Online Safety for Children and Teens: What is Grooming? Strategies for Parents to Recognize the Signs and Confront with Kindness
Written by SAFE
A common strategy of people who sexually abuse children and young people is grooming. Grooming is a method that offenders use that begins with building trust with a child or young person and the adults that are surrounding the child or young person to try to get access and be able to spend time alone with the child. In severe cases, offenders may use threats and/or physical force to sexually assault or abuse the child or young person. More commonly, offenders use a selective and insidious approach to build relationships with the child’s or young person’s family in order to gain trust and access to the child they intend to abuse. Groomers often create and build relationships with the adults around the child on purpose to gain easier direct access to the child or they look for a child or young person that is not watched as much by adults. The child or young person being watched less by adults makes the chances higher that the offender’s time alone with the child or young person is welcomed to them and especially for those seeking the support of trusted adults in their life.
Why is it important to know about grooming behavior?
Everyone – parents and/or caregivers, family members, teachers, school staff, disability service providers, and medical and legal professionals – needs to know information about grooming behaviors to protect themselves and to protect children who are most vulnerable to grooming strategies. Grooming is an entry to abuse – children and young people that are groomed are often seeking a trusting relationship with an adult that offers them a sense of belonging and importance to that adult. Groomers abuse this trust and seek opportunities to sexually abuse, exploit, or traffic children, often silencing victims by normalizing abusive acts, making threats, and/or redirecting blame by gaslighting. Children could also be abused by someone that does an act one time or a stranger that builds a relationship with the child. Some factors may indicate a higher risk for some children to be targeted by a groomer. Children that have disabilities who are being cared for by a caregiver or a trusted adult or children that are often not in the company of their guardians are more likely to be targeted by someone seeking to exploit them. Groomers will use any vulnerability to make the chance higher of a child or young person to count on and to become dependent on them to make the chance lower for a child or young person to speak up and tell a trusted adult about the grooming.
Grooming Strategies
Creating relationships
The first common step of grooming behavior progression is creating relationships. The groomer will first look to build trust and a connection with the child or young person. The groomer mostly spends their free time with children or young people and prefers to socialize with young people rather than with adults. The groomer will target a child and give them extra focus and begin to form a connection between them. Groomers will target vulnerable youth that may lack self-esteem and seem lonely, so that they can offer them companionship. Belonging is a basic human need we all desire to fulfill. The groomer understands if they give this validation to a child that they matter and that they can trust the groomer, the child is much more likely to not question motives as the relationship progresses. The groomer will take a unique curiosity in the child’s appearance and the clothes that the child wears, and the groomer may take photos of the child or request pictures from them.
– Example: A youth soccer coach spends extra time with one player after practice, giving them special attention and gifts. They compliment the child excessively and often take pictures of them, making the child feel special and valued.
Experimenting Boundaries
Groomers will try to experiment the boundaries of what the child is comfortable and not comfortable with. Sometimes the groomer will say inappropriate jokes or sexual jokes to see how the child will react. The groomer may also attempt to play sexual games with the child like pantsing, which means they have their pants and sometimes their underwear pulled down. Another game they may play is truth or dare, which is a game that requires more than one player and the players take turns asking the other players which question they want to pick, a truth question or a dare question and if the player picks a truth question they have to answer the question and tell the truth to the question and if the player picks a dare question the player has to do something that the other player asks them to do. The groomer will gauge the reaction of a child when they come into the child’s room or places where the child is normally expected to have privacy, like the bathroom. Grooming perpetrators make progress by using tactics to silence the children they are grooming and convincing them to keep secrets. Experimenting with boundaries acts as a litmus test that groomers use to decide if they can keep doing the grooming without getting caught by the young person’s parents, caregiver, or trusted adults.
– Example: A babysitter tells inappropriate jokes to see how a child reacts. They may play games like truth or dare, gradually pushing boundaries to see if the child will comply or protest.
