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Parents learn tactics to protect children from technological dangers
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Agent encourages adults to step up authority
By Preston Knight -- pknight@nvdaily.com
STRASBURG -- It's hard being a parent, especially when you have to be one.
But until parents start being parents, crimes against children will persist, said Marc Quince, a special agent with the state police. Shenandoah County Public Schools brought him to Strasburg High School on Tuesday night for a parent information meeting on the dangers of the Internet, cell phones and other technology.
"In my house, it wasn't a democracy," Quince said. "It was a monarchy, and I was the king. ... You've got to be parents. The kids don't run the show."
He has two absolute "no-no's" -- allowing children to have a computer that's not in a common area of a house and sleepovers, unless they are at the house of a family member or person you know "100 percent." The former was talked about numerous times for the crowd of about 25 people, perhaps because it's a simple safety practice a parent can take.
"Pay attention to what your kids are doing," Quince said.
And that goes for many aspects of the Internet, from online gaming to file sharing to e-mail, he said. Social networking sites, such as Facebook, also prove to be troublesome because children can be too open about personal information.
Last year, Quince spoke to Stafford County High School, and the night before he was to address the ninth-grade class he created a Facebook page pretending to be a Winchester girl about to move to the area. Within 10 minutes, he befriended a Stafford County girl and gained access to her complete profile, which gave Quince a house number, names of family members and more.
"Too much information about you is out there," he said.
For Gloria Floyd, who has teenage grandchildren, she heeds Quince's advice already and has her home's computer in a common area.
"Once they get on the Internet," she said, "you've got problems."
But cell phones are posing as much, if not more, of a risk as computers since they are capable of doing any number of things, including access the Internet, Quince said. Out of 430 ninth-graders at Stafford County asked by the special agent if they would feel comfortable allowing him to see their cell phones without warning, only four said yes.
"Why those four?" Quince said. "No cameras on the phone."
Merely using a communication device in the commission of manufacturing child pornography carries a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison. That fact stood out to Anna Huff on Tuesday.
"I didn't realize how strict the penalties are," she said.
Huff, the mother of two Strasburg students, gives herself the label of "mean mom" for certain rules she has in her house. But if mean results in a child's safety, it should be considered worth it.
"Kids feel like they are 10 feet tall and bulletproof," Shenandoah County Public Schools Superintendent Keith Rowland said. "They don't see past tomorrow. They think mom and dad will get them out of it. The sad part about it is when they do these things, mom and dad can't get them out of it."
Central High School will host the same meeting Thursday night. The Sheriff's Office will conduct one at Stonewall Jackson High School on Thursday, too. Both meetings start at 6 p.m.
Sounds like something every parent should attend. It might keep them from losing a kid.
A lot of parents are hung up on being a pal to their children. Nope, doesn't work that way. A mom or dad (and preferably both) is reponsible for properly teaching their children how the world works and how to successfully live in it. This takes as much as twenty or more years of keeping your eye on the ball (there's a bit more to children than the seven minutes of pleasure at the begining).
Ours are all of legal age, but the one still at home uses the computer in the dinning room. The wife and I can see the screen as we tromp back and forth between the livingroom and the kitchen. Admitedly, we don't particularly sweat it anymore, but we still occasionally glance at the monitor in passing. My house, my rules (right, Dear?).
If you love them, keep a sharp watch.