That’s the winner right there. Kids who are not isolated or lonely and who know they are loved and supported are kids who tell you about grooming behavior at the very start. They have adults they trust in their lives and are connected to people who would be more likely to notice the grooming and to believe the child who tells them about inappropriate behavior.
That’s the best tool we have to prevent child sexual abuse.
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I’m sharing this resource from Thorn because parents need it. It can be difficult to tell the difference between someone grooming a teenager and someone just trying to be friends with a teen, and we can’t expect anyone always to know the difference.
However, we can communicate openly with teens about what they are doing online. We can also stay involved with kids and their online experiences so that there are more eyes on what is happening and a safe place to turn if something seems off about what someone is asking them to do.
I’ll repeat what I’ve said many times. Kids are often vulnerable because they have no close adults to trust and lean on for support. No one is there modeling what a mature sense of self is, so they aren’t learning it. I don’t necessarily agree with everything Drs. Maté and Neufeld said in this interview that I’m sure I wouldn’t agree with everything in their book, but on this point, I agree. Kids need trusted adults who make them feel safe and loved.
Yet we keep creating a society that makes it harder to provide that for kids. We are paying a price for that.
Consider how often a child is not believed because the family friend or member “doesn’t seem like the type?”
That’s familial grooming. That is getting the family to see you as one thing when you are targeting a child in that family, thereby not only giving you access to the child but creating doubt about whether their own child is telling the truth. It also doesn’t help that so many of us think we know what a predator looks like, and are so easily fooled:
Kids with solid family relationships, who openly communicate with parents and other safe adults, and parents who are involved with their kids will be tougher to groom.
That is more effective than any anti-grooming law is going to be.