Touching
Grooming perpetrators will test the boundaries of touch with the child or young person. Generally, this begins with touches that are not sexual and normalized behavior between adults and children such as giving high fives and giving hugs. Generally, groomers will slowly advance to inappropriate touches like kissing, asking the child to sit on their lap, or intentionally touching a private part of the body while claiming it was accidental to test and see how the child or young person will react. Once a behavior appears “normalized” to the child and goes unreported, the perpetrator uses each sexual advance as a stepping stone for the next as they build confidence their abuse will go undetected. Often abusers use these past occurrences of abuse to continue grooming children by implying the child had informed choice, intentionally misleading the child to believe they were willing participants in the abuse.
– Example: A family friend starts with innocent touches like hugs but gradually progresses to more intimate touches, like tickling or sitting the child on their lap, testing the child’s reaction and comfort level.
Intimidation
Grooming perpetrators use intimidation to keep the child from speaking up and telling other trusted adults, parents, or caregivers about the abuse that is happening. The groomer will start experimenting with how the young person will react to being blamed for a perceived simple thing. This is a test to determine if the child or young person pushes back or tells other trusted adults. The next step that the groomer may take is to advance with threatening the child or young person or making them feel guilty. Fear or embarrassment are tactics groomers use to keep children from telling other trusted people about the abuse. Often, children are still looking to the adult grooming them for answers about appropriate touch and healthy boundaries. Groomers use this trust to gaslight a child’s experience which could sound like “That’s not how that really happened, you’re overreacting to something small” or outright lie by stating “Kids do this with adults all the time” and may even blame the abuse on them saying things like “Well, you acted like you were ok with it.” to silence children with misplaced shame. Groomers sometimes also makes the child feel further isolated by saying things like “No one will believe you” or will threaten the child or young person with danger or danger to their family members or the people that they love to keep them from telling others that they trust.
– Example: A neighbor blames a child for minor things like making a mess in the house or breaking something, then escalates by threatening consequences if the child tells anyone about their interactions. They may use fear or guilt to manipulate the child into staying silent.
Sharing Sexually Explicit Material
Grooming perpetrators frequently share sexualized material with the intention to normalize sex. The groomer will use sexual words without limits with the child or young person around them in the same place. The groomer will show sexualized pictures and/or videos in efforts to normalize sexual experiences and desensitize them with exposure. The groomer may also start a sexualized relationship through sending messages or sending texts first.
– Example: An online acquaintance sends sexually explicit messages or images to a teenager, normalizing sexual content and desensitizing them to inappropriate behavior.
Secret Communication
Grooming perpetrators are going to look for any kind of ‘secret’ pathways to communicate with the child or young person in secret. A lot of the times the secret interaction starts online. The groomer usually supports all texting, all sending of emails, and all phone calls to be kept secret. Something to remember is that grooming perpetrators grow and survive in having others keep secrets so the groomer is always going to support and encourage the child or young person to keep everything a secret.
– Example: A family friend encourages a child to keep their interactions secret, such as private messages or phone calls, away from parental oversight, creating a hidden channel of communication.
Who Is at Risk for Child Grooming?
While every child faces the potential risk of being targeted for grooming, individuals who engage in grooming tactics typically seek out children who exhibit certain vulnerabilities, including:
– Children who exhibit low self-confidence.
– Children whose parents are frequently occupied or play a minimal role in their upbringing.
– Kids from households marked by chaos or instability.
– Children with disabilities.
– Children who experience neglect and crave emotional support.
– Very young children who are still developing their understanding of the world around them.
– Any child using the internet without consistent parental oversight.
– Socially isolated children.
Online Grooming
Young people are increasingly turning to online platforms and technology to form friendships and relationships for a variety of reasons. The accessibility of the internet allows them to connect with a diverse range of people from different backgrounds and interests, all over the world. Additionally, the convenience of online communication enables them to interact with others at any time and from any location, fostering connections that might not have been possible otherwise. Many find comfort in the digital realm, where they can engage with others in a more controlled and anonymous environment, particularly beneficial for those who are shy or introverted. Furthermore, the prevalence of online communities centered around shared interests or identities provides young people with opportunities to connect with like-minded individuals and explore new perspectives. Growing up in a technological era, many young people have integrated technology into their social lives seamlessly, gravitating towards online platforms as natural extensions of their social interactions.
