There is no disputing the harm that online bullying is creating around the world for both Children and Adults and I will cover this another time, but what about the Child Sex Offenders who prey on your children because you are asleep. I don’t necessarily mean physically asleep however, that comes into play as well – but unaware of the online grooming from predacious low life’s that see your children as an easy mark.
These predators are no longer hunting in the children’s play grounds, they don’t have too. That’s too risky for them anyway – they are now hunting where billions of children around the world are now playing. The worldwide web is the biggest grooming candy store in the world with any variety of sweet that a child sex offender could desire.
Does saying that make you feel sick, angry, alarmed? It should - we en-mass are allowing this to happen, because we are not educating our children on how to spot the signs of being groomed online - what they should do or where they should turn if they find themselves caught in this trap.
We Teach Them Skills For Emergencies
Where are the sign posts that should be plastered all over the internet, the radio stations, cable TV, Newspapers – heck, even billboards, to indicate where to turn too? Why aren’t advertising companies, musicians, politicians, the world community at large demanding that there be education for our children and collectively, putting mechanisms in place to ensure it happens? Or is this just something that happens to “someone elses Kid?” I would suggest you re-think that if you do.
If there is an emergency, we drill our kids on the appropriate emergency number from the time that they are old enough to pick up the phone. We teach them all sorts of safety aspects to keep them safe, what to do, who to call, where to turn. Why on earth aren’t we doing this with the internet?
Globally, billions of dollars have been spent over the last 20 years, teaching children the Dangers of Strangers. So much so, that we have created what I call a “Generation of Insiders” Children that play inside their own homes, or in supervised environments, because we were so afraid of them being snatched off the street by some sick opportunistic child molester.
Generation Insiders
This Generation of Insiders learnt to create their own amusements – they used basic technology to learn how to play games alone and with each other, and they created better ones; because that is what children do – they play and use their imagination to create games. From that creation the Insider’s Generation developed everything we use now – Google, Facebook, iPad, iPhones, Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac; I could go on for pages listing them all. These are amazing tools that virtually every global citizen uses in some shape or another- yet somehow we have missed catching up with this amazing technology.
Education Not Fear
Scaring Children is NOT the answer, neither is banning them from using a computer – they will only find some other way to get onto the Internet to connect with their friend. And you would be the first to scream “civil liberties” if some authority told you, you couldn’t be on there either – for your own good. Right?
What we need to do is teach how to understand what I call “The Relationship Of The Mind” and how to understand that any form of communication over the internet is based on only 10% of what they are really learning about that person. That due to all of our other sensory perceptions being blind our mind fills in the blank for us to create a picture of what we think that persons intentions are or who they lead us to believe they are – the other 90%.
Instead we leave it to the under funded and staffed global police agencies like the
www.virtualglobaltaskforce to try and flush these child sexual predators out of chat rooms and social networking platforms that kids of today play in – to keep them safe. Or, they are brought in after the fact a reactive measure instead of a proactive one. These Law Enforcement and Government Agencies do a fabulous job. Here is the scary news; they have a nearly 100% strike rate – what does that tell you?
Time To Act Now
I hope with all my heart, that you join me – use the medium that the Insider Generation created to keep our children safe. Twitter, Facebook, StubleUpon, Digg, fly a plane with a banner on the back of it – what ever it takes. Send this article to every newspaper, every politician, anyone you can think of that will make a difference. Enrol them to be proactive and create the awareness that is so desperately needed.
Let’s get the movement started on a global scale! No point in trying to eradicate a house infested with cockroaches with a fly swat. You have to either prevent them in the first place or bring out the big gun pesticides to get rid of them. Unfortunately, we can’t eradicate Child Sex Offenders but we can arm our children with Internet bug spray and that takes a global effort.
Our children are the future and survival of this planet – what they create it to be, is the sole responsibility of the Adults of today – You and Me. They will only shape their future on the tools that we give them and how we teach them - to use those tools. One of the founding tools for survival and emotional growth – is safety.
To me, safety and trust is every child’s birth right. It shouldn’t be an after thought or just an option.
Smiles to you,
Yvonne Rice
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