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What Are You Doing in There?
Privacy Issues and Preteens
By Kelly Burgess
"Just because a child has a mature body doesn't mean they don't still need guidance in making moral and rational decisions," says Nixon. "You can be their friend in a later chapter of their life when they don't need you as much to be there as a hands-on parent."
Another issue relating to privacy that Nixon and Sagarese are passionate about is teaching children to protect their own privacy. Both point out that this is the first generation of children raised where the Internet was a constant presence in the home. Unfortunately, there are people in the world who have figured out how to use that presence to track our children.
Nixon insists that the family computer be located in a central location so that she can always glance over and see what her daughter is up to. She has also taught her daughter to be alert for suspicious e-mails with odd subject lines and to never, ever give anyone her address for any reason.
In her chapter on the Internet in What Are You Doing In There?, Sagarese goes further, giving some excellent suggestions on how youngsters can protect themselves while chatting with people they may not know. This includes avoiding screen names that are either suggestive or may give clues to a child's age or interests (she uses as an example the name soccerboy13, which was used by police officers tracking cyber predators who found that it attracted unpleasant online advances).