We know for the fact that these days, it is important for parents to educate themselves on what kids are doing on the web and to monitor their activity. According to the institution of pediatrics, children of all ages should be supervised on the Internet but it’s especially important to talk to your older children about the dangers of sharing personal information on the web, and about the ways in which they represent themselves online.

In fact, studies have found that 1 in 5 adolescents have been solicited over the Internet. And, a new study in the June edition of Pediatrics found that the more provocative an adolescent girl’s self-presentation online, the greater the chance she will be solicited. Many social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook allow members to post pictures and brief descriptions of themselves. Some sites allow them to create avatars, custom virtual identities in cartoon form.

Parents should talk to their teens about their online personas and explain the impact of their chosen representations. Even the cartoon avatars can be provocative. Adolescents are easy victims for Internet predators because they don’t always have the social sophistication to recognize when they are being targeted, or to handle the situation appropriately.

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