FL MORRIS / FMORRIS@STARBULLETIN.COM
Teri Schroeder, president of I-Safe America, an Internet safety program, helped hand out fliers in Waikiki on Sunday. She was helped by Rick Bockman, right, a police detective from American Fork, Utah.
Program aims to A 13-year-old girl on Kauai made a friend online earlier this year and wound up having sex with her new "pal" -- a 34-year-old man who lured her to his hotel room.
arm kids against
’Net threats
'Net safety tips
By Susan Essoyan
sessoyan@starbulletin.com"The old AT&T slogan, 'Reach out and touch someone,' has now become every family's nightmare," said Teri Schroeder, president of I-Safe America, a program to teach kids how to be safe on the Internet that is coming soon to Hawaii's schools.
Starting this Thursday in Wailuku, Schroeder will be leading workshops across the state to train more than 200 educators in Hawaii's Catholic schools to help their students act responsibly on the Internet. The federally funded program will then go to Hawaii's public schools later this year, and other private schools have been contacted, too, she said.
The program is starting in the Catholic schools here because their administrators moved quickly after one of their students was victimized by an online predator. "They are very, very determined," Schroeder said. "They see where people could say, 'It could never happen to us.' They know better."
Detective Chris Duque, computer and Internet crime specialist at the Honolulu Police Department, said yesterday that reports of Hawaii teenagers being entrapped by people they met online are on the upswing.
"In the vast majority of cases where the child has been victimized, the parents are completely clueless," Duque said. "In the other cases, the parents know they should have monitored the kid, but they felt, 'Well, it couldn't happen to my child.'"
Parents have long told their children not to talk to strangers, but kids -- and adults -- seem to feel like anything goes when it comes to the computer, he said.
"We tell our kids not to talk to strangers, to be wary of the stranger who approaches you at the park or at the mall," Duque said. "But when we're looking at a monitor and a keyboard, we feel there's no threat and we'll talk to anybody. A lot of time, we take for granted the people we're talking to are who they claim to be."
Two teenage girls in New York and Connecticut were murdered by predators they met online, just in the last few months. One in five children under the age of 17 has been propositioned online for sex, Schroeder said.
Cyberspace predators are sophisticated. Parents and children need to be more alert to their methods and to danger signs. I-Safe teaches children how to identify inappropriate or compromising situations and to seek help.
"The abuser doesn't just come out and say, 'I'm Mr. or Mrs. Pedophile,'" Schroeder said. "What happens is that the abuser grooms the victim. It's a process. We empower the kids so that they'll know when they're being set up. ... Our focus at the foundation is to enhance critical-thinking skills, to teach kids to recognize, refuse, respond and report."
Parents should not ban use of the Internet -- "that's like saying, 'I don't ever want you to ride in a car'" -- but they must make sure it is used responsibly, she said. Along with personal safety, I-Safe teaches children other aspects of Internet protocol, such as avoiding plagiarism and theft of copyrighted materials, as well as computer viruses and worms.
The foundation tries to reach kids through schools, parents and community functions like last weekend's Sunset on the Beach program, which it sponsored in Waikiki. Hawaii is one of 25 states that will launch the program this school year, using $3.5 million appropriated by Congress. The program focuses first on grades 5 to 8, and will later expand to all grades.
BACK TO TOP |
’Net safety tips
>> Keep the computer in an open area, not a child's bedroom, to better monitor its use.>> Talk with your children about their Internet use, and alert them to its dangers.
>> Teach them to keep personal information private.
>> Treat online chatrooms as if your child invited friends into his or her bedroom.
>> Know the real identities of online correspondents.
>> Teach your children to recognize problems such as solicitations.
>> Learn as much as you can about the Internet.
I-Safe America
