By Chantel Rhodes
After an Oct. 2 conference by President George W. Bush addressing the safety of the nation''s children, police in Provo have turned their efforts towards educating parents about the dangers that lurk on the Internet.
Although police in Provo do not receive daily reports about online predators victimizing children, it is a problem, said Richard Dewey a patrolman with the Provo Police Department.
Dewey said predators target children of any age, and parents should be aware of the dangers children face.
At the conference, Bush said, 'Parents need to pay as much attention to their children when they are on the Internet as when they''re at the playground.'
'One of the biggest problems is that parents are kind of na?ve,' Dewey said.
Parents may overlook potential danger or believe their children are not as vulnerable to sexual content online as children who have been victims before.
'There really is no exemption,' Dewey said.
The key to preventing children from getting tangled in a pursuit of online pornography or questionable online relationships, Dewey said, is open, honest communication between parents and their children before problems come up.
Reports of victimization often come through school channels when children are uncomfortable approaching their parents about the subject.
Some parents use Internet filters or impose rules about Internet use, but may overlook the importance of communication as a preventative tool.
Kathleen Speckhard, a BYU graduate, has rules about Internet use for her children who range in age from 1 to 12 years. She recognized the need for precautions even before she encountered sexually oriented Web sites that came up when she helped her son do research on the Internet for a school project.
Her son, Brian, chose to do his animal report on poodles because he has two pet poodles at home. A search for 'poodles' returned not only Web sites with information about the breed, but also brought up sites about prostitutes referred to as 'poodles.'
As a result, the Speckhards began to receive unwanted, sexually oriented e-mail messages with links to pornographic sites.
One of Speckhard''s rules for her children is no personal e-mail accounts. She said some of her daughter''s friends use e-mail, and her daughter asked for it for a while. But Speckhard said she sees no reason for her 12-year-old daughter to use e-mail to contact friends she sees daily.
Parents can become aware of what children are likely to encounter when they surf the Web by joining them, at least for the first few times children log on. Dewey recommends parents go online with their children as they explain what is acceptable and what is not.
'A lot of times, kids will gather at a friend''s house where they can (get online) unsupervised,' Dewey said.
Children who are curious about sex, whose parents may have ignored the subject or given it a shadow of secrecy that piques the children''s curiosity, will seek out information in a setting that is more comfortable for them, Dewey said.
'By ignoring it, it will not go away,' Dewey said.
Speckhard said she does not have rules for her children about using the Internet at friends'' houses because she has frequent communication with parents of her children''s friends.
'If I had that concern, they wouldn''t be going to those friends'' houses,' she said.