KEY POINTS:
An internet safety group says banning children from the internet to protect them from sexual predators doesn't work.
Instead NetSafe executive director Martin Cocker said parents needed to educate their children about the dangers they could face online.
He was speaking after a 12-year-old Nelson girl received pornographic pictures and explicit text messages through her profile page on hugely popular social networking site www.bebo.com.
"There are just so many places for children to access the internet, [blocking access] is going to be very difficult to do," Mr Cocker said.
"We need to accept that our children are going to be using the internet."
NetSafe's research indicated about two-thirds of secondary school-aged children had pages on the website, he said.
Internationally, the site had about 23 million registered users.
"Bebo's official age is 13, so children younger than 13 shouldn't really be on there. However, there is no way to really police who is using these sites," he said.
Mr Cocker said ignorance of how the site worked was one of the major factors preventing parents from keeping a closer eye on the online activities of their kids.
"But when you listen to the issues being faced, they are what parents have been talking to their children about for a long time."
Mr Cocker recommended parents sitting in with their often more web-savvy children to see what they did online - and who they talked to.
"Certainly for younger children, direct monitoring is important. As they enter into their teens, they expect a lot more privacy.
"Then, it's really about how well you have forearmed or prepared them for the threats they will face," he said.
Site-users should think about what details they provide online, what pictures they put up, and should never post their cellphone number on their profile, Mr Cocker said.
"For young people, they don't need to put these things on [their profiles], because their friends already know where they live and who they are. "
He said internet bullying was much more of a problem than sexual grooming.
The Nelson mother of the girl, who wanted to be known only as Karen, said her child's Bebo days were over.
"My daughter is not going back on the internet... it's hard to monitor, but I don't know what, as parents, we do about this," she told Radio New Zealand.
There were a lot "sick minds" lurking on social networking sites, she said.
"I'm just trying to make people aware of what this website is actually about. There are a lot of bad people in this world nowadays, as we all know," she said.
The 12-year-old had been sent images, including one of an erect penis and several text messages, she said.
"She just didn't realise the extent... I mean, putting her telephone number on there was definitely the wrong thing to do."
- NZPA
