Day 10: Online Predators
Safe & Sound is a free 21-day program to help parents, grandparents and caregivers protect children from abuse. Developed by Oregon Child Advocacy Centers, this Safe & Sound program for Central Oregon is brought to you by KIDS Center in collaboration with Protect Our Children.
Welcome to Day 10 of Safe & Sound!
All week we’ve been talking about internet safety and how to protect your child online. We’ve looked at cyberbullying, sexting, hackers and scammers. Today we’re taking about the “friends” online who are anything but.
We’re talking about online predators.
Online predators operate differently from other predators. Most predators are known by the parent (or caregiver) and the child. That’s how predators get what they want: they make a child feel safe being alone with them, and the parent also feels safe leaving their child alone with them. Only about 10% of predators are total strangers. And usually that 10% is hanging out online where your child is…talking to them through social media, games, messaging apps, etc. And their primary goal is to gain your kid’s trust.
If you’re asking, “How does someone online become part of my child’s social circle?”, it comes down to grooming (what we now call manipulation). Predators identify potential victims, gain their trust, and systematically break down their defenses.
How to protect your child from online predators.
While there are several ways to help protect kids from online predators (checking friend lists, messages, and parental controls) one way to help protect them is to have a presence online. Often when parents come to our internet safety trainings, we hear questions about different social media platforms and how they work. We strongly encourage you to join the same social media platforms that your child uses. This can be anything from Tik Tok to Reddit. Whatever it is, ask your child to help you set up a profile on that platform. They may look at you funny or say that they will never connect or be “friends” with you, but that is not the point of you joining. You are joining so that you can be aware of the trends that are present on that platform. Additionally, it gives you something to talk to your child about— and we have already learned that open and honest communication is one of the biggest protective factors against abuse.
If you’re wondering how joining a social media platform protects against online predators, here’s your answer: it removes a level of secrecy, and secrecy is where online predators thrive. If you have some working knowledge of how your child is engaging in social media, you can also be aware of how others are engaging with them. It helps you understand what questions need to be asked.
You won’t always know everything that your child is doing online. But you can at least begin by setting up some boundaries and having conversations centered around online safety.
This Weekend’s Activity:
Create a Tik Tok video with your child. This could be a dance or a challenge. Let your child decide which one they want to do and then give it all you’ve got!
Watch. Sit down and watch this video about how an online predator could manipulate a teen. This is appropriate for youth ages 10 and up, but please view prior and use at your own discretion.
Go screen free. After you’ve done one (or both) of the activities above, make the rest of the day screen-free. (It’s all about balance.)
Sign up for a SafetyNet training. If your child is online, consider learning a bit more about online safety. Take our free 2 hour SafetyNet training. This training dives a little deeper into the topics we touched on this week. KIDS Center offers this training both in-person and virtually!
That’s it for Day 10! See you next Monday, when we start our last week!
More ways to participate in Safe & Sound:
Visit the 2024 Safe & Sound page and catch up on daily activities.