows the user to customize a page with personal information. There is a questionnaire that is filled out that asks about education, family history, and personal preferences. Once you develop your profile you create web page. This page has all the information you filled out in the questionnaire, pictures and a blog section. A blog is an online personal journal or message board. This allows for conversations between users. Once your page is set up you can decide whether you want it to have a public profile (anyone can see your page) or private (invited guest only can view).
This form of social networking is a great resource tool, however if your son or daughter does use either one, now is the time to establish rules and boundaries. Explain to them that you do trust what they are doing, but you do not trust what other people are doing. You want to keep you children safe and this is just one of the many ways that you can provide this security.
If your child has a My Space or Facebook page, go online and look at it. If they are set to private, ask your child for their username and password. Another option is create your own page and ask your child to "friend" you. This will give you a good insight on what is going on with your child and who is talking to your child. If you see something on your child's page that concerns you, use this as an opportunity to speak to your child about being safe online. Teach them to be aware of who they talk to and what kind of information they give out. Based on the information in the profile questionnaire, that is just enough information for a predator to research your child and make contact.
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