It isn't about how smart you think your child is. Do realize that adults are smarter. An adult can pinpoint a vulnerable child in a crowd and take advantage of that. As with any predator, they look for those points of weakness (a cheetah will chase a slow gazelle, a lioness will take down a wounded zebra). In the wild, animals use different techniques to hide from these carnivores. They shield their young from an incoming attack. So why do humans offer their children to snakes?
When I was young, I used to go on online chats a lot. A visit with my older cousin introduced me to that world when I was eleven, and I one day decided to search the words “chat room” on Google when I was thirteen. In one month, I was talking to a nineteen year old who also lived in California. Almost immediately, the conversations evolved into him asking me if I wanted to meet up, and it was cool because my thought process as a thirteen year old was that I had an older friend. I was that interesting that someone older wanted to meet me, and if he would have been more sly about his approach, groomed the situation for a few more months, said “I can meet you at your school”, I may have done it.
Instead, he jumped the gun. Wanted to meet really quickly, started saying I should just quit school and “run away” with him. Unfortunately, he didn't guess that I actually liked school and learning and that that wasn't something I was willing to do. But another kid, with a shittier home life and less to stick around for, could have easily been persuaded. Realize that thirteen year olds, teenagers in general, begin to see themselves as adults. They want to be part of that crowd and many think they can spot that snake in the grass, but the truth is that even some adults can't.
I see many children on YouTube, the ones with their pictures on their profile and the ones that so quickly confess their age. Now, I don't mean to sound creepy (or maybe I do if that will make someone change their mind about this), but if I wanted to meet up with a few of those kids I could. Maybe I could just meet one, and if I were some pervert, wouldn't one be bad enough? Because all I have to think about is what would have worked for me? What would have convinced me to meet one of these people? What would I have liked them to say?
When I was thirteen, it was 2004. People weren't so aware of chat rooms and the dangers that come with them. There weren't all those “safety on the internet” movements. What's the excuse now?
Here are some stories of teenagers meeting people online:
Tell me, which of these results is something you'd like to see happen to one of your kids? There are dozens of stories like these. You never know who is behind the screen.
You can try to argue that your child would never meet someone online in real life. Not if that person convinced your child that they were a classmate? Not if that person pretended to be a family member or a neighbor?
Let's pretend for a moment that that is true. Your child would never meet someone from the internet. What about someone finding your child? This is made easier with pictures, with an email address, with a phone number, and with information you wouldn't even think would be identifiable enough (a scenery picture that shows a store in the background, part of a username that matches a street in your city, the name of another classmate writing on your child's YouTube feed).
What about your child being blackmailed. Do you think this situation is uncommon? Improbable? It's not:
And if that predator gets a child's physical address, there are many unfortunate outcomes for that. This is not that hard to do if they know the parent's information like a first and last name that people so easily give out on Facebook: Spokeo.com will lead people to your last used DMV address, the one on your license. But many people don't think twice when posting pictures of their children online.
If a predator knows your address, how difficult do you think it is to park a car across your street, watch the child leave for school, learn the name of the school, study the streets your child uses on his or her walk home, and one day approach your kid? After a few weeks of watching, they will know what to say, what pertains to your child, so that they can start a conversation. Your child doesn't talk to strangers? No problem. They can pretend to be the parent of your child's friend, the one that didn't make it to school today. They just want to to know what the class assignment was, so they can tell the child, and a conversation starts. Your child won't talk to anyone? No problem. A child can easily be dragged into a car. This is something you and your children should be aware of even outside of the internet.
So your child finally reaches 18, legally an adult, and you think none of this happened, your child made it out unscathed.
If you think that then you need to reassess your opinion of the internet.
Predators are not the only danger. Think about what your child is exposed to on the internet. Think about those things you've seen or heard that stick with you.
I asked my brother recently what what the worst thing he's ever seen on the internet. I'll put out a trigger for you, because I don't think everyone wants to read this. But he saw it.
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It was a video of a woman, and you could only see her legs. She had high heels on, and there was a kitten on the ground beside her. She put her heel into that kitten, tearing through its body.
I said, because I try not to get too emotional about these things or I'd go crazy, “At least the cat died quickly.”
He said, “No,” shaking his head. “It didn't. She put her heel into the cat's eye and twisted her heel into it.”
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I've read my share of racism (who hasn't?). I've encountered porn videos that did not seem consensual and beastiality videos. I've seen people get cut up, cut themselves up, and I've read stories of child rape, baby rape, all kinds of murders, the things people do in war to humiliate the men they fight against, to destroy them before they kill them.
I've stumbled upon child porn. It was a woman (could have been the mom) giving a blowjob to a boy that looked like he was seven or eight years old.
I am not some weird deviant that searches this shit out for kicks or even curiosity. This is the internet. Do you want to try to argue that seeing all of this at an impressionable age (when a child is still learning right from wrong and what they should value) does not have a negative impact on a child? At best, it desensitizes people from thinking much of these things. At worst, it becomes so normalized that violence and sexual deviance become part of your child. The attitudes and values displayed on the internet will be your child's role model if your child spends more time on the internet than talking to you. And isn't that so often the case in families these days?