Online grooming is a type of abuse that has grown by as much as 80% since 2017. The F.B.I. estimates that 500,000 predators are online every day, and more than half of the victims they target are between the ages of 12 and 15. About a third of kids in that age group report that a stranger has reached out to them privately, specifically asking to be friends. More than half of kids are interacting with strangers online daily. Over 80% of all child sex crimes begin on social media — very often through grooming.

These sobering statistics are proof that grooming is a serious online danger. Here’s what grooming is, who is vulnerable, what methods perpetrators use, and what you can do if you or someone you know is being groomed. 

Although there is not one definitive legal definition of grooming, RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) offers a fairly comprehensive description: “Online grooming often involves adults creating fake profiles and posing as children or teens in order to befriend someone and gain their trust. This may be the first step towards sexual abuse or online stalking or harassment.”

Put more broadly by Internet Matters, “Grooming is a word used to describe people befriending children in order to take advantage of them for sexual abuse and other forms of child abuse.”

Grooming behaviors include posing as a friend who is the child’s own age, pretending to be an older love interest, or acting like a mentor or emotional support to coerce the victim into providing sexual images or even meeting up in person. This process might take place over months, or it could be just hours. 

Unfortunately, online grooming by itself is not technically illegal. This is in part because online grooming has yet to be fully defined by law, either in the United States or internationally. The Council of Europe began to set a legal precedent with The Lanzarote Convention, which demands the criminalization of many crimes against children. However, it still falls short in that it requires a predator to take steps to meet in person for the act to be considered criminal. This is the legal norm in most U.S. states as well.

Even though grooming isn’t a criminal offense in and of itself, often, individuals who are grooming children can be prosecuted under related charges. For example, if they solicit Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM), they can face charges.

Activists around the world are currently advocating for a better legal framework around online grooming that would include defining terms, adding criminal offenses, and setting minimums for sentencing.

Where is grooming happening?

As of 2022, 75% of young adults between the ages of 25-24 report using the internet. 73% of individuals aged 10 and over own phones. This makes the internet a near-ubiquitous feature of daily life, allowing infinitely more access to others than in-person interaction ever could. 

Online spaces that frequently hold grooming dangers include social media, games, and messaging services. Social media is overwhelmingly the most common culprit. In 2023, the Cyber Tipline operated by NCMEC reported that the five most common platforms used for grooming children in the United States are:

• Snapchat 
• Instagram 
• Facebook 
• Discord 
• TikTok 

Snapchat was the most commonly reported venue for abuse. Similarly, one United Kingdom study found that Snapchat was used in as high as a third of recent online grooming cases.

Gaming platforms are also commonly used by predators. Roblox and Minecraft are so widely used by younger audiences right now that they have become common places for groomers to target children. Age verification processes are unreliable at best. It is easy for an adult with ill intent to pose as a child.

Finally, messaging platforms like Telegram, WhatsApp, and Discord are often used to escalate grooming relationships. WhatsApp is owned by Meta, who also owns Facebook and Instagram. This means that several of the top sites for exploitation are Meta-owned. However, when prevalence is analyzed year-over-year, NCMEC states, “the proportion of online enticement via conversations on Snapchat, Discord, and TikTok have mostly increased, while those on Instagram and Facebook have mostly decreased.”

Who is at risk

Anyone who uses the internet is at risk of grooming, including adults. However, as discussed earlier, kids ages 12-15 are particularly vulnerable. Kids under 15 comprised nearly 60% of recent child enticement cases.

A report by Childlight International found that the total number of kids globally to experience online exploitation in a year’s span is an estimated 300 million. About 1 in 8 kids worldwide has experienced some form of image-based solicitation or abuse. In the U.S. alone, NCMEC received 456,000 reports of child online exploitation in the first 10 months of 2024.

Different kinds of grooming impact different demographics. Historically, girls have been solicited and groomed for sexual purposes at slightly higher rates than boys. However, in recent years, sextortion (a financially motivated crime using sexualized images or video as blackmail) has been predominantly targeting boys between the ages of 14-17. 