According to Thorn, 1 in 3 Minors consider a connection they made online among their closest friends. 2 in 3 9-12-year-olds interact with unfamiliar adults online.
“Because you feel lonely and want a friend. Or because you feel like no one else understands you,” says one 13 year old girl in the US.
In most cases of online grooming, conversations begin innocently and then escalate to solicitation of nude photographs. 1 in 7 Minors are asked for nudes by a stranger online daily or weekly.
The Long-Term Impact of Child Grooming on Children
The enduring repercussions of child grooming on children are profound. Regardless of whether the grooming took place face-to-face or online, its impact persists throughout their lives. According to INHOPE, child grooming yields both immediate and lasting consequences, which encompass:
– Mental health challenges
– Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
– Depression
– Anxiety
– Sleep disturbances, including insomnia
– Elevated levels of stress
– Contemplation of suicide
– Self-harm behaviors
– Difficulties in forming healthy relationships in the future
– Deterioration in academic performance
– Impaired ability to focus
– Social withdrawal and isolation
– Substance abuse
– Self-doubt
– Persistent feelings of anger
– Trust issues
What to do if you recognize grooming behaviors happening to your child or a child, young person, student, service recipient, or a neighbor’s child?
Disclaimer
It is common to read these grooming behavior signs and recognize people that do some of the things listed above in non-abusive interactions that do not mean that the person is a perpetrator grooming a child or youth.
The goal of talking about and learning about the grooming behavior is to make your intuition strong and to help you to be attentive. With the disclaimer being informed, if you ever see someone doing the grooming behaviors and you feel like there is something that is wrong you can use a strategy called “Confronting with Kindness” to help protect the person that you are concerned about. The strategy of confronting with kindness only has two steps.
The Two Step Strategy of Confronting with Kindness
Step 1: Move the person to the side and explain to the person that you think may be doing the grooming behaviors about the boundaries and limits that you have put into place for the person that you are concerned about and the reasons why you have those boundaries and those limits set in place.
Step 2: Ask the person that you think may be doing the grooming behaviors to support you in the boundaries and limits that are in place for the person that you are protecting and concerned about. If the person that you think may have been doing the grooming behaviors did the grooming behaviors without knowing and meaning to do it, they will possibly be very sorry and in the future keep the boundaries that the person has set into place.
If the person actually is a grooming perpetrator they will be put on high alert and it is rare that they will keep grooming the child or young person. If the grooming perpetrator knows that you are watching them, they will usually stop coming at the child or young person or the person that you are concerned about to groom them. The number one thing to remember is that you are responsible to stay in the loop and take an active part in the life of the child. The simple actions that you take to stay in the loop can be what protects the child from danger.
What can we teach our children and students about grooming behavior?
- Boundaries and their body, specifically body autonomy
- Report any treats or gifts that someone gives them (even from someone they know) to their parents, a caregiver, or a trusted adult right away
- Teach the difference between secrets and surprises and that secrets should never be kept from their parents
- Report whenever they are alone with an adult (it doesn’t matter who the adult is, even family members) and the interaction they had with the adult
If you feel that your child or student has a hard time talking about something, sit down with them and patiently help them through to talk about what’s going on and express themselves. Push through any feelings that you might have of nervousness or embarrassment and let the child or student know that you want to talk with them. The more that children and students are conscious and aware of grooming and grooming behaviors the higher the chance will be that they will work with you to identify a person that is using grooming behaviors before the grooming progresses and abuse actually happens.
Parental Control Apps
- Bark: Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, Apple, Amazon Fire, Chrome Browser
- Net Nanny: Windows, macOS, Android, Apple, Kindle Fire
- Family Time: Android and iOS
- Qustodio: Windows, macOS, Android, IOS, Kindle
- Kaspersky Safe Kids: Windows, Mac, Android, Apple
Resources
Rainn – Grooming: Know the Warning Signs
American Bar Association – Understanding Sexual Grooming in Child Abuse
Family Education – 25 Signs of Child Grooming and Abuse Parents Should Recognize
Thorn – 2022 Online Grooming Report
Strong Start: Parenting Support – The SAFE Alliance
