How to Recognize Grooming Online: A Guide for School Districts

Safeguarding today’s generation of young people means keeping one eye on their real-world behavior and the other on their online interactions.

We see these two realities intertwine on a daily basis. Youth don’t perceive their lives as consisting of two separate parts - an online version and an offline version - it’s all just life.

One factor that does create a clear line between children's online and offline lives is the presence of danger. We continue to mistakenly* believe that more serious dangers lurk in the physical world and grossly underestimate the increasing severity of digital dangers. 

Our youth are spending less and less of their waking hours in the physical world; according to Pew Research Center, 96% of teenagers in the United States say they use the Internet on a daily basis, and nearly 50% say they are online “almost constantly.”

So, what does the risk landscape look like in the virtual world our youth spend most of their time in? 

Although threats to safety exist in both, grooming is one risk factor that is far more likely to occur in the digital world than the real world.

In this guide, online safety expert Teodora Pavkovic: 

• Explores common misconceptions and questions around online grooming
• Discusses the 6 stages of online grooming
• Shares insights on how parents and schools can catch early signs of victimized youth
  
  

Linewize solutions for student safety

Linewize Monitor, our advanced student threat detection solution, is designed to give your district:

• Risk detection beyond G-suite; assess what students type on social media, chat applications, and more
• 24/7 human moderation; your school is notified immediately when serious threats are detected
• Compliance with all four iKeepSafe certifications (Monitor is the only solution of its kind to hold all four)
• Contextual screenshots for every flagged activity to better inform decision-making

Learn more about Linewize Monitor or request a free Student Safety Audit to try it in your district.

Qustodio: Enabling parents to supervise online activity with powerful parental controls

Qustodio Parent App allows you to:

• Give parents visibility into their children’s online activity on school-issued devices
• Decide what parents can see and when — during or outside of school hours, or 24/7
• Enable parents to expand on your fixed filter rules on school-issued devices outside of school hours

Learn more about offering the Qustodio Parent App to your school community.