Parents Discuss Fears of Teens' Internet Use

March 15, 2006 — -- The news is filled with frightening stories about Web sites where teens post their pictures and personal information, raising parents' fears that their kids are putting themselves at risk. To explore the issue further, "Good Morning America" spoke to three mothers and their daughters, ages 13, 15 and 16.

The moms were most concerned about public access to the sites.

"I'm worried about sexual predators," said Charmaine Adams, whose daughter, Jordan, had a MySpace account. "I'm worried about them viewing my daughter's site, seeing where she lives, where she's at."

Adams was frightened when she saw how much personal information was on Jordan's Web site.

"I went on there and discovered her photo, her hometown information, what school she's going to. Pretty much anything you wanted to know about her, you could find out just from looking at her home site," Adams said. "She had some photos on there that were just not appropriate."

Though Adams considered Jordan's photos inappropriate, the mother said the site was angelic compared to other kids' profiles.

"These other kids that are on there that are standing with nothing but a washcloth in a certain location, and pictures of them doing drugs, pictures of them claiming to be a lot older than they are," Adams said.

Nikita Dickerson went "ballistic" when she discovered that a grown man was speaking to her teenage daughter inappropriately on her MySpace Web site.

"I probably went like 30 on a one-to-10 [scale], but my husband went even higher than that," Dickerson said. "That's his little girl, you know. You don't want anybody talking to your child like that, 13-year-old or 30-, 40-year-old."

Wendi Lichwiarz started looking at her daughter's Web site when her daughter asked for her opinion of her profile.

"As I was reading through her blogs, I noticed that she was talking to her friends and they were making plans to go to the movies that night," Lichwiarz said. "And that's when I went ballistic because she didn't understand or realize, I guess, how the Internet works as a whole. I believe that this type of blogging and the type of site gives kids this false sense of security, as if they're only talking to their four or five friends."