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SALT LAKE CITY — “It’s not a matter of if a predator is going to contact your kids,” says Stephanie Ashcraft, “It’s a matter of when.”
Ashcraft, a mother of five, says she learned that lesson when predators messaged her teens on Facebook. One even posed as her daughter’s friend.
“It threw her off guard,” recounted Ashcraft. “It was actually a predator that had set up a bogus account and used her friend’s Facebook picture.”
Ashcraft says her daughter asked the impostor a security question only her friend would know.
“We talked enough with our kids and told them how they work, and what the predators do,” Ashcraft said. “So when those messages came through, both kids recognized it and said, ‘Mom, you’ve got to come and see this!’”
Social media, message boards, or texting are hunting grounds for online predators.
“They’re out there and they know exactly where to find the kids,” said Josie Angerhofer, a regional director for Utah NetSmartz.
Angerhofer visits schools and talks to kids about online dangers and how children of any age are targets for predators.
“They say things like, ‘Hey, I like the same things you do!’ They’ll try to pull them away from friends by saying, ‘They really don’t care about you.’ Or, ‘they won’t let you go to that party.'”
The grooming may go on for days — even months.
“I call them master manipulators because they’re extremely good at twisting things,” Angerhofer said. “They try to win that trust, try to get them (children) away from parents and guardians and then they’ll try to get them to send inappropriate pictures.”
Smartphones already come equipped with tools that can protect your child immediately.
First, you can limit who sees your child’s location in an iPhone by clicking the Settings icon, clicking Restrictions and then Location Services. This allows you to shut off the geolocation for each app.
Second, use the phone’s parental controls.
“In both Android and Apple, you can set parental controls so they can’t access certain things,” Angerhofer said. Those certain things including restricting purchases, blocking apps and stop kids from changing privacy settings. You’ll find an iPhone’s parental controls, like Location Services, in the Restrictions tab.
And the third tip, download a monitoring app.
Stephanie Ashcraft uses MM Guardian on her family’s phones.
“You see the messages all the kids are receiving,” she said. “All their apps, how many apps they’ve added. All their communication, how many minutes they’re using. All of that comes to your phone directly. You can track what they’re doing and see what they’re doing.”
Ashcraft says her kids can still make decisions, but she has enough oversight to spot trouble.
