A conversation about online grooming

With so much predatory behaviour online it’s more important now more than ever to start having conversations about grooming and what that looks like online. Explain what grooming is & how some people will try and build and gain the trust of a child in order to manipulate them. One of the big things I’ve spoken about before is the weight of establishing secrets with a child. They may start with small requests, let something 'slip' and then ask the child to keep this secret from their parents. The abuser is trying to determine whether or not this child can keep a secret establishing with your child the difference between a secret, a happy surprise and privacy is really important.

A happy surprise is something that is hidden from someone for a certain period of time and then told which is intended to make a person feel good. Privacy is something that doesn’t need to be shared with everyone if it’s something that doesn’t hurt anyone or cause someone to be unsafe but will cause embarrassment like a friend getting her period at school. Secrets are to never be told and that’s not ok, no one including yourself should encourage the act of keeping a secret. Establishing early that secrets aren't good and that if any ever asked them to keep something a secret explain the difference.

Next, be sure to educate them on gift-giving. In games like Roblox and Fornite, predators may offer small gifts over a period of time and manipulate kids with promises of Fortnite V-bucks or, the in-game currencies. Fortnite, like any video game with chat capabilities, can be a haven for online predators — which is certainly something you want to consider if they are the appropriate age to be playing it. Like a lot of video games, Fortnite features in-game voice and text chat. While this may be fine if your kid is playing with their friends, when they’re playing with strangers it can be an issue. Racial slurs, profanity, sexual content, and more are often bandied about in intense moments throughout the game. Abusers can strike up friendships with children while playing and eventually move conversations to other platforms, like Discord or Snapchat (Don't get me started on Discord that is very problematic). What you should know and set up is the ability to set a code to password-protect your changes so kids can't switch controls themselves.

Roblox is one of the most popular video games for children 5–12. Despite its huge popularity, it can still be a little hard to understand what exactly kids are doing while they’re playing it. To start with, Roblox isn’t just one game — it’s a platform hosting literally millions of games that people can choose to play in different rooms. Users create and publish these games, and they all take place in the Roblox world and are designed in the Roblox animation style, which resembles the characters in Minecraft. The game also has a chat feature, there’s always the chance that kids can run into inappropriate content while playing. This can include profanity, sexual content like simulation, drugs/alcohol, and more. The games themselves are often similar to mainstream video games, with simulated violence. When it comes to parental controls and dedication to helping protect younger players, Roblox really does try to walk the walk. It does have over 400 human moderators to help review content that gets flagged by the filter’s AI. Social media and newspapers have really demonised the game, but kids can play it safely and enjoyably with a little understanding and supervision. Unlike other games, you set parental controls and lock them in place with a PIN code. The account restrictions feature makes it so that absolutely no one can send your child messages or chat with them which I strongly recommend. These restrictions also limit the games kids can play to a pre-approved, age-appropriate list.

Remind your kids that if someone gives them a gift while playing any game they are not expected to give something in return for that gift, the only courtesy is a “thank you”. Secrets and gift-giving are 2 early grooming behaviours, predators may send bucks to get your child to do certain things like remove their avatar’s clothing in the game in exchange for photos or to move them to another platform. Now, they know the child can keep secrets and are willing to do things in exchange they will step up the grooming process.

They may try pushing boundaries to see how the child will react, like swearing, saying something like “I shouldn’t have told you that, you’re too young for that” or they might send the wrong link to something that’s very grown-up like a sexual photo. They will establish the relationship online with compliments "you're so unique", "you're not like anyone I've spoken to", how they understand them better than anyone and that they can trust them and tell them absolutely anything. The abuser is trying to create a divide here and is trying to gain any shameful information or behaviour the child has done so they can use it for blackmail. Once they have this threat set in "Send me a pic of your ....... or I’ll tell your parents" or "I'll post this online if you don't do what I say". You could imagine it would be so hard for a child to get out of the situation now, they are so vulnerable, it's their fault and now this is just another secret to keep from their parents.

So what can you do?

If they are asking to play a new game the best way to mitigate any risks for your family is to start playing them together, it's great one-on-one time and a good way to get an understanding of how a game works and educate yourself on the parental controls you can set up. Go through them with your child to explain why you are turning particular features on or off. Ask questions like whom are they chatting with and do they know how to shut down the chat or block someone including a friend if they need to. Remind them if anyone ever tries to get them to move to another platform to let you know straight away.

Opening DM’s from people they don't know is just unsafe, explain it can be anything from content that they shouldn't see to phishing links. If they are being made to feel uncomfortable in any way, teach them how to take a screenshot to get the username so it can be reported and let them know that they are safe on the other side of the screen and that they don’t need to comply with any of their demands and that they won’t be punished for speaking up. Unfortunately, kids often won’t tell you what has gone on because they’re scared of being banned from a game or their device. By punishing a child for Uncle Creepy's behaviour you not only lose teachable moments to prepare them for the online world when they are older but you drive all open communication underground.

The real danger here is scaring parents into banning games and closing down the opportunity for healthy and helpful conversations about appropriate behaviour online.

I recommend keeping devices and consoles in shared family spaces and not alone in their room. It's a blanket rule at my house as I know an adult is close by and that if they want to play with friends from school encourage them to set up a 'secret password' while at school and when they first connect on the game to ask for the password and if a player doesn’t know it to block the person back out again. Your preteens aren’t going to learn about grooming on their own so now is the time for that conversation. Stay safe out there xB.