Harlan Coben on Teen Safety

It's not often that a popular fiction book, a thriller, deals with the thorny issue of parental responsibilities during their charges' teenage years. Harlan Coben, a New York Times bestselling author, has recently produced two such novels: Hold Tight and Caught.

Hold Tight delves into the delicate dilemma of "should you spy on your teen's Internet activities". Caught asks whether it's OK for teens to consume alcohol at home when it's against the law: if your child will go out and drink anyway, is it better for a parent to provide a safe haven of a beer keg at home.

Creative Learning doesn't have the answers to those questions, that's something every parent has to decide for themselves, having the full knowledge of their child.

What Creative Learning can do, however, is supplement your knowledge. Is your child likely to sneak out at night and go to a party, then accept a drive home from somebody who'd been drinking?

If their Learning Style has preferences in these areas:

• learning with peers
• noise
• kinesthetic input
• intake
• external motivation
• evening

as well as a non-preference in the following areas:

• responsibility
• conformity
• routine

chances are, they may be a little more unruly than is safe for them.

What is your teen's Learning Style. Find out today.

Teenage chats: the ackronyms (part 1)

Even if you monitor your teen's chats and emails, you might miss an important clue becaus eyou don't understand the language they're written in.

Here is a sample:


PAW - Parents are watching
PLZ - Please
PM - Private message
POAHF - Put on a happy face
POOF - I have left the chat
pornado - large amount of Pornographic content
POTB - Pats on the back
POS - Parents over shoulder
POTS - Parents over the shoulder
PPL - People
PSA - Public show of affection
P911 - Parent emergency
Q4U - Question for you
QT - Cutie

How far would you go to protect your teen?

• A teenage chat room
• Your daughter
• A 40-year old man posing as a 16-year old
• A porn ring

How far would you go to protect your teen?

Read "Witch Hunts on the Internet" - now available from http://www.fictionwise.com/eBooks/eBook77234.htm.

Google makes the Internet unsafe

Google is why too much Internet information may be a bad thing.

How many 13-year olds wouldn't think twice to give a "friend" in a chat room the following information over a period of time:
- their first name
- the city they lived in
- the sport they played for their school
- the position they played
- that they'd had a home game last Sunday
- that they'd won?

Go on, try it. Google your daughter using the information above. You may be unsettled by what you find.

Witch Hunts on the Internet

Is your child safe in that chat room?

"Witch Hunts on the Internet" by Yvonne Eve Walus has just been released by Echelon Press.

Danger!!! Internet chat are immediate and intimate, but sometimes they only create the impression of a relationship. Sometimes they break hearts. Sometimes they claim lives.

Danger!!! The Internet makes many things look ok even though they are not ok: porn, sex parties, talking to strangers. It changes the rules and the way the world works.

Danger!!! Internet People are not always what they seem. When your 13-year old daughter pretends to be 15 and in a dating chat room with a 40-year old guy... how far would you go to protect her?

Review:
"I read it and everyone with internet-age kids can do themselves a HUGE favor by reading this one! This day and age can be a very scary one if you don't pay very close attention to your children and what they might be up to online. No one is safe without a little precaution!" ~ Nathalie Kychler Moore

Read Witch Hunts on the Internet" by Yvonne Eve Walus