CNN: Parents beware - cell phones are a main way that sexual predators access kids

Parent Cafe
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<p>From cnn.com:
Before cell phones, laptops and Sidekicks – a BlackBerry-like device for the younger, hipper crowd – someone might have noticed that a teacher was “grooming” a child, or being way too attentive, too often.</p>

<p>Not anymore.</p>

<p>Now, teachers have weeks, months and years to secretly undermine a child’s parents and get a student to go along with sexual contact.</p>

<p>“The fact is a teacher can show absolutely zero outward signs of interest in a child, but because of technology, they can have an ongoing relationship and no one would know,” said Ted Thompson, the executive director for the National Association to Prevent Sexual Abuse of Children.</p>

<p>Parents know chat rooms are dangerous. They warn their kids about the risk, but they give cell phones a nod.</p>

<p>A New York mom, who requested anonymity because her kids don’t know about her surveillance, said she uses software to regularly check her children’s e-mail and online activity on the home computer.</p>

<p>But she also gave her kids cell phones that have texting and photographic capability. Asked why she doesn’t scrutinize the phone the same way she snoops on the computer, she said. “I hadn’t really thought about it much.”</p>

<p>Detective Joshua Shelton, who works in the crimes against women and children’s unit in Fayette County, Georgia, says most parents are like that. He’s investigating a case in which a teacher allegedly sent a message to a 14-year-old student’s cell phone requesting a nude picture of her.</p>

<p>“Parents don’t have the involvement that they should with these electronic devices,” Shelton said. “Parents should consider cell phones that have Internet access like a window open into their house, because that’s exactly what these people are using it as.”
[Cells</a>, texting give predators secret path to kids - CNN.com](<a href=“http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/01/11/teachers.charged/index.html]Cells”>Cells, texting give predators secret path to kids - CNN.com)</p>

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<p>Parents don’t read their phone bills closely enough to know who is calling the kids’ cell phones? Amazing.</p>

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<p>Seems in the past, there were predators and there was no trail to follow, and there were probally as many approaches as there are now, but today, there is a way to track a person, because they are dumb enough to leave evidence…so the cell phone can actually protect a child if you ask me…I would much rather my teen have a phone than to not have a phone</p>

<p>i find the article skewed…is it implying that people in the pre-cell phone era always spotted the “grooming” because if so, that is sadly not the case at all</p>

<p>blaming cell phones is ludicrous- predators have always been there and they have always found ways- and its the dumb ones that use anything that leaves a trail, its the smart ones that don’t leave breadcrumbs</p>

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<p>I must say that the one drawback I found to having my kids get their own cell phones was that I no longer knew who was calling them and at what hours. Sure, I could read their bills when they came, but that only gave a number. Before, I answered the phone and they asked to speak to one of the boys. Which is why they didn’t get one until they were 16.</p>

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<p>My kids had cell phones in middle school- having a way to contact them in an emergency, etc was worth the slight risk, and it is slight of a predator contacting them via phone…but there was a greater risk of me getting a flat tire, etc</p>

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<p>I always check the phone bill, and if there were a pattern of calls from an unfamiliar number made at odd hours of the night, I’d be alarmed. Texting is the main way teens communicate via cell phones. But text messages do not show up on the bill, so there is no way to know who texts whom and when. So the suggestion to “check the bill” is pretty much useless.</p>

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<p>The text message doesn’t show up, but the number that sent or received the message does. And at what time.</p>

<p>I wasn’t really worried about predators, but I liked knowing who the kids were talking to and at what time. I also liked the rule about no phone calls after 10 o’clock. Hard to enforce with cell phones. And actually, mine are old enough that having cell phones in middle school was not really an option.</p>

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<p>May be so, and 9/10 times the phone is helpful, but it’s still horrible when your kid ends up in the 1/10 freak occurrence when something like what is in this article actually happens!</p>