What to Do If Your Child Has Been Groomed

Finding out that someone has groomed your child online is frightening. You may feel angry, guilty, or unsure what to do first. Take a breath. Your child needs you to be steady right now, and there are clear, practical steps that help. This page walks through them in order.

First, reassure your child it is not their fault

The most important thing you can do is make your child feel safe. Grooming works by exploiting trust, then using fear and shame to keep a child silent. As Thorn describes it, grooming is "a process of exploiting trust to shift expectations of what safe behavior is and leveraging fear and shame to keep a child silent." A child who has been groomed often blames themselves. They should not.

NCMEC advises that if your child tells you about an uncomfortable interaction, "try to react calmly and continue listening. Remember, it is not the child who is at fault." Say this out loud to your child. Tell them you are glad they told you, that they are not in trouble, and that you will get through this together. Your reaction in this moment shapes whether they keep talking to you.

Do not delete anything

Your instinct may be to wipe it all away. Do not. Messages, images, usernames, and profiles can be important evidence for a report or an investigation. Deleting an account or a conversation can destroy the trail investigators need.

Instead, preserve what you can. Take screenshots of messages, save usernames and profile links, and note dates and the platform where it happened. One important limit: do not save, download, or forward any sexual images or videos of a child. Keep the surrounding evidence, such as messages and profiles, but leave the illegal content to be handled through official reporting channels.

Stop the contact

Once you have preserved what you need, help your child block, unfriend, or report the person on the platform. NCMEC's guidance is to "block, unfriend or report anyone sending an unwanted sexual request." Do not confront the person yourself or try to bargain with them. That can push them to delete evidence or escalate threats. Let the platform's safety tools and the reporting process do that work.

Report it

Report the account to the platform where it happened, using the app or website's safety and reporting tools. Then make a report to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). Their CyberTipline takes reports of online enticement, child sexual abuse material, and related crimes.

You can report online at report.cybertip.org or by calling NCMEC's 24-hour hotline at 1-800-843-5678 (1-800-THE-LOST). Reports are reviewed by NCMEC staff. As NCMEC explains, "NCMEC staff review each tip and work to find a potential location for the incident reported so that it may be made available to the appropriate law-enforcement agency for possible investigation." This is not an automatic process. Real people read the reports.

If you believe your child is in immediate danger, or is being actively abused or trafficked, call your local police or 911 right away.

If images of your child were shared or might be shared

If nude, partly nude, or sexual images of your child exist and may be online, there is a free service that can help. Take It Down, run by NCMEC, is "a free service that can help you remove or stop the online sharing of nude, partially nude, or sexually explicit images or videos taken of you when you were under 18 years old."

It is built to protect privacy. Your child's image stays on their own device and is never uploaded. As NCMEC puts it, "Take It Down will generate a 'hash' or digital fingerprint that can be used to identify an exact copy of that image or video," and "your image or video remains on your device and is not uploaded." That hash is shared with participating platforms so they can find and remove matching content. You can use it anonymously and for free at takeitdown.ncmec.org.

Get emotional support

Grooming can leave a child feeling ashamed, anxious, or withdrawn, and it takes a toll on parents too. You do not have to carry this alone.

• NCMEC's 24-hour call center, 1-800-843-5678, can help you understand your options and connect you to resources.
• RAINN's National Sexual Assault Hotline is available at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) and offers confidential support for survivors and their families.
• Consider a counselor or therapist who works with children and trauma. A pediatrician or school counselor can often refer you.

Keep the door open with your child. The goal, as Thorn frames it, is a home where a child feels supported and free of judgment, so they keep coming to you. Healing is not a straight line. Small, steady reassurance over time matters more than getting every word right today.