Internet Usage by Children

[Boe]

I suppose that this has probably been brought up elsewhere - but I was disgusted to see that the young girl who went missing with the Marine was spanding 12 hours a day on the PC - can someone tell me how she accomplished this and when she actually went to school???

What did you guys think of the whole thing - not sure I would let my daughter use the internet unsupervised after reading all about this and now there is the other girl that has also run off!!

What do you guys think about it???

Ah, but you see, her parents limited her to 5 hours/day on school days.

I think Studabaker was very very thick not to figure out she was a 12yo girl (but then, he was a marine...).

How can her parents be so happy to see her? I'd be livid.

Better in teenager topic: are 12yr olds really that uncontrollable????

But say she gets home about 4pm - that is still until 9pm and she needs to eat and to socialise withher family and at some point get some exercise??

I would kil her - think she obviously knew what she was doing and probably what trouble she could get into - if she didn't her parents want to be given a good talking to.

The press coverage has obviously haad some effect I have just been refused acccess to the active conversation board by CyberPatrol because it involves chat!

Seriously it is my responsibilty to check the new restrictions my boys so far have shown no interest in chat rooms although they do occaisionally use the net for games etc but the recent events have enabled us to have saome fairly deep discussions about what happened ,my 9 year old put it well I think when he asked why she wasn't doing things with her real friends.

Zebra, Studabaker might have very well realised that she was only 12. That might have been what he was interested in.

I she had been my daughter I would have first wanted to give her a huge hug and then a damn good talking to. And I wouldn't type what I would have wanted to do to him.

She was amazingly foolish to do what she did. But she is still a child. You have to wonder at the degree of supervision her parents had over her.

My DS is only 2 so I haven't yet had to worry about this issue but when we stayed with friends in the States I was impressed in that the family computer (only one in the household) was in a fairly accessible place, downstairs 'open-plan' study and they stated that they did not let their boys (15 & 13) have the password to the internet so they could only use it under parental supervision.

I thought this was a very good idea but how realistic is it do you think? Obviously depends on having enough space - I would be interested in hearing what parents of teenages think of this idea.

I know there are parental controls on the internet but it seems that many kids are so bright they can 'over-ride' them.

old shevaun had hers in the kitchen and that made no difference. I think kids are more at risk crossing the road and this is the exception really.

My children are 6 and 3 but we have already put perental controls on the computer and have it in the study, a shared family room. I don't intend to let them have a computer in their own rooms, and would encorage them to see the computer as something that we share and use as a family. Not sure how well this will work as they get older!

More to the point, she was going into manchester for the day with pals while her mum went to work, is that usual for a 12 year old?

I think quite a few 12yos here are beginning to go into town for the day.

When I was 12 (okay it's a while ago now!) we would go into town as a group and meet up on a Saturday morning. I went to school in town anyway and although there was a school bus, if I missed it for any reason, I had to walk to town to get a proper bus. And the school was situated on the edge of the local red-light district. Mind you there are way too many druggies round there now and I wouldn't want DD walking round some of the places we did as teens. Especially since Notts apparently has the highest crime per capita in the country now

Boe I think it is terrible.In the paper yesteday it was reported Shevaun apparently went out at 7.30 in the morning and they reported her missing at 11.45pm. I dont believe everything the papers say but the news said it too.
Also they have reported that studabaker indecently assaulted a 12 yo but the police or fbi could not let this info out until Shevaun was safe and well.

Exactly - I was quite surprised that they would let a child sit in front of a PC for 5 hours and I do not know how far away Manchester is from where they live but I think letting kids go shopping at 12 is a bit young - maybe things have changed since I was a kid but I thought parents were stricter these days - I know I would be.

Studebaker seemed to be a real git though - is amasing how many of these hole out in the army for a while and then come to light. Was a programme on the other week about atrocities commited by squarddies posted to Cyprus and I was astounded that the people we have fighting for 'Queen and Country'. Just thought there would be some way of checking that they were not loonies before they were drafted.

Re net access for kids

I am stepmum to 2 boys of 9 and 11. Both boys have a pc in their rooms. One is not connected to the web, the other is (it's the family pc too).

Each family member has their own passworded 'profile' which appears on startup, we haven't put internet access on any of the kids profiles but it is on ours. The boys can only access the net if they use our profile (we type in the password without them looking), and they are supervised (we have had our eldest bringing up Playboy.com unsupervised ). It makes sense to give them their own profiles as that way they are only able to view their own files and also you as the parent and system administrator can control what they have access to.

Peronally I think that 5 hours a day is a LOT of pc/internet time for a 12 year old girl and I think that the parents should have been more vigilant. Of course I accept that you can't watch your kids 24/7 but I feel that they could have done more to protect their daughter.

I don't let my kids use chat rooms at all. If they want to lok at a new site they ahev to let me check it, and if they want to use google for a search I do it, just in case it throws any dubious links up. The pc is in my bedroom, and they have to ask before they go on it, with me or dh popping in and out, and the door is always open so noone opens it onto ds2. They never spend more than an hour on it, and usually only want to use it when they can't play outside.

I think the young girl was spending too long online, but I am more concerned about why a 12 year old felt to need to look for this sort of attention from a stranger in the first place, and was allowed such an intense email relationship (allegedly) for a year prior to their meeting. Haven't the police said they have proof that Studebaker , at first believing her to be 19, then discovered her real age long before they met up, as well as finding the underage porn sites on his computer? He's definitely not the innocent he proclaims imo. They both seem to have some huge problems, needing to be dealt with asap.

