Do you know where your teens are surfing?

Via WizBang, here are links to two disturbing stories:

"How An Awkward Boy Joined A Sordid Online World" (Sydney Morning Herald/NYT)
"One Third Of Teens Have Talked With Strangers Online About Meeting In Person" (survey from the Polly Klaas Foundation/US Newswire)

If you have teenagers, and they use personal computers in the privacy of their own rooms, or if they engage in unsupervised computer use at their friends' houses, then you should have them read these stories. Their lives may depend on it.  Then you should take away their unsupervised Internet access.  I'm not joking.  Put the computer in a common area of the house, and limit its use to hours when the family is awake and you can monitor what they are doing online.

If you can stomach more, read this post from Christian blogger Dawn Eden.  Dawn has been a thorn in Planned Parenthood's side for some time now.  And one of her biggest aggravations with PP is their Teenwire website, designed to give teens as young as 13 explicit sexual advice.  One of the most disturbing aspects of Teenwire is that they frequently suggest to teenagers that they can "hook up" with other teens (and potential sex partners) through online chat rooms and bulletin boards.  The previous two stories linked in this post should illustrate, beyond a scintilla of a doubt, just how wreckless and irresponsible, no - just plain stupid, this advice is.