Child grooming

‘Grooming’ a child under 18 to sexually abuse or exploit them is illegal – both online and offline. Knowing the signs and what to do can help you keep children safe from harm.
Key points:
- It’s best for young children to connect and mix online only with people who are close friends or family.
- In situations such as online gaming and using social media, where older children may mix with a wide range of people they don’t know in person, they should avoid connecting with them on other platforms such as private messaging apps.
- Children often first experience online sexual grooming in late primary school. It can be become more common as they get older, especially for girls.
- Children often don’t know when they’re being groomed, so it’s helpful to teach them about signs that a person online may be unsafe and how to stop others contacting them.
On this page:
- What is child grooming?
- What are some signs of online grooming?
- What is child sexual abuse online?
- How can I protect my child?
- What to do if you think your child is being groomed online
If reading or talking about child sexual abuse causes you distress, help is available. You can contact 1800 RESPECT (call or text 1800 737 732) or Kids Helpline (call or text 1800 55 1800, or webchat).
What is child grooming?
‘Child grooming’ is the term used when abusers build up trust with children under the age of 18 so they are more likely to respond to requests that can lead to sexual harm. Abusers usually want to persuade children into talking about sex, sending sexual images or videos, or getting sexual in a live chat or video call. When this happens online, it is sometimes referred to as ‘online sexual solicitation.’ They may also arrange to meet the child and harm them physically.
The Australian Child Maltreatment Study shows that abusers are more likely to ask children to talk about sex or send sexual images as they get older. However, children aged 10 (and sometimes younger) are often targeted, so it’s important to talk about online safety with children early and continue the conversation as they get older.
Who are the most common abusers?
Just like with offline abuse, people who groom children online are usually adults. When it happens online, they are most often an adult who the child doesn’t know offline, but they can also be a relative, family friend, carer or someone who teaches or supports your child at school, sport or with other activities. They can also be an older child (sometimes older children are pressured by abusers to get sexual images or videos of others). Or they can be an overseas criminal.
As part of the Australian Child Maltreatment Study (ACMS), 3,500 Australians aged from 16 to 24 were surveyed to measure how common online sexual victimisation is before age 18. The survey looked at whether participants had a sexual image shared without their consent, and whether they had experienced grooming by an adult.
See an infographic showing the results of the study.
Anyone who grooms a child for sexual abuse can be reported and charged by the police – find out what to do if you think your child is being groomed online.
Abusers often try to make the child feel ashamed or embarrassed, and reluctant to tell anyone about it. As a parent or carer, talking with your child about their online experiences and relationships, and knowing the tactics groomers use, can help you spot warning signs early.
These are some of the tactics used by abusers to groom children:
- They go onto platforms, games and apps that are popular with children so they can make friends with them.
- They may use an avatar or fake profile to pretend to be someone the child is likely to be interested in or to feel they can trust, such as another gamer. This makes it easier to trick them into chatting and sharing.
- They find out personal information about the child, from looking at what they have posted online or by asking them questions, to help develop a feeling of connection. As the ‘friendship’ or ‘relationship’ grows, the child becomes comfortable sharing more information about themselves.
- They encourage the child to connect in private chats, direct messages and video calls, which makes it difficult to monitor and report abuse.
- They encourage the child to keep their connection a secret, and may try to emotionally and physically separate the child from their family and friends.
- They use the ‘always on’ nature of technology to keep in continuous contact with the child. This can increase the intensity of the relationship and make the contact hard to escape.
- They may use digital technology to track and harass children. This is sometimes called ‘cyberstalking.’ Cyberstalking is often accompanied by offline stalking and it can lead to physical danger.
55% of young people have communicated with someone they met online.
What are some signs of online grooming?
Online spaces can make it easier to access children without the knowledge and supervision of parents and carers. So it’s important that you know the signs that an ‘online friend’ may be trying to develop an inappropriate relationship.
Encourage your child to talk with you if they notice these behaviours. Then you can support them to report unsafe contact to the platform and get them more support.
