## Real Life Stories
Overexposed!
While playing on a Sony PlayStation, a 9-year-old boy became involved in a chat conversation with another opponent. The opponent began chatting with the boy in a sexual manner and sent the child sexually graphic pictures.
What does this mean?
Sexual offenders may target online games that have chat rooms including interactive online games and video games played on consoles with access to the Internet. They also use three-dimensional animated characters, referred to as "avatars," to engage children and youth in online conversations.
What can I do?
- Remind students that the Internet is a public place.
- Teach students about what is meant by personal information and where on the Internet they may be asked for it.
- Create and post Internet guidelines in the classroom that are discussed regularly.
- Explain to students that pictures should not be sent or posted online without parental permission. Once sent, control over what happens to the picture is lost.
- Reinforce the idea to students that not everyone is who they say they are online. People can pretend to be older or younger than they actually are.
- Explain to students that they should trust their instincts and block someone who asks questions online that seem ‘weird’ (questions about puberty, sex, etc.).
- Talk to students about friendship: what it is and isn’t.
- Explain to students that online chatting needs to be adult-supervised.
- Ensure students have a safe adult in their lives that they can talk to.
- Check out our Popular Activities section for more information on technologies being used by children and how to make them safer, and our Healthy Friendships and Unhealthy Friendships sections to learn more about how to speak to children about who are real, true friends both online and offline.