Internet Predator Facts and Signs

Internet predators are out there. Period. They are lurking in the corners of the same spaces your loved ones are in. The Internet provides a shield for the growing number of predators out there. It allows for them to use fake aliases and photos in order to pretend they’re someone else.

Internet predators target both boys and girls of all ages. They lie and manipulate, try to come across as someone who “cares” or someone who “listens” to them, especially during a rough patch in teen years. They make friends with kids who seem emotionally vulnerable and typically respond to any complaints in a sympathetic, “understanding” sort of way.

McGruff Safeguard is here to help stop Internet predators by allowing parents to download software in order to monitor chats, emails, and social media networking activity that your child is involved with, such as Facebook or Myspace. It gives our experts the opportunity to monitor the conversations and look for such content that may be alarming and report it to the parents.

Here are some warning signs that we’ve come across that parents can look for if they suspect suspicious activity along with using McGruff Safeguard:

Predator Warning Signs

• Child spends a lot of time online
• You find porn on the computer
• Receive phone calls, mail, or gifts from people you don’t know
• Withdrawal from normal activity
• Switches tabs quickly if you enter a room (this can be done by pressing Alt + Tab)
• Uses other accounts for e-mail or Instant Messaging

McGruff Safeguard monitors for a variety of things outside of predators as well, such as depression, drug abuse, lying, sneaking around, acronyms, sexual abuse, suicide, etc. Our software enables us to detect that is going on with your loved ones to get you the information you need to facilitate conversation. It’s a fact that the Internet is a part of our everyday lives and the lives of our kids. By choosing McGruff Safeguard, you’re choosing to help protect your children.

Labels: children safety, Internet predators, McGruff Safeguard, warning signs

Lastest Michigan Internet predator arrest

McGruff Safeguard will continue to keep you up-to-date on Internet Predator Stings. Here is a story out of Lansing MI of their most recent Internet predator encounter and arrest:

Attorney General Mike Cox today announced the results of an undercover Internet child predator sting that led to the arrest of a Grand Rapids resident.

Scott Alan Owen, 28, is accused of using the Internet to solicit a minor for sex after making advances in online chats towards who he thought was a 14-year-old girl. He was actually chatting with investigators from the Attorney General's office and the volunteer organization Perverted Justice.

"The Internet can be a dangerous place, making it critically important parents know what their children are doing online," said Cox.

Owen, who reports he is employed by a local manufacturing company and identified himself as a member of the National Guard, was arraigned yesterday in 63-2 District Court before Judge Sara J. Smolenski on one count of using the Internet to accost a child for immoral purposes, a 10-year felony and one count of using a computer to disseminate sexually explicit matter to a minor, a four-year felony . Bond was set at $5,000, and Owen is scheduled to be in court for a Preliminary Examination on January 20, 2010.

Using the screen name " recon101_2000 ," the defendant engaged in sexually explicit chats and solicited undercover agents posing as a 14-year-old girl. Working together, the Attorney General's office and Perverted Justice identified the defendant and arrested him in his Grand Rapids home.

If parents believe their child had contact with Owen, they are asked to contact the Attorney General's office at (313) 456-0180. Parents and schools may also contact the Attorney General's office for information on our award-winning educational program, the Michigan Cyber Safety Initiative (Michigan CSI), which has been taught to more than 400,000 Michigan children.

To date, the Attorney General and his Child and Public Protection Unit have arrested 253 Internet sex predators. An August 2009 sting in Livingston County yielded nine arrests, while 21 predators were arrested during an October 2008 sting in Grand Rapids.

Just as Attorney General Mike Cox suggests, it is important to know what your kids are doing online, and it’s also important to know who they’re chatting with. By monitoring with McGruff Safeguard, you can be sure that you and your local authorities are the first to know if anyone solicits your child. Contact us today to let us know how we can help you protect your loved ones.

Labels: Grand Rapids, Internet predator arrest, Lansing, Livingston County, McGruff Safeguard, online monitoring

When strangers friend your kids: A parent's view

I happened to be sitting in a Starbucks on Tuesday, waiting for my scheduled meeting party to arrive. There was a woman and a man sitting about five feet away from me. The woman must not have minded my presence because she was not making any attempt to keep her conversation private. (Good for me because I got a parent’s take on Facebook and my meeting was 30 minutes late.)

So this Mom is talking to this guy. They were both in their 40’s. She was talking about her 15-year olds Facebook. The Mom was also a Facebook user. The mother had accepted a random 50-year old man’s friend request. She didn’t really know the guy but said she was open to meeting new people and they had been chatting and emailing.

