Life Dangers

How do you open up to the topic of the dangers of life on the internet and otherwise? With smaller aged children hopefully they are not accessing the internet without your knowledge, permission or supervision. But with your older children, tweens and teens this can get a little more difficult. They are trying to exert their independence and fight with you, telling you to trust them and that they "know what they are doing." Not so. They are unaware of predators that are out there and need you to keep tabs on what they are doing discreetly or blatantly, which ever way works for you.
It is a sensitive area because you don't want to unduly frighten your children. On the other hand, you want them to be aware.
One danger that has become more prominent in recent years is Cyber Safety and Online Sexual Predators. I believe the realistic approach is to simply tell children honestly and quietly that everyone in the world is not like Mommy and Daddy. There are many nice people but there are bad people too. Let then know that everything in life isn't necessarily good. If you aren't careful some bad things can happen. That in any situation you need to use your head and your brains to figure out what to do.
Talk with your children and go through a variety of real-life scenarios. They can be internet and stranger danger scenarios because both would be pertinent to their little lives. Work through the scenario with them and ask them what they should do in each case. For instance if a stranger approaches them in public or if a stranger IM's them in a chat-room what should they do? First ask them what they would do? See if they actually already have an idea of how to handle the situation. I as a technology teacher teach this beginning with Kindergarten. They may have some idea of what to do already or none at all. Give then helpful hints and suggestions on what they can say or do in these instances so a child will know in advance how to find help and how to help themselves and get out of a sticky situation.
I do agree that it is sad that we have to warn our children in this day and age but it is a reality. Too many of our children are abducted, abused, kidnapped or killed. This is reality and we should take the time when we have it to make our children wiser for it. Remember you are not frightening them you are empowering them helping them to make quick decisions in a brief amount of time and become responsible in order to stay out of harms way. Isn't that what we all want ultimately for all of our children?