Teenagers tell it best

"Sandra," a 16-year-old in the UK, tells her own story at CBBC (BBC for kids) of how she and a friend almost met at McDonald's with a "19-year-old" man they'd gotten to know in a chatrrom. Because it was just a lark, and the two girls were together, they felt bold and agreed to meet with the man the minute he suggested it - after an hour a day of chatting over several days. It turned out there were two men waiting at McDonald's, both looking more like 40-somethings than teenagers, but the girls were smart and... I'll let Sandra tell the rest here. An American girl's experience that didn't have as happy an ending is "Amy's Story," told in audio rather than written form, in the Teens section of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children's NetSmartz site. These stories beg some questions that the WebSafeCrackerz.com (for young teens) answers - e.g., how you see people online and how they see you, how to set boundaries, how people manipulate others in chat or instant-messaging, etc. (see "World Wide Weirdos" and the ASL Files in the BlahBlahBlah.com section of the site). For parents, there's some level-headed advice on instant-messaging from a father of six in the 1/9 issue of my newsletter.