Nowadays, with the boom and ease of access to new technologies and the Internet, our society enjoys a great number of benefits in all areas. However, all this has also brought a series of problems and threats, such as grooming, a phenomenon that we detail below.
What is grooming?
Gromin, groming, groomin…the truth is that sometimes it’s hard for us to correctly familiarize ourselves with the right expression of some Anglicisms; the correct term is “Grooming”.
Grooming is a problem related to the safety of minors when browsing social networks, which consists of premeditated actions by an adult with the aim of building bonds of friendship with a minor to obtain sexual gratification through erotic or pornographic images of the minor or even as a premise for a sexual encounter.
Normally, groomers pose as minors to contact children, gain their trust, and get them to send compromising photos or videos (of nudity or explicit sexual acts) to then manipulate them into publicly revealing them and thus achieve real-life sexual abuse.
The main difficulties in stopping and ending grooming are due to the anonymity of the offenders, the innocence or overconfidence of minors, and the easy accessibility to social networks on the Internet.
Although these situations begin online, they often tend to transcend into the physical world, leading to crimes such as child pornography trafficking or physical abuse of minors.
As psychologists, it is important to determine if our child patients and, especially, adolescents spend a lot of time in front of the computer. Understanding the psychology of the victim is key.
Victims of abuse should be asked what they do, if they chat with friends, what they talk about, and what “these friends” are like. Observing the adolescent’s more or less open attitude to talk about this topic can be a very useful sign to know if “something is happening”.
Characteristics of grooming and its victims
In fact, grooming victims present some common characteristics (Cañeque, 2014):
– Social withdrawal: changes are observed in the way they relate, i.e., either a lack of defense or an exaggerated reaction to supposed jokes or public actions.
– Excessive reserve in communicating with others.
– Modification in their body language towards adults, sometimes observing a lowered head, lack of eye contact, rejection of being with adults.
– Alterations in school performance.
– Mood swings: sadness, apathy, and general demotivation.
– Outbursts of anger.
– They try to hide or move away when using their mobile phone.
– They may show fear of leaving home.
– Psychosomatic symptoms such as: headaches, nausea, dizziness, anxiety attacks, unjustified physical injuries, or frequent diarrhea.
How to prevent grooming
If the child or adolescent is observed to be uncomfortable with questions or very wary of giving this type of information, parents should be informed so that they can regulate the hours the child spends on the computer daily and, above all, to raise their children’s awareness regarding the responsible use of ICTs, emphasizing:
– Do not provide personal information publicly.
– Do not send photos to strangers and, directly, do not talk to them.
– Validate the identity of the contact who wants to be added as a “friend” on social networks.
– Do not connect the webcam with strangers.
– Use a photograph of a fictional character for the profiles of underage children.
– Have “strong” passwords
– Save evidence when harassment persists (screenshots, chat messages, WhatsApp conversations, SMS, emails, etc.) as they will be necessary to file a complaint later.
If a child has been a victim of grooming, it is important to prevent them from feeling guilty; the situation should be faced as calmly as possible, making the child understand that we will help them unconditionally, that they have been the victim, and we must know all the details. (Cañeque, 2014).