There are six types of risks our children face online:

1. They can access information that might be inappropriate for them. This includes pornography, hate, intolerance, bigotry, gore, violence, hoaxes, and misinformation and hype.
   
2. They can access information, do things, and purchase products that might be dangerous to them. There are sites that offer bomb-building recipes, sites that sell guns, alcohol, poisons, tobacco products and drugs, and sites that offer gambling online.
   
3. They can be stalked and harassed by people (often other children) who are rude, insulting, and make threats, or may send them viruses or hack their computers.
   
4. They can give up important and private information by filling out forms and entering contests online, and, as a result, be targeted by irresponsible marketers using unfair marketing techniques.
   
5. They can be scammed or defrauded when they buy things online, and risk disclosing our important financial information to others, like credit card and pin numbers and passwords.
   
6. They can be lured by cyberpredators who want to meet them face-to-face.

If you look over this list, you'll see that all but two of the risks are within our children's control. Except when they stumble inadvertently on certain content, they can avoid information that is either inappropriate or dangerous. They can also refuse to fill out forms and registrations online or make sure the information they provide is okayed by you and is being treated responsibly by the entities that collect it.

Only cyberstalkers, harassers, and cyberpredators are outside of their control. And until someone develops the "Beam me up, Scotty!" technology or ways to shrink our children so they can pass through the modem lines, your child has to agree to meet them, or has to give them information about where they can be found offline, to be really at risk.

This means you need to deal with the fact that your children might be intentionally accessing inappropriate sites, doing dangerous things, and putting themselves at risk. That's the nature of children. (It's especially the nature of teenagers!)

Don't worry, though. You can learn to gain more control over what your children do online. You can help them exercise critical thinking and make informed judgments. But in order for you to be able to educate your children about online risks, you need to learn about them first.