Sexual predators prowl everywhere it seems. We require them to register and restrict them to living a safe distance from schools but now they are materializing out of thin air—or more appropriately cyberspace.

The internet and the ease of using it has brought the problem into our homes and the homes of our grandchildren. My grandchildren are too young to work my computer on their own. We spend some time playing games and exploring the fun sites provided by Disney, Nick Jr., and other popular children’s networks and shows, but they do it sitting on my lap and with my supervision. There will come a day though when I expect to hear, “Grandma, can I check my e-mail?” or “I have a report due for school. Can I surf for some information?”

According to CyberAngels.com, the statistics are frightening. One out of every 17 minors has been threatened or harassed online. Seventy-seven percent of young people before the age of 14 have made some kind of contact with a predator online and the most frightening: 75% of children online share some sort of personal information over the internet. They readily give out pertinent information to online groups, chat rooms, and forums which can lead a predator to their door.

Building their own online diary or blog as it is called, has become popular with kids and costs nothing. The rise of the popular MySpace.com is an example. The site offers blogs that can be set up like a website with little, if any, control over content. Over 15,000 blogs (up from 5,000 in December 2004) are listed with a variety of topics—most of which I would not even mention here. Already two murders of young people have been traced to connections made at MySpace.

Then there are the chat rooms, sort of a teleconference online, where kids leave themselves open to the prowess of the online predator. If you have watched the Dateline NBC series about the dangers children face online, you know how chilling it can be. Men were showing up at the program’s rented house expecting to meet a young teen boy or girl for sex and were arriving faster than the police could keep up with the arrests. All of them were from online contacts in chat rooms.

While parents have a great responsibility to monitor their children’s use of the computer in their home, unsupervised internet use is no safer in a grandparent’s home. The internet website, CyberAngels.com, makes this comparison, “Dropping [a child] off online is as ill-advised as dropping him off in a mall unsupervised.”

Here are some tips grandparents can use when a grandchild insists upon using their computer:

• Talk with your grandchild about online safety as you would about strangers on the street. Remind them not to share their address or phone number or even the name of their school—anything that would help a predator to locate them.

• Encourage them to share with you the contacts they make online. Get them to show you their favorite chat room or online forum if they have one. Often kids are more open with their grandparents and you may be the one to whom they confide about a chat room experience. Listen well.

• Plan activities for their visit that don’t allow for computer use. A visit with grandparents should be something more exciting than sitting at a computer.

• Password protect your computer.

• Remember it is your computer. You set the rules for its usage.

• If your grandchild has frequent access to your computer, consider buying software that filters out unwanted websites. There are some packages that include spam filters as well as spyware and other virus protection features for a variety of prices.

• Take an interest when a teen begins talking about his blog. Ask to see it. If there’s hesitation, perhaps it’s something that needs to be investigated.

• For those younger kids, try a little fun learning. Disney has a spot called Surf Swell Island. It’s an adventure that is interactive, asking questions along the way that help the child learn to use the internet safely.

It is sad that something like the internet that has such great value and promise can be used in such an evil way. It’s my hope that some understanding and knowledge will help us to keep our grandkids a little safer.