The next thing she knew, the man had befriended her daughter. “What is a 50-year old man befriending my daughter for? He doesn’t know her. That is creepy and weird. My daughter must have thought that was okay because he was one of my friends. She must have thought I knew him from my work circle or something.”

The mom went on to say that this man had requested to be friends with many of her friends. She seemed creeped out enough by this that she told her daughter to take him off as her friend and she did the same.

Facebook is a great social network but there are some creepy folks out there that may find adults to friend, then friend their children. If you’ve never thought about getting a Facebook account yourself, perhaps it may be a good idea. That way, you can see who your kid’s friends are. Between monitoring from an outside perspective and using McGruff Safeguard, you can rest assured that we can see if there is any behavior that is out of the ordinary, then alert you.

It was good to see that this mother was on top of what was going on in her teen’s social media realm. It was also nice to see that she recognized a potential danger and put a stop to it. What are some of your experiences as parents? Has anything like this happened in your world? Are you a member of a social network? We’d love to hear from you.

Labels: Facebook, friending, McGruff Safeguard, parents, strangers

Chatroulette (Chat Roulette)

Yesterday, I was video chatting with one of my best friends in Florida. Video chatting is awesome when someone like me lives in Indiana and has friends all over the world. But I’m an adult. This makes me wonder how our kids are using video chatting. With new models of computers with built-in cameras, this makes it easy for strangers to actually SEE our kids.

Okay, back to my conversation with my Florida friend. We’re talking about how we love to video chat because we never get to see each other, and it’s like sitting in the same room with him when we talk. He was telling me about this new website called Chatroulette. Chatroulette is a website where you can pop in, turn your camera on, and randomly start talking to strangers all over the world, face to face. At the time I am writing this blog, Monday morning, there are 14,280 users on Chatroulette.

Under the “terms and conditions” the participator must be at least 16 years-old and ChatRoulette does not tolerate broadcasting obscene, offending, pornographic material. They say they will block any users who violate those rules. However, it would take someone “reporting” the behavior in order for any consequences to happen.

That said, there are a couple of different sides I see to this. 1) This is a bit scary because kids can lie and get on there at ages younger than 16, and some sicko won’t report it because he/she is loving it. Or 2) if the kids see who they’re talking to, perhaps that would sway them to not chat with them anymore.

The psychology is different for different kids. Some may do it because of the “thrill” of it. Some may be more leery. However, regardless of who is more responsible, the danger that our kids could be chatting it up with someone who could potentially harm them is there. Know who your kids are chatting with and how long they are spending online in chat rooms. Download McGruff Safeguard. Help us help you keep your loved ones safe online.

Labels: chatroulette, McGruff Safeguard, online predators, online safety, video chatting

Alicia’s Story: Tortured and raped by an Internet Predator

The Internet can be a scary place for teenagers. Last April, Oprah did a story on Alicia. I wanted to share it with you because 1) even though we think our teens are responsible, sometimes they make decisions with out really thinking about the consequences and 2) internet predators LIE. They will say and do almost anything to get what they want. Here is her story as reported from Oprah :

When Alicia was 13 years old, she made headlines as the girl who was lured by an Internet predator—and survived.

Alicia was a shy girl from a close-knit family, but on New Year's Day in 2002, she did something completely out of character. She agreed to meet a friend she had been chatting with online for eight months.

Alicia says she hated the cold and never went outside alone after dark. "Yet it's the coldest, darkest iciest night of the year and I walk out my front door to meet a total stranger," she says. "That's something that's so out of my character and just shows you an example of how intense the brainwashing is."

"I can remember standing behind a tree and thinking, 'This is really stupid.' My senses came back to me for a second." At that moment, Alicia says she heard her name being called out and got into the car with 38-year-old Scott Tyree. "Once I got near him, something changed and I realized that this person's a monster," Alicia says.

Tyree drove Alicia to his home in Virginia. Over the next four days, Alicia says she was raped, bound in chains, shocked with volts of electricity and hung by her arms as her 13-year-old body was beaten.

"He tortured me," Alicia says. "He treated me like an animal—a dog. I basically did whatever I had to to survive. It's like I'm a whole entirely different person. That man did kill that little girl. He did. That girl's completely dead."

Tyree bragged to his friends about the girl held captive in his basement. He even videotaped her bound and chained and shared those images over the Internet.

