Yahoo's Catherine Teitelbaum, Policy Director, Child Safety & Product Policy and Anne Toth, Vice President and Head of Privacy led this session.  They were joined by Holly Lawrence, a police officer with the Sunnyvale Police Department and Jeanne Moeschler (with Yahoo!'s social marketing team) moderated.

This section started off on a somber note.  They showed a video that was created at Yahoo by the request of a family who had experienced a tragedy. Yahoo! is working together with the police to create a prevention program. (For their privacy's sake, I won't be using the girl or her family's names.)  Basically, the video was about a local California family's tragedy when their daughter got involved in sexting.  "J" was a popular high school cheerleader who ended up hanging herself.  After her death, her parents learned that their family's nightmare was due (in part) to sexting.  "J" had sent a provocative picture of herself to a boy that was a friend. The picture got passed around from boy to boy and it eventually ended up on the Internet. Days before her death, "J" was texting her friends that she wanted to commit suicide. Unfortunately, her parents did not learn about any of this until she actually did so.

Overall, the point of the session was to reinforce that keeping kids safe online is an ongoing conversation that involves different things along the way.

The Three "C"s:

1. Stay current on what your kids are interested in/current trends/etc.

2. Keep the lines of communication open with your child.

3. Keep checking up on what they are doing online and with their phones.

It's hard for kids to grasp the concept that what you put online lasts forever.

Practicals: Keep checking what your kids are doing. Share real life examples of negative online behavior that they can relate to/empathize with. Teach kids to take responsibility for their actions. (Personally, that was the saddest thing about the video.  After everything, none of the boys - who were involved in passing around the photo - took any personal responsibility for the part that their actions played in "J"'s death.)

Lastly, it is important to note that there are differences in motivations behind the negative things that girls do online versus what the boys do.

An Internet safety coalition website that comes highly recommended is ikeepsafe.org .  There is also a lot of great information at Yahoo! Safely (http://safely.yahoo.com/index). In addition, parents can print out a Common Sense family media agreement for parents and teens in high school.