Mark Your Calendars!
Cobb County will be hosting a PENS meeting on August
25th at 7:00 Pm and would like to invite your family and friends to attend. It will be held in the multi-purpose room at Precinct I located at the Superstation on Cobb Parkway. For directions or additional information you can call 770-499-4181 for assistance. Some of the topics we will be discussing are internet safety and crime trends; we look forward to seeing you. 

I hope all of you are enjoying the last few weeks of summer. In this  month’s bulletin we would like to offer some guidelines for teaching safe online  practices to your children. 

The internet offers many advantages such as being a fast and reliable means of communication both locally and around the world. It offers a wealth of information on every topic imaginable right at your fingertips. The internet also offers limitless entertainment and the convenience of shopping right from
your home. 

Unfortunately, there is also a dark side to the internet and as parents we have to educate our children to the unique dangers that have evolved as an unintended consequence of the World Wide Web. By the time kids reach middle school, most of them will be more computer savvy than we as parents can ever
hope to become. But although knowledgeable about search engines and social networking sites, their personal safety skills are still developing which can make them very vulnerable to sexual predators. 

According to the FBI, children online are at the greatest risk during the evening hours. Although offenders are online around the clock, most work during the day and spend their evenings online searching for child pornography or attempting to locate and lure children. Computer-sex offenders almost always
meet potential victims in computer chat rooms. After meeting a child online, they will continue to communicate electronically often via e-mail and may even work up to a face to face visit. 

The FBI — Parent Guide to Internet Safety recommends that you monitor your child's access to all types of live electronic communications such as chat rooms and instant messaging in addition to your child's e-mail account. You can access
additional valuable information by visiting their link including tips to help you recognize if your child has been exposed to an online predator and what steps to take if they have been. 

The following rules for safe internet usage should be taught and frequently reinforced:
1.Never arrange a face-to-face meeting with someone they met
online.
2.Never upload (post) pictures of themselves onto the Internet or
online service to people they do not personally know.
3.Never give out identifying information such as their name, home address, school name, or  telephone number and remember that calling a number provided by someone you met
online can reveal your own number.
4.Never download pictures from an unknown source, as there is a good chance that the pictures could be of a sexually explicit nature
5.Never respond to messages or bulletin board postings that
are suggestive, obscene, belligerent, or harassing.
6.Sexual predators are the best of con artists and can be very convincing to a vulnerable adolescent. 

Remind your child that it is very difficult to verify the validity of
information they are provided and it is simply a chance not worth taking.