Parents could be clueless about risky online behavior

Don't wait until it's too late to talk to your kid about hazards lurking online. Don't make the mistake of thinking your child is smarter than others online. And don't give them too much privacy - all are risk factors for parents' underestimating risky online behaviors of their children. That's the take-home message from a new study, "Peers, Predators, and Porn: Predicting Parental Underestimation of Children's Risky Online Experiences," published this month in the Journal of Computer-mediated Communication. "Trusting parents can be the last to know when their child is struggling socially online " says Sahara Byrne, a Cornell University associate professor of communication. The confidential survey of 454 parents and their children defined risky online behavior as cyberbullying and other hostile interactions with peers, unwanted solicitations from strangers, and exposure to sexual content. The survey asked how well parents and kids were communicating about risky online activities - as well as unsupervised access to home computers.