Kids are getting online younger and younger these days. It may start out with a game that you bought to install on the computer. Not much later, it turns into online games. All the while, the child is becoming more computer and Internet savvy. And they should, but not just the mechanics of it. They also need to know about who’s on the other side of the keyboard.

Sexual predators are just like sharks waiting to sniff out their prey. They won’t look like sharks though. They’ll look like a trusted friend, or maybe as a surrogate parent. This latter illusion is easier than you might think because parents tend not to watch their kids’ online activities, in fact, they even use the computer as a babysitter of sorts.

Don’t let your child have unsupervised online activity. Letting them have a computer in their room is not a smart move. Not only is it distancing the child emotionally from the family, but it’s pushing them into harm’s way. They need to know guidance, but they don’t know they need it, or won’t admit it.

Too many parents have suffered the loss of a child from sexual predators, or at the very least, they’ve had to deal with the emotional scars that were left behind by the offender and will have to deal with that for the rest of their lives.