Most children now chat daily either online or through their mobile phones. They are connecting to a huge number of other children all over the world. Some are shy "in real life" but are confident to communicate with others online; others find support from people of their own age on relationship problems, or problems at home.

Sometimes the online world, just like the real world, can introduce problems, such as cheating or arguments. Going online is great fun, but there are also a few people who use the Internet to do bad things. Children must know that there are both the good things and the dangers on the Internet.

To keep children safe ,your management must cover the family computer. Just as you decide which TV programs are suitable, you need to do the same for the websites and chatrooms your children visit. Remind your children that online friends are still strangers and there are dangers too.

Computer studies are part of schoolwork now, so it's likely that your children may know more than you do. We get left behind when it comes to the interactive areas of websites, like chatrooms and message boards, which are especially strange. The language of chat is strange to many parents, too. Chatters love to use abbreviations (缩写) such as: atb—all the best, bbfn—bye bye for now, cul8er—see you later, gr8—great, Idk—I don't know, imbl—it must be love, kit—keep in touch, paw—parents are watching, lol—laugh out loud, xlnt—excellent!

It seems like another language, and it is!

The Ministry of Public Security has exposed a video that sparked a nationwide search after it was universally viewed on social media.

The video, describing homework booklets supposedly lost by a Chinese first grader in Paris, was revealed to be a carefully crafted play for online attention. The local ministry also presented details of 10 relevant highly-concerned cases, highlighting the Paris homework incident as a typical example.

The video was uploaded in February by a blogger surnamed Xu, from Zhejiang province. It showed a Parisian restaurant worker supposedly returning homework found in a restroom. The video said the homework belonged to Qin Lang from Class Eight, without specifying the school. That sparked a social media craze, with many netizens attempting to locate the child.

However, the narrative quickly unfolded. A user claiming to be Qin Lang’s uncle appeared in the comments section. Following investigations revealed the person making the comment, a person surnamed Yang from Jiangsu province, was another participant in the play to gain online attention and was not related to Xu.

Further investigation by authorities exposed the entire act. Police discovered that Xu, along with her company director scripted the video, purchased a homework booklet online and staged the entire scene.

Facing administrative punishments and demands for public apologies, Xu admitted her initial lack of “legal awareness” but expressed regret for the widespread attention and disturbance caused by the video. Her social media accounts, with millions of followers across many platforms, have been canceled.

In December, the ministry launched a nationwide campaign against online rumors, targeting individuals who spread rumors, fake news or utilize trending topics for personal gain. Law enforcement authorities will increasingly monitor major social media, live-streaming and short video platforms to identify and address malicious(恶意的) online activity.

When Lenore Skenazy let her 9-year-old son take the New York subway home by himself 10 years ago, you would have thought that she’d carried out a crime. Now Skenazy started the movement Free Range (放养的) Kids to bring up safe and independent children. Just this month, Utah became a free range state, changing its law to protect parents from being charged with neglect (疏忽)for letting their kids walk alone, or wait in a car for an adult.

Skenazy argues that the risks of giving children some freedom are exaggerated (夸大). Skenazy’s mother used to send her outside at 5 to walk to school. That was just normal back then. And suddenly we hear stories about parents getting punished for letting their 10-year-old son play outside.

We get so used to not knowing our neighbors, not letting our kids walk to school, or play outside, that nowadays, the kids are either in a car or in the backyard, and they don’t get to know the neighborhood. In fact, the world has become safer. We have the technologies to keep track of almost everything our kids do. And so you think you must control them, and you think your child is something that has to be tracked like a package.

The famous case for many parents was the Etan Patz case in New York in 1979. Patz’s parents gave him permission for the first time to walk to the bus stop nearby. He was killed. The story is so terrible that we remember it two generations later. And we don’t allow our kids to walk alone because of one terrible thing that happened 39 years ago. But we don’t say, “I want to drive you to the dentist, but what if we get in a car accident? Think of those people who died in a car accident 39 years ago. I don’t want to be like them. No, we’re not going.” And we recognize that it would be funny to think that way.