Class offers Web safety tips to parents

  With the explosive popularity among teens using social networking sites such as Myspace and Facebook some common sense ground rules can help prevent a tragic situation from developing, advises a Yuma Police Department official.

   On Monday evening, Kofa High School Resource Officer Erick Resendiz presented his third class in Internet Safety and Predator Awareness at Room 190 of Yuma City Hall.

   Resendiz said that posting a page on a social network site has become nearly a rite of passage for a growing number of teens and pre-teens. While he says a site can serve useful purposes such as cancer patients offering support for one another or swapping treatment options, students and parents must be aware of the dangers that can persist on the Internet.

  "Juveniles want to belong and a lot of their friends have a Myspace page and if they don't they feel left out," Resendiz said. "But juveniles are more susceptible to danger online because sometimes they are allured by the danger of the unknown or try to prove themselves as more capable than they really are."

  His own 10-year old daughter requested a Myspace page recently because her friend from school had one but Resendiz turned her down.

  "My kids are not allowed to use the Internet unless I'm in the room," he said.

  According to law enforcement officials in the winter of 2006, it was estimated that 50,000 predators are online at any given time, he said. He offered up some sobering statistics but also cautioned they should not be blown out of context.

  One in five children who use computer chatrooms have been approached by Internet predators. There are 13 million children using instant messaging and one in four participate in real time chats while 33 percent received aggressive solicitations such as invitations to meet, receive phone calls, sent mail or gifts. And one in five receive sexual solicitations yet only 25 percent of children approached by predators online report it to their parents.

    "When children report that something happened online parents need to temper their response otherwise kids are less likely to report sexual advances because they're afraid they'll lose the use of the Internet," Resendiz said.

  It is critical for parent to know what sites children are viewing and get to know their online friends as well as their other friends, he stressed.

  "Sexual predators interviewed in jail say they target kids whose parents are not involved," Resendiz said. "Predators within eight to 20 minutes searching online can pinpoint a kid's name, family information, down to where they go to school or where they live because of the information they openly divulge online."

  Online predators are a growing problem partly because the Internet offers them anonymity, Resendiz said. Often adults will portray themselves as a student in order extract information from other students.

  He cautioned students that they should never pretend to be someone they are not over the Internet and be especially cautious about revealing personal information. He advised students not to send photographs of themselves over the Internet, not to disclose their phone number, a password or ever to agree to meet someone who they only know through the Internet.

  Greg Hyland, spokesman for the City of Yuma Department of Administration, attended the presentation with his children and said that some of the statistics cited were kind of frightening but it was a very good forum.

  "Kids need to be able to talk to parents and parents can't lash out and punish them" Hyland said. "Kids should be able to report incidents to their teachers and SROs but above all, their parents."

  Hyland reminds everyone that Resendiz will appear on on KBLU 560 AM radio, Thursday at 7:10 a.m. where he will again talk about Internet Safety on the "City News Now" program. Listeners to the radio program will be able to phone in questions as well that day.

And Resendiz will conduct another forum at City Hall on Dec. 15 discussing gang intervention.