Kids love the Internet. There has never been a time in their lives when the World Wide Web has not been out there just waiting to provide information on any topic in the known universe.

But danger awaits kids on-line, in the form of a cyber predator who relishes the idea that your teen or preteen isn’t wise to his methodology, and isn’t supervised. That predator is looking for a chink in your kid’s cyber armor. It’s up to every parent, guardian and care giver to wrap digital steel around their kids. Here are some layers of protection you can employ:

• Any computer to be used by a kid should be located centrally in the house. Privacy is a predator’s best friend. If he can access your child with-out your knowledge, he has achieved an enormous strategic advantage toward gaining access to him or her in person. Do not allow your kid unsupervised web access or password protected areas of the computer. His privacy is secondary to his safety. He must assume that he will always be checked up on and vigorously. In turn he will be less bold experimenting in areas of potential harm.

• Email is only part of the problem. Another real danger to your cyber kid lies in cyber chatting, as in IRC or AOL chat rooms). Even more dangerous, because of the increased privacy factor, is the Instant Message network. This is more personal, more instantaneous and leaves less tracks. Review your child’s "Buddy List" periodically and ask for an explanation as to who each individual is. On-line friends who have no analog presence in your kid’s life should set off a red flag. If your kid lives in Pensacola and "Barney" lives in St. Paul, you will want to know more and now.

• Contacting your cyber kid is easy. Predators are where kids are and they are highly socialized in finding the buttons that work for your kid. Universally kids are curious and friendly. They respond instantly to attention.

Educate your on-line youth to the telltale signs of a predator at work.

• He’s interested in what your kid likes and has access to just such things.

• He speaks your kid’s language, knows how he feels and has a blueprint of the nuts and bolts of his life. He will come off sympathetic to your kid’s "troubles" and often will offer solutions.

• When he goes from digital to analog contact, your kid is in real danger. He will probe for any willingness to go "real time" and if encouraged, will take it to the next level. Drill your kids on the importance of *never* giving out your home address, home or work telephone numbers, or the name and location of their school. Discourage the revelation of personal details to unknown parties. Remove computer privileges immediately upon discovery that this rule has been broken.

• Email is wonderful and cool to a kid, and a powerful modern communications tool. But it can be a sword as well, headed for your kid’s armor. Children should never be allowed to send or e-mail their photograph to someone they do not know. It is that easy to replace the face on a photo of an abused child with your kid’s, that his whole life could change in an instant for very much the worse

• Don’t allow your children to meet with anyone they met on-line unless it is in a public place and a parent or guardian is present. Let there be no deviation to this rule no matter how loud the cry to the contrary. A kid can go from mall to missing in just a little under sixty seconds. Even "good" teens can be lured astray by a person who knows what makes their wagon roll.

• Set rules for your children’s Internet use: Time of day and length of time to be on-line. Appropriate sites to visit. Frankly discuss age appropriate details with him as to who the bad guys are and what they want. Don’t procrastinate. A moment of parental shyness can create a lifetime of trauma recovery on the part of your kid.

Tragedy can be averted through aggressive vigilance. The Internet is a reality for your kid and he accesses it at school, the library and at friends’ houses. Properly preparing him for the moment when he will be approached can be a life and death thing.

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Visit http://www.protectkids.com/