TAYLOR, Mich. – A distant relative of a 7-year-old boy in Taylor sent messages asking him for revealing pictures and video, according to federal documents.
Police started investigating the child pornography case in October. The boy reportedly told his mother he had been talking to a man on Facebook. The complaint filed shows the man asked the young boy for revealing photos and videos of himself.
What can parents do to protect their kids from online predators?
"They have got to be be really diligent," said Dr. Tracey Stulberg, with the Birmingham Family Therapy Clinic.
She believes parents need to be more aware of what's going on in their young child's life.
"There's so much more out there that they just really have no idea about," she said.
For example, there are smartphone and tablet apps that are disguised as harmless, but can actually be dangerous
"There's a lot of wonderful things about social media and wonderful things about the internet," Stulberg said. "But you have to be smart and you have to be diligent as a parent."
Stulberg said there's a simple way to be diligent: Be the bad guy.
"You get to be the bad guy and you get to say, 'No, the door's open. I can always see what's going on your phone,'" Stulberg said. "I can always see what's going on our iPad or whatever other device."
It's a little bit of monitoring that can go a long way toward keeping your kid safe.
LearningLiftOff.com has a list of apps parents should be aware of, including apps disguised as music players, calculators and more.