Do you know what your children are doing online? Whom are they chatting with in chat rooms and in instant messages? Where do they surf on the internet? Are they coming across inappropriate sites from simple searches like Barbie, hot dog, and even doing a school project about the local damage beavers are causing with the damming behavior?

Do you supervise your child when he or she is online? Are your children unsupervised while surfing the World Wide Web alone in a bedroom, or when no one is home? If a child is allowed unlimited access to the internet and the parent does not teach him or her what is out there he or she will find the dark side without your help.

What is the dark side of the internet you ask? The dark side is the seedy adult side that harbors pornography, sexual exploitation, violence, and drugs. Almost anything, you would not want your child to access alone. The worse part of the dark side is not what is there but whom is there looking for a young child to exploit. Pedophiles have a new weapon and it is not a knife or gun. The internet provides a pedophile with many wide open doors to the bedroom, homes, and lives of children and families who are naive enough to feel safe in cyberspace.

If your child does not use the computer in a centrally localized visible location at home, then she may be doing things you would never believe could happen. Many teens will expose themselves online for money deposited directly into a PayPal account. After all, it is just someone looking at a body right. Why not make a little money or flaunt it if you have it? Unbelievably this is not just the girls who are willing to show some booty for some money, boys are also willing to get naked in from of the web cam.

The activity and information teens are providing on social networks like Face book and My Space is simply frightening. What teens need to know is that future employers are looking at people’s online activity and making decisions on whether to hire someone or pass them over. What you place out on the internet, even in email, is visible to people who know where to look for this behavior.
Pedophiles search chat rooms and social networking profiles daily for their next victim and when he or she logs on to a local chat room, the pedophile is usually already waiting for them in the room.

Check what children are saying, whom they are talking to, and where they are surfing by using computer-monitoring software like eBlaster by Spectra Soft. The small financial cost initially to purchase the software is priceless if you find information your child is communicating with a pedophile, or sending or receiving inappropriate emails or instant messages.

eBlaster once set up in stealth mode is not detectable and sends emails to the person monitoring the computer regarding all activity. The best part is the parent can log on to the account on a different computer and block inappropriate sites and people contacting your child.

It is easy to set up in less than 5 minutes and provides a true sense of security that your children are not placing themselves in danger. I have used this for just a week and I am amazed at the reports provided which include times logged in and out, websites visited, and keystrokes.

Do you use anything similar on your home computer to monitor a child? If so then please post to the Missing and Exploited Child free forum after reading this story about your experience.