SUPPORTING EDUCATORS AND PARENTS TO STAY INFORMED ON ONLINE GROOMING
Online Grooming Prevention for Schools and Families
Online grooming is when someone builds trust with a child online in order to sexually abuse or exploit them. It can happen on any app a child uses. This guide explains how it works, the warning signs, and what to do if you are worried.
Child Safeguarding Online. Updated September 2026.
Table of Contents
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What the evidence shows
Online grooming is a risk every school needs to plan for
Grooming is when someone builds a relationship with a child to abuse or exploit them. Online, it usually starts on the platforms children already use: games, social media and messaging apps. The groomer may be an adult or an older young person, and may pretend to be a child.
Police in England and Wales recorded 7,263 sexual communication with a child offences in a single year, nearly double the number when the offence was introduced in 2017/18. Where the platform was known, 40% happened on Snapchat, and 80% of identified victims were girls (NSPCC, 2025).
Most harm now happens online rather than at an in-person meeting. Groomers ask for sexual images, then use them to threaten or blackmail the child. This is called sextortion. Over 90% of financial sextortion reports to the US National Center for Missing & Exploited Children involve teenage boys (Thorn).
Children often do not tell anyone, because they feel ashamed, believe they are in a real relationship, or have been threatened. That is why adults need to know the signs and make it easy to talk.
Targeting and first contact
Groomers look for children who seem lonely, want attention or share a lot publicly. They start friendly conversations in games, comment sections or group chats, often pretending to share the child’s interests or age.
Building trust
They offer compliments, gifts, in-game currency or a sympathetic ear, and become the person who “really understands” the child. In Thorn’s research, 1 in 4 children aged 9 to 17 had flirting or romantic conversations with someone they only knew online.
Isolation and secrecy
They move the conversation to private or disappearing messages, ask the child to keep it secret, and may turn them against parents or friends. About 2 in 3 children in Thorn’s research had been asked to move from a public chat to a private platform.
Sexualisation and control
Conversations turn sexual. The groomer asks for images or video, sends their own, and uses what they have to threaten, blackmail or arrange to meet. Some now use AI to create fake sexual images of a child for the same purpose.
Warning signs
Warning signs parents and teachers can spot
No single sign proves a child is being groomed, but any of these changes is worth a calm conversation:
- Secrecy about who they talk to online, or quickly switching screens when an adult comes near
- New gifts, money, in-game currency or a second phone they cannot explain
- A new older friend, boyfriend or girlfriend they met online
- Spending much more time online, especially late at night
- Seeming withdrawn, anxious or upset after being online
- Sexual language or knowledge that is unusual for their age
- Moving conversations to apps with disappearing messages
What to do
How schools and parents should respond
If a child tells you something, stay calm, listen and thank them for telling you. Do not promise to keep it secret, do not ask leading questions, and do not contact or confront the suspected groomer.
In school, write down what the child said in their own words and pass it to the designated safeguarding lead the same day, following your child protection policy. Never view, copy or forward sexual images of a child, even as evidence.
Report it. In Vietnam, call the National Child Protection Hotline on 111 (free, 24 hours). Report sexual images of children online to the Internet Watch Foundation, and use Take It Down to help remove images of under-18s. If a child is in immediate danger, contact the police.