Parents should constantly monitor children’s digital devices

LONDON, Ont. — If you thought your kids were already spending too much time online, just add the COVID-19 pandemic into the mix and that time has increased exponentially as they’ve had to isolate more at home and often alone.

In turn, more “screen time” has translated to more opportunities for online predators, says Charlene Doak-Gebauer, the London, Ont.-based founder and chair of the Canadian charity Internet Sense First.

“Police have said the chatter among predators is talking about how easy it is to access these children because of COVID, because they’re online so much,” said DoakGebauer, a former high school teacher and author of 2019’s “The Internet: Are Children in Charge?”

“And there’s actually a predator handbook online (since COVID), instructing predators on how best to target children and have them do things that they shouldn’t be doing. It used to be that (children) would be out playing and we would make sure they were home and watch the parks. But now they’re stuck on these devices all the time, they’re getting addicted to them, and we have to start catching onto this and supervising digitally.”

Doak-Gebauer, who started Internet Sense First in 2014 after a family member’s fouryear-old daughter was targeted by neighbors and inappropriate photos were shared online, offers the following advice to parents to keep their children safe.

“All social media is suspect. Most social media has live streaming and it doesn’t matter where they are, predators are there.”

“Predators know that children that are on educational games are generally the more sheltered naive child. And they can target a child online. The lonely child will give them what they want, better than they can on the school ground.”