Most teenagers know they’re too smart to fall for the manipulations of online strangers young or old, but they’re not, is the message of parents Danielle and Robin Helms in Orange County, Calif. They say that because their 15-year-old daughter, Kristin, committed suicide after she and her parents “tried everything” to overcome her depression over the end of her mostly online “relationship” with a man who had groomed the girl online for over a year and convinced her they were in love. “She was a smart, well-adjusted kid who was close to her family,” the Los Angeles Time reports. “She got good grades, got to school on time, ran on the cross-country and track teams and was an artist whose talent landed her in advanced classes,” the Times reports. When they found out she was communicating with this man, her parents banned Net use for five months. But parents need to know that “even in the strictest of households, children can flout access rules by hopping on computers at schools, libraries, coffee shops and copy centers and by using gadgets as handy as their cellphones.” And that’s what Kristin did, she later told her parents. She kept in touch with her “friend” via email and phone outside her home. [See also “How to recognize grooming.”]
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