Posted on 03/21/2006 4:25:19 PM PST by wagglebee
(AgapePress) - A well-known Internet safety expert says staggering numbers of young people are involved in the dangerous world of cyber-sex -- but most parents are not even aware it's an issue affecting their children.
Eighty-seven percent of more than 2,500 university and college students polled across Canada admit to having virtual sex over Instant Messenger, web cams, or the telephone. The 20-question survey was conducted by Toronto-based CampusKiss.com, an online dating community for students.
Internet safety expert and advocate Donna Rice-Hughes, president of the group Enough Is Enough, says results among American students are no different.
"The majority of kids -- in fact, nine- and ten-[year-old] youths -- have accidentally come across pornography [on the Internet]," says Rice-Hughes. "We're also seeing other studies and surveys that show that some of the largest demographic groups of users of Internet porn and cyber-sex are youth and teenagers."
Rice Hughes says similar numbers are found in the next higher age category -- college students, which she points "are now out of the home and out from under parental supervision."
In addition, says Rice-Hughes, pre-teen girls are especially vulnerable to being solicited sexually through chat rooms and instant messaging. "When they have that kind of exposure to not only pornography and sexual predators online at such an early age," she says, "the boundary issues that have not been set cause problems down the road, where these kids start engaging in these behaviors themselves."
As an example she notes that in statistics provided by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, one of the largest categories of online perpetrators who were soliciting sex from other minors were minor children themselves.
Rice-Hughes is convinced that parental ignorance, lack of parental involvement, and access to porn in chat rooms and via instant messaging all are major factors that increase young people's appetite for engaging in virtual sex.
Yet parents are still unwilling to accept responsibilty.
DISCUSSION ABOUT:
"Absence of Parental Boundaries Key Factor in Cyber-Sex Boom Among Youth"
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But isn't cybersex safe-sex? I thought that's what they were teaching in schools. /sarcasm
They are talking about kids in college,how are parents suppose to know what goes on in the dorms or pry into the lives of adults.
So what's YOUR screenname?
Yep. "Not my kid!" I was one of those. Not anymore.
But the WP and educators think parents are too involved.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1600156/posts
Rice-Hughes is convinced that parental ignorance, lack of parental involvement, and access to porn in chat rooms and via instant messaging all are major factors that increase young people's appetite for engaging in virtual sex.
Really? Tell me more.
Does Ice Cream taste good?
How about smoking? Is it as bad as they say?
Master of the obvious I think.
Cheers.
knewshound
http://www.knewshound.blogspot.com/
If a young person in college (or anywhere) is supported by his parents, the parents have not only a right, but a responsibility to know what he (or she) is up to. If said kid is 18 or over, and doesn't want any parently "interference", then he or she should earn their own keep.
For that matter, it's a losing battle even with middle school kids. There were plenty of Playboys and Penthouses around when I was a young teenager, and that was back when Penthouse was really raunchy too.
Somehow we survived, and so will today's kids.
-ccm
LOL!! I spent many late hours at the computer lab in college (The PC had just been invented at the time) but my relationships were all in the real world!
Was going to ping you to this...
Kids need limits. They crave limits. What about eating dinner at the dinner table with the whole family every evening? Remember that? What about parental permission for going out? What about parents requiring bedtime at a certain time? Knowing the kids' friends' parents?
The media is warping kids bigtime. Toss the TV or at the very least closely monitor what kids see. It's not just X rated stuff that's poison.
You obviously don't have college age adult children. it is not my place to snoop on my 18 yr olds and get into their bedroom practices. Any sex they are having is their business.
Word. At that point, you've either done your job or you haven't. If you're having to snoop into their private lives at 18+ years old, chances are that you haven't done the job.
My opinion differs from yours. My kids are beyond college age.
If a parent is supporting college age kids, they have a perfect right to know what said college age kid is up to. College age kid doesn't like it? They can work and support themselves.
I'm not talking about snooping.
I'm talking about mutual responsibility.
What's your responsibility? I agree with Southern--it's just not your business. At that point, you've either done your job or you haven't.
In many respects, university is a transition from parental supervision to "real life," and without autonomy and the ability to make their own decisions--yes, even bad ones--then they're missing out on an important part of college.
I guess just throw money at them is your position. Well, it's not mine. Especially since most institutions of higher learning are pits of depravity.
No--my position is to teach them my values when they are children and when they grow up, let them cut their own path. When you learn to ride a bike, you fall and scrape some knees.
It's a lot like life. When we're young, we make some mistakes and scrape our metaphorical knees--but it's a learning process and we're all eventually better for it.
Would you accept your kid mutually snooping into your private sex life...? I know I wouldn't. It's a total invasion of privacy and I would not do that to my child once they reach adulthood. My parental control has ended and their life as a capable adult has begun.
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