Minors of any age, gender, race, and socioeconomic class can be targeted. The most unifying factor is a vulnerability to offers of love, attunement, and attachment. This means that kids lacking essential interpersonal connections or care in some way are likely to be exploited. This could include kids who are:

• LGBTQ+
• Indigenous
• Part of a racial or ethnic minority
• In foster care or from unstable homes
• Homeless or housing-insecure
• Struggling with mental illness
• Physically unwell
• Impoverished

Certain behaviors can also intensify a child’s vulnerabilities. That can include risk-taking behaviors such as using substances, intentionally talking to older individuals, lying to seem older than they are, sexting, prioritizing online relationships over face-to-face, or initiating financial exchanges with strangers. 

However, it’s essential to note that even if a child engages in these behaviors, they are not at fault for being groomed — the fault always lies with the perpetrator. A child should never be held responsible for their abuse.

Predators and their tactics

The data indicates that the majority of perpetrators of online grooming are adult men; adult women and gender-nonconforming individuals can be predators as well. 

Childlight’s recent data found that 10.9% of adult men in the United States had perpetrated some form of online sexual abuse, whether that is sexually interacting with children or soliciting, consuming, or distributing sexual material involving minors. The percentage of men perpetrating that same behavior was 7% in the United Kingdom and 7.5% in Australia. 

NCMEC’s findings show that perpetrators of online enticement are most commonly between the ages of 20-29, and 40% of them are a minimum of 10 years older than the child that they are grooming. As is true of all kinds of sexual abuse and exploitation, they are not always strangers. An adult who is known to a child might use the internet to groom them.

Anti-trafficking organization Hope For Justice tested the predominance of this kind of exploitation by creating a false Instagram profile posing as a minor girl. Within 48 hours, three older adult men had made contact.

Professionals combating online exploitation often differentiate between two categories of predators: fantasy-based offenders and contact-based offenders. Fantasy-based offenders will keep their interactions with a victim online, possibly soliciting Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) but without any intention of meeting face-to-face. This means that their manipulation methods might be slightly different. Contact-based offenders groom their victims with the intent to eventually meet the minor in person. Contact-based offenders are easier to prosecute under the current legal system, but both offenses are gravely damaging.

Tactics that predators use vary based on their ultimate goal. However, there are a few general stages of grooming that are frequently identified:

• Deception
• Gift-giving and flattery (love-bombing)
• Learning about the victim’s environment
• Sexualization
• Aggression

Impacts of being groomed

Online grooming is a form of child abuse that is inherently traumatic. It can leave children with lasting effects such as PTSD, depression, anxiety, self-harm, addiction, and even suicide. In fact, survivors of any kind of child sexual abuse are four times more likely to have PTSD as adults.

A history of grooming can also negatively impact a child’s self-esteem and ability to have future healthy relationships. Grooming can leave a child feeling confused and full of self-blame. The betrayal might make them mistrustful of adults who offer genuine care in the future. Sometimes, the learned patterns of grooming relationships perpetuate themselves in a teen’s life well into adulthood; abuse might become the template by which they understand what is normal in relationships. 

Grooming is a very real public health concern that deeply impacts the well-being of children worldwide.

One of the best ways to prevent long-term harm caused by online grooming is to make sure that both parents and children are equipped to know how to recognize grooming. This means being able to notice if grooming might be happening to you — or to your friend, partner, or child.

There are a number of red flags to watch for. Although none of these signs confirm grooming in and of themselves, the more of these elements that are present, the more likely it is that predation might be taking place:

• Showering with compliments or gifts
• Questions about family situation/how often someone is alone
• Moving from public communication to private channels 
• Use of vanishing messages (such as on Instagram and Snapchat)
• Asking for passwords
• Either giving or requesting money
• Requests to share the location of home, work, or school
• Asking to meet in person
• Sexualized conversations or requests for images

In general, any time an adult is showing an excessive interest in a minor and spending a lot of time communicating with them privately online, it’s cause for concern. At best, these relationships quickly become emotionally inappropriate and imbalanced. At worst, they escalate into grooming.