One of the friends Tyree had been sharing his webcam videos with online saw Alicia's face in the newspaper and decided to turn Tyree in. "I suppose he got nervous that this was now going to be on his hands if [Tyree] murdered me," Alicia says.

After four days of sheer hell, Alicia was rescued by the FBI. She was found chained to the ground by lock and collar. "When I said he treated me like a dog, he did," Alicia says.

Alicia says she now realizes she was groomed by a child predator. "He groomed me, and in doing so, he brainwashed me. That sounds crazy, but he did. He took apart the 13-year-old girl that I was and created this creature that he wanted me to be."

To understand what it's like to be groomed, Alicia says to remember what it was like to be 13 years old. "There's days where the world's wonderful, and there's days where it seems like the world just hates you." The bad days are when Alicia says the predators step in. "There's somebody there, always there, to tell you that it's going to be okay."

Alicia says it was the simple things Tyree would say to gain her trust. "Like getting in a fight with your mom because you wouldn't clean your room. And he'd say: 'Oh, well, why would she treat you like that? You're an adult. It's her room, she'll clean it.' Or you get a bad grade in school and he'll look at the answer you gave and say: 'No, that's right. You're really smart. You think outside of the box. Your teacher is an absolute idiot.'

"After eight months of talking like that, it takes you apart," Alicia says. "It does. And he's always there, all the time."

When Alicia started her relationship with Tyree, social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook didn't exist yet. "That wasn't even around when this happened to me, so there's this whole other level of danger they need to be aware of, and it's sad. It's sad because it should be something wonderful connecting with your friends. That's something children should be able to do. But the world's so scary that they can't. There's so many bad people in it that they can't, and that's horribly sad."

Tyree pled guilty to charges of sexual exploitation of a minor and travel with intent to engage in sexual activity with a minor. He was sentenced to 19 years in federal prison.

Alicia is now fighting to keep predators like Tyree behind bars. A junior in college, she spends much of her time speaking at schools about her ordeal, and hopes to join the FBI so she can fight for other children.

Learn about Alicia's Law here.

When we hear of stories like these, it just goes to show how important it is to monitor your children's online interactions. You can never be too safe when it comes to your children. If you've not already, download McGruff Safeguard today. Help us help you keep your loved ones safe.

Picture from Oprah.com

Labels: Alicia's Law, Internet predators, internet safety, McGruff Safeguard, Oprah

Girl on Girl Fighting: A scary new trend

Last week, The Early Show did a report about a scary trend that has been emerging. Viral videos of teen girls fighting have been popping up across the country. In the video you see here, there are two adults watching, both who have now been charged with felony counts of cruelty to a juvenile because nothing was done to stop the fighting. (Click "The Early Show" to view report and video.)

Is this something that is becoming glorified? The Early Show reported that before, it was mainly boys who got into fights. Now with the technology so readily available to video these kinds of activities, and with the psychological push that someone can become a viral celebrity overnight, I am wondering if this is just fueling the need for some teens to be noticed.

According the local educators, almost 80% of school fights are now girl on girl, which some believe is fueled by the internet. Which brings us to what are kids are viewing online, is it good? Is it healthy?

When we think about what our kids have access to online during this influential time in their life, are you curious to know what they’re viewing? Do you think knowing for sure what they’re influenced by would help you facilitate conversation with them? These are not just “teen” issues. There are serious consequences to those who participate in these types of behaviors that can haunt them later on down the road.

It is so important for parents to discuss these crucial matters with kids. Not only must we discuss these issues, we must also be a positive influence on them. If our kids don’t see us behaving in a positive manner toward others, for example, if we are mean and tend to want to fight or be hateful, what makes us think they would be any different?

By downloading McGruff Safeguard, you are choosing to be a part of their life. You are choosing to know what they're into. Understand the kinds of influences that are shaping them. By downloading McGruff Safeguard, we can give you exact information on what they’re viewing online. Let’s all be a part of the solution. What are your thoughts?

Labels: bullying, fighting, McGruff Safeguard, The Early Show

Facebook hits new milestone

For those of you who aren’t a “techy” type like me and keep up with the news, Facebook just celebrated it’s 6th birthday. Along with that birthday came a new milestone as the popular social networking site just hit its 4 million member mark.

Mashable, a top social media news site, reports:

Two months ago the social network hit 350 million, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg reminds us that number was less than half of today’s 400 million mark a year ago. It took the site about three months to climb from 300 to 350 million users and only about two months to gain another 50 million, indicating Facebook’s explosive growth is actually still accelerating.

As great as this is for Facebook, this only ups the ante for internet predators to interact with kids and teens. This is why it is so important to incorporate McGruff Safeguard into an everyday habit. Parents can feel more at ease knowing their conversations are monitored to inform them of any suspicious activity. However, its not just about catching internet predators, it’s also about keeping kids and teens safe from themselves. In other words, if there is any sign of depression or suicidal thoughts, we inform the parents strait away. If we notice any suspicion of drug use, or sexual abuse, we let parents know.

Facebook has been a huge communication platform for people of all ages and it started with the Gen Y’ers. There have been many posts that cause concern, and some lives have been saved because of this social network. A few months back, I posted about how my friend had noticed her nephew’s posts were getting more and more disturbing to him. She ended up reaching out to him because of these posts. It ended up being a pivotal moment because he was sad and was contemplating suicide. He is doing much better now since his aunt reached out.

We’ve had parents share stories with us. We’ve heard stories of success, of deeper communication, and also stories where parents were just grateful to know a little better about what their kids were up to, good, bad and ugly.

As popular social sites grow, so does the need for more monitoring and more concern over who is on these site. Download McGruff Safeguard today. Join the force that is dedicated to knowing their children better.

Labels: Facebook, Internet predators, internet safety, Mashable, McGruff Safeguard, Milestone

Labels: McGruff Safeguard, myspace, sacramento, sex soliciting

Taking an active role

Labels: Facebook, McGruff Safeguard

Bullying Leads to 15-year-old Suicide

Labels: bullying, cyberbulling, Facebook, McGruff Safeguard, myspace, Pheobe Prince, South Hadley High school, teenage suicide

In Memory Of Amber

Labels: Amber Alert Awareness Day, Amber Hagerman, McGruff Safeguard, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children

Tweens on Facebook: Start Early, Start Now

Labels: Facebook, McGruff Safeguard, technology, tweens, Webkinz

Teen Suicide Awareness

• 10,000 teens commit suicide each year.


• Over the past 25 years the rate of teen suicide has increased 300%.


• Suicide attempts occur more often in females than in males, the ratio is 9:1.


• Girls who attempt suicide tend to overdose on drugs or cut themselves.


• Completed suicide occurs more often in males than in females with a 3:1 ratio.


• Boys who commit suicide frequently use firearms and hanging.


• Suicide is a result of untreated depression. Many of the high-risk factors and some of the warning signs are the same for depression.

What’s even more alarming is there are websites glorifying suicide and even giving the “best” methods of doing it. An example of a slide I found in relation to this topic was from the UK organization, Papyrus (Prevention of Young Suicide). They explained that “online ‘advice’ about suicide ranges from --responsible organisations, the caring and sympathetic, neutral dissemination of information to outright predators.” They also said, “Out of 240 different websites 45 judged to be encouraging, promoting or facilitating suicide (Biddle and others - BMJ 2008).

Here is an example of a suicide method site:
500 feet of 3/4” rope;
Car, with at least a 286-NP 6-banger, with good tires. Known for excellent reliability, pick-up.
Case of beer, various tranquilizers.
Do up! Load up and party!
1. Tie one end of the rope securely to a huge tree.
2. Make a nice hangman’s noose in the other end of the rope.
3. Get in the car, run the rope in, and buckle-up, because it’s the law!
4. All buckled in nice and secure?

Well, now just put that ol’ hangman’s noose around your little neck, and pull the damn thing up tight.

I don’t know about you, but I think that’s pretty scary. However, monitoring social networks can help prevent some teen suicides. Two doctors would agree:

“Analysing posts on social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook
could help to prevent suicide, according to two Victoria University
researchers.

Dr Tiong-Thye Goh and student assistant Yen-Pei Huang, both from the
School of Information Management at Victoria University, have devised a decision
support system to scan social networking sites to identify key words that people
aged between 18 and 24 are posting. A high proportion of key words could mean
that the blogger is at risk of depression, suicide, self-harm or harming
others.

"Social networking sites have in recent years become an increasingly
popular avenue for young people to express and to share their thoughts, views
and emotions," says Dr Goh.

"When young people are emotionally distressed for instance, instead of
the traditional channel of consulting friends, parents or specialists, social
networking blogs may provide a channel to share and release their emotions and
intentions.

