Around the dinner table last night, our 13-year-old daughter told us about a program on Internet safety she'd attended at school.
It was led by a teacher who gave them the basics, and then a police officer who filled in the specifics. I'm sure whatever the teacher said is in my daughter's head somewhere, but she had lots of details about the police officer's portion of the talk.
"He said there was a 15-year-old girl who thought she was talking to another kid online but it turned out to be a 52-year-old man," my daughter recounted. "After she told on him, the man told her that he was going to track her down and kill her."
She then went on to say that the man was caught and brought to justice, currently serving 26 years in prison for whatever went on.
My husband and I were stuck on "track her down and kill her." We don't doubt that the predator said that or that it's important for kids to hear it. Still, it was jarring.
At this age, it's especially vital for kids to learn how they can become victims online. And if telling them that it might get them killed is the best way to make a case, then I guess I'm all for it.
You teach your kids about "stranger danger" starting at the younger ages, but moving it online gives it a new twist. Take the potential pool of strangers (AKA just about the whole world) and throw in this twist -- some of these people you don't know at all also are pretending to be someone that they're not.
And kids just reaching the point of realizing that there might be people in the world with less-than-honorable intentions now have to figure out what might be a multi-layered strategy to lure them in and trick them. Sad, but true.
The police officer's words might have been a little raw, but it seems they did the job. I hope many, many more kids hear them.
