These days, predators have incredibly easy access to millions of children through the internet. From online chat rooms to social media, they essentially have access to as many potential victims as time allows. With so much time, it’s easy to see how skilled the could get at manipulating children into doing whatever they want.
Such is the case in this story where a 21 year old man met a 12 year old girl through social media. After telling him where she lives, he traveled to her house in Oregon and hid in her closet and under her bed for a month, performing and recording sexual acts with her during that time. What’s even more disturbing is the fact that a judge released this man to be supervised but free until his trial.
The details surrounding this case seem to suggest that the child was complicit the entire time. This is a haunting reminder of just how manipulative online predators can be. Parents need to ensure they speak with their kids about online predators and keep a close watch over who they interact with on social media. To learn more about online predators and how to talk to your children about them, read our other blog post here.
Parents should consider using parental control apps such as MMGuardian to help protect their children. After installing MMGuardian on their child’s phone, parents will be able to view their child’s messages on major social media and messaging apps, get comprehensive reports about their internet activity, and receive priority alerts whenever there’s a message that is indicative of cyberbullying, sexual exploitation, violence, suicide, or other forms of risks, and alerts for inappropriate pictures stored on the phone – all of this from the parent’s own phone via the MMGuardian parent app. Parents will also have access to an extensive set of other controls such as contact blocking, phone locking, app blocking, and much more.
To get started with MMGuardian and receive a 14-day free trial, click here.
Consider also joining our Facebook group “Tech-Savvy Parenting” to discuss raising kids in the 21st century with other parents.