A few months back, I wrote a post about an aunt who noticed warning signs from her depressed nephew. She reached out. It changed so many things about his life. McGruff Safeguard is here to help monitor any key words that would indicate your child may be contemplating this permanent fate. In the next post, we’re going to lay out some warning signs, and dive a bit deeper into suicide prevention. Together, we can help make a difference in someone’s life.

Labels: keywords, McGruff Safeguard, pro suicide websites, social media monitoring, teenage suicide

• Consider installing McGruff Safeguard on all the computers in your house that your kids are on - McGruff Safeguard and help monitor conversations that are taking place online and will alert you if there is any suspicion of abusive behavior. Whether it is sneaking out, drugs, sexual abuse, or cyber bullying. If you are aware of what is going on in the lives of your kids, it opens up a door for discussion. With it being so difficult growing up and learning how to do things for yourself, kids often hold back any feelings of hurt or concern. If you know what is going on with them, knowing helps facilitate conversation.

• Be open with your teens – Always remember that growing up is never easy. When you approach a subject out of love rather than judgment, people have a natural inclination to open up versus coming at them harsh and watching them shut down. I have so much personal experience in this area. My parents were very hard on me and very judgmental over what I did that was not up to their approval. Know that your teens are going to make mistakes and do stupid things. I believe that’s part of the growing process. However, boundaries are important. And explaining the “why’s” can help them to understand a little better.
  


• Know who your kids are hanging out with – Sometimes the people who you think are a negative influence on your kids are the ones who you can make the biggest impact with. When you have McGruff Safeguard on your computers, at least you can see what they’re not always telling you. If you use a service like this for the good, everyone can benefit from various lessons learned.
  


• Talk to your kids about online predators and cyber bullying– If you need to show them different stories of victims and people, do it. Be sure to let them know that that not everyone they come in contact with online is who they say they are. There have been multiple stories in the past year of this. It’s important for them to be safe with how much information they share on their online profiles and such.

Labels: cyberbulling, McGruff Safeguard, new year, online predators

Considering Holiday Gifts

Labels: Aol News, Facebook, gifts, holiday season, McGruff Safeguard

Recent stats in the news

AOL last week wrote a story about one girl’s battle with cyber bullying, which was spawned over a Facebook comment being left about the popular “Twilight” novels. Here is an interesting piece which came from the article.

According to a new study by Nielsen Mobile, the average cell-phone-carrying teen
in the United States now sends 2,899 text messages every month. That's up 566
percent from just two years ago. Another recent survey by The Associated Press
and MTV found that one-third of teens and young adults age 14 to 24 engaged in
"sexting," the practice of sending sexually explicit messages or pictures via
text message. And a poll conducted by Common Sense Media found that nearly a
quarter of all teens who belong to Facebook check their page more than 10 times
each day. "This generation is consumed by technology from birth," said Larry
Rosen, a professor of psychology at California State University, Dominguez
Hills, and the author of "Me, MySpace, and I: Parenting the Net Generation."

Speaking of sexting, Mashable also had some statistics:

According to the study, 4 percent of teens 12-17 who own cell phones have sent
nude or nearly nude photos of themselves to others via text, and 15 percent
admit that they have received these scandalous snaps. And in a country in which
58 percent of 12-year-olds and 83 percent of 17-year-olds own cell phones —
that’s a lot of flesh flashing across iPhone screens.

Labels: Aol News, Mashable, McGruff Safeguard, nude photos, pornography, sexting

Winning a Battle

Labels: McGruff Safeguard, national association to protect children, protection

True Stories: You don't always like what you find out

Labels: McGruff Safeguard, online parenting, sneaking around

One woman's stand against online predators

Detective Michele Deery works in a cubicle in the basement of the Delaware
County courthouse, in Media, Pennsylvania. The only window is high on the wall,
over a tall filing cabinet, and opens into a well, below ground level. The space
feels like a cave, which has always struck Deery as about right, because her job
is to talk dirty online to strange men.

Deery seems altogether too wholesome for the work. She has athletic
good looks, with tawny skin, big brown eyes, and long straight brown hair that
falls over her shoulders. Her parents sent her to Catholic schools, and her
mother, a retired district judge, now jokes that she wants her money back. Her
daughter’s beat is in the vilest corners of cyberspace, in chat rooms indicating
“fetish” or various subgenres of flagrant peccancy. One of the many false
identities Deery has assumed online is something truly rare, even in this
polluted pond—that of a middle-aged mother of two pre-pubescent girls who is
offering them up for sex. Baiting her hook with this forbidden fruit, she would
cast the line and wait to see who bit.