Boe there are nutters in the army, but the vast majority of servace men and women are perfectly ordinary people. My dh is in the RAF and I can assure you he has never been in a fight in his life. He had extensive psychiatric evaluations before he was given his job. I know hundrads of people who work in the RAF and they have all been decent, honourable men and women.

Shevaun must of been so unhappy to go away to another country with a man she had never met.
IMO these beasts that prey on our children using the internet for their sick abhorrant fantasies deserve to stand in front of a group of mums to sort him right out.
AArrgghh they knock me sick.

The trouble with 12 year old girls is that they think that they can handle more than they are able (I should know, I was one once ). I suspect this girl, who probably has hormones etc raging, got herself in too deep. Thought that it was 'cool' to be talking to an older and exotic (foreign) man, told her friends who were probably jealous and agreed that she was cool and so spurred her on. I have no idea what he was thinking (I dread to think) but I can see it from her side.

According to the press studabaker hoarded child porn.

According to this he was previously accused of molesting his 12 year old niece.

Wickedstepmother, I think that you are 100% correct. At that age the hormones are raging and girls are driven to 'try out' their 'mature' status. The trouble is that nowerdays girls have enough freedom and knowledge to get themselves in a lot of trouble while lacking the streetwise knowlege to cope with it. When I was 12 it was 1974. My adolecent longings were satisfied by impossible dreams of being swept off my feet by David Cassidy! Girls today find themselves being pushed into sexual behavior before they are ready, in no small part driven to it by the media portrail of what it means to be a young woman.

Lindy: DH & I have agreed that we would prefer no personal PCs in rooms, only public access areas in our house. I work at home, so don't want my workspace in my sleep-space. And it's just plain safer for the kids, too.

I don't think 12yo is that young to go shopping by oneself; I used to go for long walks by myself (well, with the dog) from 9yo. To shops. Wherever.

I am 95% inclined to believe that Studabaker isn't an active pedophile, just very dim. If he was spending lots time surfing 'Net for porn, he probably came across some child-porn. I've had a lot of unsolicited porn emails myself. I try not to look at it, but wouldn't surprise me if some if it is of kids. And I have never surfed at all for porn.

True pedaephile's are unrepetent; they don't deny they like children, they deny there's anything wrong with wanting sex with kids. They will fervently argue that children are equal sexual beings (sickos). in contrast, Studabaker is said to be very alarmed by what's happened. If he didn't think he was innocent, he wouldn't be so cooperative, phoning the FBI, not fighting extradition, etc. I guess he could be in denial, but he still comes across as naiive, not malicious (kind of like Shevaun...).

Shevaun must be some headstrong kid.

Completely understand what you are saying about your husband Hmb and was not meant as a slight on all British Army personnel - just was amazed that these sort of things went on and also in the US army.

I don't know if you saw the prigramme but it was shocking but as in all walks of life I am sure the majority are fine and wonderful human beings.

wickedstepmother, I don't know which ISP you use, but with AOL an internet id can be age-related and young ones are not allowed access to, eg, Playboy.

If yours is the same you could give them each their own "kids" ids but still log in for them and not let them know the password.

Agree that 5 hours a day (never mind 11 or 12) is a ludicrous amount of time for a 12 year old but it sounds as if her parents are not very clued up on computers and even though the PC was in the kitchen, if she sat in a corner with her back to the wall they would not see what she was doing.

The argument that she must have been unhappy at home to be looking elsewhere is one that Toby Studabaker is using himself...

Have you noticed how the internet is being blamed for all this trouble? Just like movies are being blamed for violence in children, computer games and so on. Well who lets them watch all this stuff? I have a friend who has a 10yo son and a 2 yo son, the 10yo plays violent computer games most of the time, whilst the 3yo watches. She has bought computer games aimed at toddlers, and then moans when her 3yo spends sunny afternoons playing on them!

I really think that communication between parents and children is being lost. Parents are all too happy to let the computer act as babysitter for them, and who can blame the teenagers for visiting chatrooms when they have no social contact at home? You can make the internet as safe as you like, but you can never change the parents.

My kids have a pc in their room but dh has fixed a home page for them that only allows them to access the sites that he has added links for. He has removed the address bar so that they can't type in any other url's. No doubt in time they will fiddle until they find a way around this and we will have to rethink our method of control. Any recommendations for a good net nanny program would be welcomed.

On the age/responsibility thing, I was horrified to hear that a 7 year old at my ds's birthday party had a copy of Vice City for his play station and it was his favourite game. Who lets a child of that age play at murdering people and prostitution? I expressed my concerns to a friend a few days later and she also lets her 11 year old son play the same game ("oh he loves knocking people down but he knows its just a game" ) and she had let my DS1 (10) play when he visited too!

Some years ago I witnessed a neighbour's dd (age around 10) sexually abusing a toddler, she knew what she was saying and doing and it made me feel sick. Children of that age don't even know about the things she was saying unless they have been exposed to it either on tv or within the family. A couple of years later the girls younger brother was raped (age 6) yet his mother still allowed him to roam the streets until after 9pm on the day it happened - even though they had spent hours with the police.

I think that caring parents make it their business to know what their children are doing and who they are with. I know that we can't wrap them up in cotton wool and they can be tricked by evil monsters, but if we educate the child, earn their respect and set a few guidelines maybe we can stand a better chance of keeping them safe.