How many parents today are oblivious to their childrens online lives? With all the recent report from Dateline where 50+ guys show up to meet underage boys/girls to online privacy & internet stalking parents have to educate themselves about the online world parents are paying attention to the dangers. I believe the Internet offers so many wonderful things but there are dangers for those who don’t have the knowledge to stay safe.

And over the past few weeks my friends are asking me to teach them about how they can learn more about the Internet so they can visit the same sites their children are visiting. The main site where kids hang out today it called, MySpace.com. And one thing parents should realize though is this isn’t a site restricted to teenagers, there are people on this site from all age groups so I would encourage all parents to sign-up for their free account. View their child’s “page” to see what’s going on, I mean this is a public site, you are not invading their privacy. You’re not opening up the top drawer in their bedroom and pulling out their personal journal. This is a public site where everyone can see/view/read their online journals, view their pictures etc.

As parents we know our child’s friends, or at least we attempt to meet them and their parents. So why wouldn’t you want to learn about the kinds of people your child is hanging out with online. This is more important than you’ll ever know because the Internet is not going away. But knowledge is power, communicating with your children on these things is as important.

As a result of my recent conversations and support of my friends I’ve started a site called, “OnlineParentPatrol.com”. I’ve done a bit of research about what is out there but found most sites are informational. But what I wanted to do was empower parents to get online, visit the sites, learn the lingo, and participate with their kids. I mean the criminals are out there — so you should also be there to look out for the kids. For example, they say it takes a village to raise a child, well it the OnlineParentPatrol will contribute to keeping them safe online.

This is not only a site where you can get information about the Internet but also acts a community of online adults/parents who want to patrol and visit the online/virtual spaces our children are visiting.

As I said before this site was started after giving advice and help to my friends who have teenagers online because being online is second nature to me — I know the ins and outs of the technology and have some experience with teenagers online since my son’s been online for about 4 years.

So tell all your friends, contribute to the site, and lets start building our community of concerned parents and adults.