It usually didn’t take long. Men began vying for her attention the minute
she logged on, night or day. Deery would begin a dialogue, dangling the illicit
possibility, gauging how serious her mark was. There were “players,” those who
were just horny and despicable, and there were doers, or at least potential
doers, the true bad guys. The goal was to identify the latter, hook them, and
then reel them in, turn them into “travelers.” Once a traveler took that
all-important step out of fantasy and into the real world, his behavior went
from the merely immoral to the overtly criminal. When they delivered themselves
for the promised rendezvous, instead of meeting a mother and her young daughters
they would find a team of well-armed, cheerfully disgusted Delaware County
police officers. As a fantasy, her come-on seemed overbaked—not one daughter,
but two! It is doubtful that such a woman exists anywhere, and yet men fell for
it. Her unit had a near-100-percent conviction rate. The bulletin board over her
desk displays mug shots of her catches, very ordinary-looking men, facing the
camera wide-eyed with shock, staring at the fresh ruin of their lives

Labels: Internet predators, McGruff Safeguard, vanity fair

Parental Reality Check

Labels: chat room, Cuomo, e-Stop Act, Facebook, interviewing, McGruff Safeguard, monitoring, myspace, Sex Offenders, Tagged

The Fine Line of Boundaries

Labels: basketball, boundaries, Indiana Pacers, McGruff Safeguard

Parental Control

The study has found that young people feel differently about two types of
parental control, generally viewing a type of control that's thought to be
better for their development more positively. However, when parents are very
controlling, young people no longer make this distinction and view both types of
parental control negatively.

Scholars tell us that parental control falls into two categories: behavioral control (when parents help their children regulate themselves and feel competent by providing supervision, setting limits, and establishing rules)and psychological control (when parents are manipulative in their behavior, often resulting in feelings of guilt, rejection, or not being loved). It's thought that behavioral control is better for youngsters'
development.

But the study, which asked 67 American children (7th and 8th graders, as well as 10th and 11th graders) to respond to hypothetical scenarios involving both kinds of control, found that the youths put a negative spin on both types of control when the parents in the scenarios exercised a lot of control. Specifically, when parents showed moderate levels of control, they saw psychological control more negatively than behavioral control, but when parents were very controlling, they viewed both types of control negatively.

Specifically, the youths interpreted high levels of control as intrusive and as indicating that they mattered less as individuals. Intrusiveness is a hallmark of psychological control, according to the researchers, and both high levels of psychological control and feeling that you don't matter have been linked to poorer adjustment.

"Under some conditions, such as when personal choice is restricted, adolescents view
behavioral control as negatively as psychological control," according to the
researchers. "Such negative interpretations may mean that adolescents would
respond as poorly to highly restrictive behavioral control as they do to
psychological control."

Labels: McGruff Safeguard, parental control

Parenting Today

"I’m not going to drop you in your tracks with stories of how McGruff Safeguard
saved my child from this or that. But I did want to take a second to tell
you that in today's world, my children are growing up in a different climate
than I did. Everyone can pretty much put their finger on that, but it
really makes parenting hard when you don't realize how different it is.
Here, I think I'm talking to her about what I need to be talking to her about and that
I'm parenting in the right way. However, what I found after installing it,
were clues on things that actually were affecting her. I could see I had a
sullen and moody pre-teen/teenager on my hands, but for the life of me, I
couldn't drag the reasons out of her. However, in the past few months, by
just pursuing her conversations and making my own attempts to limit my
"eavesdropping", I have picked up clues to things I needed to be aware of.
I have been able to steer conversations into areas we hadn't yet touched and get
her to actually open up more. I know that it was okay for her to talk to
me. I honestly believe she just didn't know who to broach some
subjects. I now see a happier child and I feel like I made the right
choice. Maybe someday I will have a “drop you in your tracks story.”
I hope not. However, I feel much safer in knowing that I don't have to sit
idly by and watch it happen."

Labels: McGruff Safeguard, online parenting, True Stories

It DOES Take A Village

Labels: bullying, cyberbulling, Lie To Me, McGruff Safeguard, Tim Roth, two-sided conversation

Sneaking Out-True Stories

Labels: McGruff Safeguard, rebellion, sneaking out, True Stories

True Story: A Parent's Take on Privacy

Labels: McGruff Safeguard, privacy, two-sided conversation

Safe Internet Alliance Panel - Confronting Internet Risks Today

Labels: internet safety, McGruff Safeguard, monitoring, online parenting, Safe Internet Alliance