Donna Rice Hughes is president of Enough Is Enough, a nonprofit organization that helps educate parents about the dangers of the Internet. Is your teen chatting with someone online he or she does not know? It's very likely.
According to a 2007 survey funded by Cox Communications in partnership with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and John Walsh, 69 percent of teens regularly receive personal messages online from people they don't know and most of them don't tell a trusted adult about it.
And a 2008 study by Harris Interactive-McAfee indicates that 52 percent of teens have given out personal information online to someone they don't know offline, including personal photos and/or physical descriptions of themselves.
While the intent behind these exchanges usually is innocent, it's important parents educate their children about the risks of opening up to and trusting strangers they meet online — because the person with whom they are chatting very well could be an Internet predator with salacious intentions.
As Donna Rice Hughes, president of Enough Is Enough, an online safety nonprofit founded in 1994, explains, online predators use a tactic known as "grooming" to lure targets.
"The goal of grooming is to develop an online relationship and build trust and create secrecy and then introduce and have an online sexual relationship, with the desired goal of an offline encounter," she said.
Ms. Rice Hughes said predators may use the allure of money, romance, excitement and love to attract a target. They may spend weeks and months getting to know their targets, making them feel good and paying them compliments before broaching a sexual relationship.
"They do it [grooming] in the most subtle ways," Alicia Kozakiewicz, a survivor of an Internet predator, explained in a video EIE produced on the way predators operate.
For example, she said, if you had a fight with a friend, the predator might say, "Your friend called you that? Oh my gosh, why would your friend call you that? That's not a friend. I'm your real friend. I would never say that to you."
Ms. Kozakiewicz's case is extreme. In 2002, the then-13-year-old Pittsburgh girl was held hostage, tortured, sexually assaulted and held in a weapon-filled dungeon for four days by a man she had met in a Yahoo chat room, before the FBI tracked her down based on a tip the agency received.
Ms. Rice Hughes pointed out that this case is rare and many kids who are being groomed online never meet a predator in person.
However, she added, those who "are thoroughly groomed are willing to leave and go meet someone who they now consider a boyfriend, lover or best friend. Often they go on multiple occasions to have sexual encounters."
According to Ms. Rice Hughes, statistics indicate kids are most susceptible to an online predator's advances between the ages of 12 and 14, but everyone — older teen girls, boys and even adults — needs to be careful.
The Internet safety expert recommends parents use special filters and monitoring software — not just on computers, but any device with Internet access — to help protect their kids from online predators as well as exposure to pornography.
"Don't think your kids are immune. No matter how smart or good your kids are, if they have Internet access, they are vulnerable to online predators, cyberbullying, online gaming issues, social-networking issues — everything," warned Ms. Rice Hughes, who believes children should not use the Internet unsupervised before junior high.
"Parents need to recognize that they are the first line of defense," she continued, advising they talk to their children early about the risks of the Internet, even before they are allowed to use it.
EIE's site, internetsafety.org, provides a wealth of information on how parents can protect their children and teens.
The organization also offers an Internet Safety 101 training program, featuring a 145-minute DVD series and workbook, that instructs parents and educators in how to protect children from online dangers such as child pornography, cyberbullying, predators and gambling.
The DVD, which costs $26.95, can be ordered from the site.