Parenting has become challenging due to the confusion about how child predators engage with kids on social media. This makes every parent worried about the status of their children as they participate in social media as online child predators increase. One of the main safety courses that parents use for their children for a long time is to ensure that their children avoid communicating with strangers. However, this approach has become ineffective as technology advances, and children reach out to Internet-enabled devices, where communication with strangers is the common foundation of different online platforms. Children predators communicate with children on social media in a friendly way so that children can easily trust them. As a parent, you need to be very careful to help your child pay attention to child predators. When your child is exposed to the unknown world, this will be the best solution, not fear. Therefore, understanding how child predators interact with children on social media is crucial.
Child predators are people who use the Internet for child sexual abuse. These online predators use the Internet, which is a simple way to approach children, in which they first form relationships and then meet in real life. Online child predator use will appeal to children by using similar proverbs and trend comments that are of interest to children. Therefore, this ensures that they gain trust and attachment to their children and that children will always avoid parents in these inappropriate relationships. Online child predators contain similar features. Some of the main features of online child predators include:
They will put situations to suit them best through creating cognitive distortions to put the victims off balance. With this, they will use the manipulative power in getting what they need.
Online predators ensure that they create a comfortable environment through social media. Through this, they recognize the children’s problems and know how to change themselves in different situations.
Online child predators focus on their first impression of the child at the point of contact. This plays an important role in creating children’s trust in the predator. Although they pretend to be close to children, they are usually strangers to the children. In addition, they have established a good relationship with their children so that they can gain the full trust they need by establishing a very close relationship, and the children can share his/her secrets and questions at will. When you contact your child, online predators use some tricks, and although they are strangers, they still have access to the conversation. Some of the main ways they will use in contact points include:
Predators developed an online personality that was used to encourage children’s interests, and then they started talking. Here, they then introduce themselves to the kids by using images, or they can get publicly displayed images from their social media sites (e.g., Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook). After that, they began to communicate, and predators use private messaging applications and services.
They use a website with a chat room. This is the riskiest of social media and child predators, and through these sites, these sites expose children to the risk of interacting with these strangers. In fact, some websites allow conversations, even if one is not on the friend’s list. An example of this is that its design allows strangers to connect through their chat rooms. While other social media platforms like Facebook are aimed at true friends. However, it’s easy to meet strangers from these platforms, and then you can add these strangers to your friend’s list.
In other cases, they may pretend to be the opposite sex, such as being female while in the real sense, they are male. This is just centered on ensuring that your child trusts them.
Sometimes, how online predators reach out your kids can be a dilemma. However, social media and child predators have become inseparable, so they are the main cause of this nuisance activity. The predators first use social media to target children. However, when connecting with your child through a social media platform, they will combine some psychological factors to attract your child. Some of the psychological factors that children predators use to reach children include:
They always take advantage of the child’s emotional instability. Young people are often emotionally unstable and always eager to get encouragement from others, so they may feel more mature, important, attractive, and so on.
In order to become a social asset with children, child predators will learn hobbies and some topics of interest to children. With this, they will seek to be very important to this child. With this, the child will share his/her secrets while staying away from their parents from the advice of these predators.
After gaining trust through the online predator’s grooming process, they began the development process, indicating the first goal they contacted the child. At this stage, the child has leaked private information, sent some of his/her photos and many other moves. With this, online predators will use this information to threaten children, such as posting some photos sent to them. As the threat is in place, they will ask the child to do what they need first. Some of the methods used at this stage through social media include:
After learning about some of the child’s main secrets, the child predator will use this information in extortion in order to manipulate the child so that the child can follow their advice.
After getting the child’s full trust, they now use threats to achieve their goals. At this point, they may even ask the child to hold a face-to-face meeting or have the child send a photo. In addition, they use threats to get what they need because the child now thinks this is a close friend. In terms of exploitation, they may force your child to establish sexual relationships and even disclose some compromised information.
In conclusion, with the relationship between social media and child predators, parents must control the devices their children use. As a parent, you need to monitor your child to make sure they are not victims of child predators. Knowing how child predators engage with kids on social media, you will definitely distinguish true friends from strangers. With iKeyMonitor, you can ensure that you have enough parental controls on any device. This app allows you to access different social media platforms your child is exposed to, and you can monitor your child’s activities on different platforms.