The Boogeyman Exists; And He's In Your Child's Back Pocket: (FIRST EDITION) Internet Safety Tips For Keeping Your Children Safe Online, Smartphone Safety, Social Media Safety, and Gaming Safety

by Jesse Weinberger

Do you know how to keep your children safe in a 24-7, always connected digital society? Sometimes I feel like Chicken Little shouting: "The sky is falling," but then I turn on the news the next morning, and a chunk of the sky falls into my coffee.

As your children travel through the digital world they are also going to experience its underbelly; a dark place filled with cyberbullying, sexting, and sexual predation. Most parents believe that they should discuss this issue of digital safety with their children around the time that puberty hits. This is completely incorrect.

The discussion about digital safety needs to begin the very first time your child uses a tablet or a smartphone without mom or dad literally sitting right next to them. Children as young as 8 years old are regular consumers of pornography. Middle school students are going to prison as a result of felony sexting. Sexual predators are hanging out in the same games and apps where your children are.

Get educated, today.

* Read each chapter's Action Steps and implement them today in your own home.

* Use the Conversation Starters in each chapter to begin a dialogue with children of any age.

* Find out if your child is ready for a cell phone.

* Learn why YouTube is the biggest pornography risk in your home.

* Learn how Minecraft can be either completely safe or a harbor for sexual predators.

* Learn why children as young as 11 years old are being charged with child pornography felonies.

* Learn how to lock down your wifi signal and your child's devices.

* Learn how to keep your children safe from the 750k sexual predators who are online each day.

* Learn why the new beginning age for pornography consumption is 8 years old.

* Learn which social platforms experience the most cyberbullying.

* Educate yourself on the specific apps and social platforms that your child is probably using including specific settings and risks for: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Ask.fm, YouTube, and Gaming Consoles like Xbox and Playstation. Also included: Minecraft and game apps.

SECTION I: Understanding the Basics

**Chapter 1: The Central Issue

**Chapter 2: Parenting in Transition

**Chapter 3: Be Proactive

**Chapter 4: Web Statistics - How Big Is It Really?

**Chapter 5: How Do Your Children Connect?

**Chapter 6: Understand the Two Major Points of Vulnerability



SECTION II: Direct Threats

**Chapter 7: Cyberbullying

**Chapter 8: Sexting

**Chapter 9: Sexual Predation

SECTION III: Your Child's Actual Digital Life

**Chapter 10: Understanding Social Media

**Chapter 11: Review of the Apps Your Child Is Probably Using

SECTION IV: Parental Engagement

**Chapter 12: What You Can Do Today

**Chapter 13: Recommended Resources

Genres: Parenting

294 pages, Paperback

First published May 12, 2014

Reviews

[Isharedesigns · Rating 5 out of 5]

"... knowledge is power ... knowledge is safety ... knowledge is happiness." - Thomas Jefferson

The Boogeyman has existed in our nightmares since ages, way before the advent of information technology and will continue to do so even after this IT era is replaced with some new inventions. But then, with incumbent caution and care, we have been successful to keep ourselves and our near and dear ones from falling prey to him in our real lives.

Every new discovery, each new invention, for example, digital technology, has its pros and cons. Hence the question, do we run away from it or embrace it? In todays fast paced super computerized world, knowledge, be it newborn or old age, travels at lightning speed, making it imperative for us to keep pace with. Avoiding or ignoring the cons will do us no good. Then, why not safeguard and secure ourselves and our loved ones to prevent any costly mistakes. And the best way to do it is by being as much aware of our virtual world as we are of the reality. Our best bet in todays world where virtual reality is fast replacing the actual reality, is to prevent this Boogeyman from inflicting any hurt or harm to us both in our virtual nightmares and our virtual reality, not to mention the real world nightmares and actuality.

To put it simply, we merely need to seatbelt our virtual rides with all real world security measures and safety tips. And to further foolproof our real and digital world privacy and protection, we humans have to constantly update and upgrade ourselves, as does a computer hardware or software.

And Jesse Weinberger provides us with an excellent users manual on how to exact that in this Digital Defense for Dummies!

[C.J. Scarlet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jesse Weinberger's "The Boogeyman Exists" is the best book I've read on digital dangers... and I've read many. She clearly put a lot of time into her research and it shows. The book is conversational in tone and very easy to read, if a bit terrifying! I offer my highest recommendation for this excellent book.
CJ Scarlet
Author of The Badass Girl's Guide: Uncommon Strategies to Outwit Predators
Winner of the Eric Hoffer and Pinnacle Awards

[Sarah Ressler Wright · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating and frightening, an excellent reminder to carsgivers about how and why to monitor Childrens’ online presence. I love the take home points at the end of each chapter. Lots of underlining on this one!

[booksbydorothea · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an invaluable book for parents! There is way more information than I can ever hope to use - hopefully, I will never need all of the resources! Thank you for this amazing book, Jesse!!!

[Sandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read if you have or work with kids. The information/content is excellent. The editing--or lack of--may bother those who are particular about grammar.

[Jodi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Important information for every parent that hands their child a phone. Be informed!

[chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this book because the author was a guest on the "Mel Robbins" morning TV show (in the USA).
I’m not a parent, so can’t speak to that. but I’ve been a kid and how this book is formatted, laid out, the bullet points it has, are really sub par for takeaways. this book needs to scare the tar out while simultaneously educating parents on the reality of what it happening, how the bad people are utilizing social media to get control/power of vulnerable children all over the world. it really needs to be upleveled quite a bit, not only with the information presented and how it’s presented but also the message/s and the tools. this book SHOULD be a 4 or 5 star. period. and it’s not.
didn’t like:
took 20% in to get interesting. not wowed at all.
I dunno why certain words are bolded?? we're not 12.
you're assuming adults learn this at all.
what does this have to do w school research? and yeah if you help your child learn code they can build their own titty site. like hello.
layout issues.
this book needs way more current day examples, updated edition, dislike how its laid out.
focuses more on bullying and sexual assault/extortion/harrassment and nothing about how extremists are recruiting through social media.
liked: some good tools for parents, walks you through several social media sites, the pros and cons.

[Ashley Elliott · Rating 2 out of 5]

While this was written in an easy-to-read way, and I did chuckle a few times at her jokes, this book needs an editor. I find it hard to give credibility to books like this, that I read for PD at work, when I am met with error after error after error. In one case, the wrong homophone was used, and I cringed. There were many run-on sentences, unnecessary punctuation or missing punctuation, random numbers at the end of words as if something was dropped on the keyboard by mistake, etc. I read the second edition, so I would have assumed any errors like this would have been fixed the second go ‘round, but that is not the case. Content - dated (inevitable in this day and age) but useful, especially for older people who may not understand even the most common platforms being used.

[James R. Daniels]

Great resource for parents

What a wealth of information. It will open your eyes to the dangers of the always watching digital world. Recommend highly.

[Liz Theiss · Rating 2 out of 5]

So disturbing I had to stop reading after reading just a little bit

[Rikki · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are a parent, you need to read this.