Child Grooming

Child Grooming. Recognizing this behavior for what it is!!

Guest blog entry courtesy of Kim Estes.  Kim  is a child safety expert and the founder of Savvy Parents Safe Kids. Kim believes that every child deserves a safe childhood and that adults have the power to keep children safe.

Ӣ

The past week has been a firestorm surrounding the Penn State Child Sexual Abuse scandal. We have by now figured out what when wrong. We know horrible mistakes were made. We know horrific crimes were committed.

Walking in on a child being raped is obviously Child Sexual Abuse in progress. However, it didn’t start “just like that”.  Sandusky had a process that he followed to gain access to that child. So how exactly do predators get to the point where they have complete access to a child and complete immunity within a community?

The answer is simple. It is called grooming.

We hear about grooming of children, but before that can happen, a predator must groom the adults. Grooming adults clears the way to victimizing children.  If we want to stop children from becoming victims, we need to be able to identify when adults are being tricked and groomed and what the predators grooming steps are.

 

Steps and Signs of Child Grooming:

Identifies opportunities, organizations and communities with children

Builds trust through friendships and/or leadership (with the adults and children)

Begins to identify potential victims

Gains access to children

Begins testing boundaries (with children and adults)

Provides presents, praise and privileges (to both the adults and the children)

Creates secrecy

Abuse begins

Uses threats (towards children and sometimes adults) to keep their crimes secret

Adults are responsible for keeping the children in our lives safe. If you observe what you believe is child grooming in progress it is your duty to intervene. Talk to a supervisor, talk to your partner, talk to the police, talk to a specialist in Child Sexual Abuse prevention. Limit that person’s access to children immediately. Predators like to fly under the radar. If you start making noise and asking questions you will make it harder for them to be stealth in committing their crimes against children.

Visit Kim’s website at www.savvyparentssafekids.com

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *