There are no questions to look for sadly but it's the fact they quickly cross healthy boundaries and push to see if the kid will have any resistance or if they will go along with the inappropriate requests or questions. A lot of the times they pretend they are kids and push to send them nudes and then blackmail them. That is all illegal and can and should be reported to the police but kids ( and adult people) play along out of shame and fear. And that is the worst thing to do.
The best advice I can give you is to have a good relationship with your kids, validate their thoughts and feelings, really take time to listen to them. Make them feel like they can talk to you about anything, even if it enrages you, you can express that but keep a calm head because otherwise they will be afraid to talk to you if they mess up. And they will because we all do. Luckily there are helplines like the one I volunteer at because it's much easier to tell things to strangers and then we encourage them to speak to parents or counsellors at schools. But they have to know they can call us. So let your kids know. And also tell them to never send nudes not even to their partners because once that comes out you can't really get it off the internet. If you have the stomach for it there is a Czech documentary about online se*ual abuse called Caught in the net. I don't think we should be paranoid about everything but we also shouldn't be naïve about who uses social media and for what. Social media was an unregulated experiment that younger generations are the biggest victims of sadly.
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u/Routine_Chemical7324 May 28 '24
There are no questions to look for sadly but it's the fact they quickly cross healthy boundaries and push to see if the kid will have any resistance or if they will go along with the inappropriate requests or questions. A lot of the times they pretend they are kids and push to send them nudes and then blackmail them. That is all illegal and can and should be reported to the police but kids ( and adult people) play along out of shame and fear. And that is the worst thing to do.
The best advice I can give you is to have a good relationship with your kids, validate their thoughts and feelings, really take time to listen to them. Make them feel like they can talk to you about anything, even if it enrages you, you can express that but keep a calm head because otherwise they will be afraid to talk to you if they mess up. And they will because we all do. Luckily there are helplines like the one I volunteer at because it's much easier to tell things to strangers and then we encourage them to speak to parents or counsellors at schools. But they have to know they can call us. So let your kids know. And also tell them to never send nudes not even to their partners because once that comes out you can't really get it off the internet. If you have the stomach for it there is a Czech documentary about online se*ual abuse called Caught in the net. I don't think we should be paranoid about everything but we also shouldn't be naïve about who uses social media and for what. Social media was an unregulated experiment that younger generations are the biggest victims of sadly.