Teen Chat Room Safety Issues
by Teen Chat Acronym Decoder on 04/02/10 at 1:18 pm
Teen chat rooms have become a social haven for millions of connected teens worldwide.
Chat rooms are an interactive lifestyle and for many provide an outlet for expression, making new friends and in a lot of cases making romantic or sexual connections.
For teens these explorations of the boundaries of relationships are a natural part of growing up.
The issue with chat rooms and the Internet is that the boundaries are much broader and the margin for error much higher.
Part of the appeal of chat rooms is the anonymity, the ability to present varying identities. This is where the problem begins for parents trying to keep their teenagers safe on the Internet.
There are a growing number of sexual predators on the Internet; the reality is that they are prowling the chat rooms looking to engage teens in sex online.
Far more frightening is the prospect of them luring your teen to a face-to-face meeting.
We would all like to think our teen knows better than that but even the most conscientious teen can be swayed or manipulated.
When it comes to relationships teens are on a massive learning curve and lets face it not even adults have the relationship stuff completely sorted out.
With the Internet and these developing chat room relationships one mistake could have serious repercussions.
Lets look at two of the more serious dangers of internet chat rooms for our teens and ways in which parents can deal with the threat head on.
Internet sexual predators – Chat rooms are the foremost hunting ground for sexual predators.
These individuals will try to solicit teenagers for sex online or for sexual encounters of a physical nature. They will do this is several ways but the most common is to pose as another teenager and form a relationship with your teen.
These relationships may be formed over many weeks or months before the predator begins asking for a meeting. By this time your teen has connected with the predator and feels like he/she knows them.
These types of meetings have resulted in teen deaths, disappearances and rape.
Cyber Stalking – Teens often form ongoing relationships in chat rooms and during the course of the relationship they may divulge personal information such as email address, phone numbers, location, school or photos. This is extremely dangerous.
Cyber stalking is characterised by a unremitting perusal through unsolicited email, chat room stalking, hacking, defaming, doctoring pornographic images and threatening behaviour.
Tips for parents:
Encourage your teen to follow netiquette when using chat rooms and to report any inappropriate messaging. Most teen rooms will not allow obscene, offensive, threatening or sexual messages and will remove the perpetrator.
Emphasize the importance of privacy online and give your teen the cold hard facts when it comes to meeting chat room friends in person.
Parents have almost sole duty of care over their children. This means that before your teen leaves the house each day it is your responsibility to ensure they are equipped to make the right choices when your are not there to guide them. It is the same when they are online.
You need to make Internet safety a priority in your home. That may mean some kind of parent control software, Internet monitoring software, teen chat decoder or messenger monitoring.
Parental controls are you best bet for Internet monitoring and keeping an eye on your teens chat room activities.
You can experiment with parent controls by downloading free parental control software like PC Tattletale
Recent Comments