Warning signs include if someone:
- asks them a lot of questions about personal information soon after meeting
- starts asking them for favours and does things in return — abusers often use promises, gifts and favours to gain trust
- wants to keep the relationship secret — online groomers typically try to keep their relationships extremely private from the beginning, asking for it to be something ‘special’ just between the two people
- contacts them frequently and in different ways, like texting, on social media apps and through online chat services
- asks them things like who else uses their device or computer, or which room they use it in
- compliments them on their appearance or body or asks things like, ‘have you ever been kissed?’
- insists on meeting — tries to make them feel guilty or even threatens them if they are unwilling.
Not every experience of grooming is the same. For example, not all groomers will attempt to meet in person if their aim is to get sexual images or videos of children.
What is child sexual abuse online?
Any sexual activity between a child and an adult, including grooming, is child sexual abuse – even if it happens online.
The abuser may share a sexually explicit image or video and ask for nude shots of the child. This can then be used to pressure the child to send more material, or to meet in person. See more information about sending nudes and sexting for parents and carers.
Find out more about how child sexual abuse happens online. You can watch a series of short animations to learn the basics. eSafety also provides advice for talking with children at different stages of development about online child sexual abuse in ways they will understand. Find out how to start the conversation with children aged 0 to 12 and young people aged 13 to 18.
Case study
Audio |
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My name is Simone O'Connell. I have two boys. Sonny is nearly 14 and Rafferty is 11. Unwanted contact is definitely a concern for me because we have spyware on our internet and when we moved house it wasn't set up yet and Raff in particular got access unfortunately to some really dodgy images. My name is Sonny O'Connell and I'm 13. My name's Rafferty O'Connell and I'm 11. |
Rafferty: I've had an incident where one of my friends was playing with what I thought were two of his friends but he told me that he didn't know the people. Simone: We speak very openly to the boys about all these issues and we're always asking them who they're playing with, what they're playing. We set boundaries. As a parent we can use all the help we can get to keep our kids safe. Sonny: I talk to parents about everything I'm doing online, who I'm associating myself with, if I'm trying to talk to anyone, if I'm watching anything in particular. I'm always trying to communicate as well as I can. |
Learn more at eSafety.gov.au |
Unwanted Contact
How can I protect my child?
There are things you can do to help your child be safer online. As a start, you can use settings and features to make it harder for strangers or other unsafe people to contact them, and talk with your child about unsafe behaviours and when to ask for help.
Stay involved in your child's online world
- Try to be aware of who they socialise with offline and who they only know online.
- Keep communication open and calm so they know they can come to you when something does not feel right, even if they think they may have made a mistake.
- Encourage your child to avoid visiting sites designed for adults, such as some social media, dating, online chat or gaming sites where they might be contacted by older teens or adults for sexual purposes.
- Help your child make decisions about the sites and apps they use, taking into account the age restrictions and your child’s skills and development. Think about whether you are comfortable with the content and the potential for contact with others, including adults. Reading our advice on ‘Are they old enough?’ may help you decide.
- Keep up to date with the sites, apps and online chat services they are using, and explore them together. You can refer to The eSafety Guide for advice about common social media, games, apps and sites.
- If your child is part of a sports club, you can find more advice on how to recognise unsafe situations in our Sports Hub page for parents.
Recognise their strengths and praise safe behaviours
Research from the Western Sydney University’s Young and Resilient Research Centre found that children use a range of strategies to keep themselves safe when playing and talking with others online.
- Children often use strong privacy setting and passphrases. You can help your child choose a strong passphrase that is hard to guess, and doesn’t include words easily associated with them like the names of pets. See How to manage your digital safety settings for more information.
- Children are often careful when they connect with others online, particularly people they don’t know offline. You can encourage these behaviours by talking with them about how they make those decisions.
- Younger children generally only fully trust people they know offline. Talk with your child about whether this is true for them and how they know if someone is ‘trustworthy.’
- Older teens may connect with people they don’t know offline for a variety of reasons, including friendship and expanding their networks. As children grow, adjust your approach and talk with them to understand the benefits of these relationships, as well as some of the possible risks.