Once you’ve recognized the red flags of grooming in a relationship (whether it’s yourself, a friend, a sibling, or your child), these are the next steps you can take:

1. Report predatory behavior

If anyone is in immediate danger, such as if the predator knows a child’s location or is en route to meet them, you should call 911. This is a situation in which law enforcement needs to be involved instantly.

If there is less time sensitivity, you can search for your local police department’s non-emergency number and call to report. Be prepared with as many details as possible, including screen-caps of all relevant conversations and saves of the URL(s) of predatory profiles. Do not delete questionable messages; law enforcement may need those to pursue the case. 

You can also reach out 24/7 to NCMEC’s Cyber Tipline. If you’re not sure if a situation merits further action, they will help determine those next steps for you. Most online communication platforms also have built-in features where you can report profiles for harassment and predatory behavior.

Parents can also prepare in advance with the FBI’s ChildID app, which allows them to store information and quickly make a report if needed. You can also directly contact one of the FBI’s field offices if you are concerned about abuse, especially if the perpetrator is a stranger. 

Right now, most people who are victims of online grooming never make a report. According to an extensive qualitative study by Save The Children, kids “are much more likely to report an incident to a friend (80%) than to the platform (54%) or to an authority (54%).”

Unfortunately, reports are being made less even as grooming increases. Underreporting is due to barriers like uncertainty if a case is “serious enough” to report, lack of knowledge of where to report, not feeling safe with authorities, and fear of not being believed. Normalizing reporting by having conversations about it early and often could be lifesaving. 

2. Change your privacy settings

Once a report is made, there is a real risk that the predator might retaliate. You should be prepared for any harassment that might result from reporting or withdrawing from the relationship.

After you have taken meticulous records of the relevant interactions with a potential predator, you can proceed with unfriending, unfollowing, and blocking their profile. Be sure to check each platform you use to block any alternate profiles they could use to interact with you. This can include lesser-known platforms that your name might be attached to, such as Venmo or CashApp.

Even if you have blocked all known profiles, the person might create new ones or enlist friends to participate in harassment. You can take additional precautions by turning on message requests on all platforms, setting your Instagram to private, and avoiding accepting any requests from profiles you don’t recognize. 

3. Get help

Again, grooming is a form of abuse. This can be traumatic for both the child who is targeted and for their family members who might experience vicarious trauma. Recovery for the survivor and their family will need to be an ongoing process.

If you are in immediate crisis following a grooming experience, call 988 or contact the Crisis Textline online or by texting HOME to 741741. To find mental health counseling resources in your area, visit twloha.com/find-help or browse therapists using Psychology Today’s database.

You can also seek support from peers and your community. Find trusted friends to confide in about what you’ve experienced and how it impacts you. Spend time in stable in-person communities, such as school groups or your faith community. This will both support your own recovery process and normalize these conversations for others who might be suffering in silence.

Both children and their caregivers can take steps towards a safer online.

Kids can stay safer online by:

• Setting profiles to private
• Turning off location sharing on apps like Snapchat
• Familiarizing yourself with how to make a report on each platform you use
• Making sure that at least one trusted adult can access their accounts if needed
• Avoiding sharing your full name publicly
• Telling a trusted parent, caregiver, teacher, or counselor as soon as a suspicious message is received
• Holding open conversations with friends about what they’re encountering online

Parents can help protect their kids from grooming by:

• Being a safe place where their child can talk about any topic, no matter how uncomfortable
• Having open conversations early about the risks and benefits of technology use
• Offering to share screentime with a child versus just policing it
• Staying aware of what apps are on each family member’s phones
• Committing to their own healthy relationship with technology
• Seeking outside support when big challenges arise

All images in this article were generated using MidJourney AI.