- If children encounter someone they don’t know online, they often check for mutual connections or ask questions to make decisions about whether to connect with them. However, some abusers (and scammers) will try to become ‘friends’ with groups of people so it seems like they have mutual connections. It’s important for parents and carers to support children to remain cautious, even when it seems like they have mutual ‘friends’ with someone.
- Children are often aware of red flags that someone online can’t be trusted, such as asking for sexual images or commenting on their body. Encourage children to come to you even if they feel like they’ve taken action to prevent further contact.
Talking about online child sexual abuse with 0 to 12 year olds: This resource supports parents, carers and other trusted adults to have conversations with children about online experiences, asking for help, trusted adults, body safety, respectful relationships and recognising unsafe situations.
Talking about online child sexual abuse with 13 to 18 year olds: This resource supports parents, carers and other trusted adults to have conversations with young people about online experiences, respectful relationships, recognising unsafe situations, threats to share nude images or videos, what to do if their nudes are shared, and safety planning.
Establish safety guidelines for meeting online 'friends' face-to-face
- Explain that it’s usually safest to keep online ‘friends’ online. If an older child does want to meet someone face-to-face, they should get your permission first – to make sure they're safe.
- Explain that it's safest to meet in a public place during the day, and they should be accompanied by you or another trusted adult.
- Remind them to tell someone where they are going and who they are meeting.
Help your child protect their privacy
Helping children protect their personal information, online photos and identity can help keep them safe from grooming and abuse.
- Some apps restrict adults from messaging children who don’t follow them. They also limit the type of direct messages people can send to someone who doesn’t follow them. Check what restrictions are available on the app and manually change them if necessary, such as by restricting or limiting who can interact with your child’s account.
- Make sure younger children’s accounts can’t be viewed publicly and encourage teens to continue to keep them private. The eSafety Guide includes information about the privacy settings on a range of platforms and apps. Suggest they make their accounts private, or revise their privacy settings so they can control who can look at their photos and posts.
- Make sure children do not share personal information such as their full name, phone number, address or school. Encourage them to use a first name or nickname to identify themselves in online chats and, for older teenagers, social media.
- Encourage your child to delete friend or follow requests from people they don’t know.
- Talk about the risks of location sharing on devices and apps. You can help your child turn off automatic location sharing and let them know it’s OK to say no if someone asks them to share their location.
Advice about privacy settings is available in the eSafety Guide. For more information about good privacy practices, explore our guide to privacy for parents and carers.
What to do if you think your child is being groomed online
Your child may not tell you if an online friendship or ‘relationship’ has become difficult or unsafe because they are embarrassed or ashamed, or afraid it might make things worse. This is what online groomers rely on. Your child may have welcomed contact from an abuser until it made them feel uncomfortable, so they could feel like they’re to blame.
Look out for worrying changes in your child's behaviour or mood. Watch for signs of withdrawal, anxiety, sadness or changed interactions with family or friends.
If you find out you child has been groomed or abused, try to stay calm for their sake. Reassure them that it’s not their fault, they’re not in trouble and that you will help them get support and recover.
- To get urgent help for child sexual abuse, including grooming and sexual extortion, report what’s happened to the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation (ACCCE).
- For further support, contact the Bravehearts information and support line. You can also find more resources and contact details for support services at the National Office for Child Safety.
- Report illegal and harmful online content, including child sexual abuse or exploitation material, to www.eSafety.gov.au/report so we can have it removed.
It may be helpful to encourage your child to talk about their experience with an expert at a free counselling and support service.
Kids Helpline
5 to 25 year olds. All issues. Confidential phone counselling available all day, every day. Online chat available 24/7, 365 days a year.
Headspace
12 to 25 year olds. All issues. Phone counselling and online chat available 9am to 1am AEST, every day.
Support for you
You may need support for yourself, because finding out that your child has been groomed or abused can be very difficult. You may feel distress, fear, anger and isolation.
It can be helpful to talk with someone you trust, especially if the abuser is someone you know. This is very important if they may act dangerously towards you.
The person you reach out to for help may be a close friend, a family member, a health worker or an expert at a counselling and support service.
Try to maintain positive thoughts. Remind yourself that you are doing your best to protect your child.
Last updated: 13/05/2025