Protect Me Project

ONLINE SAFETY STARTS WITH CONVERSATION ⚠️
Kids can’t recognize unsafe behavior if no one has taught them what to look for. Open, ongoing conversations about online safety help build awareness, confidence, and trust.

Here are a few important topics to talk through together:

🗨️ Explain what a predator or groomer can look like:
They may be adults or peers. They can be strangers—or even someone your child knows. Online, people may pretend to be someone they’re not to gain trust.

👀 Talk about what healthy online relationships look like
Discuss respect, boundaries, honesty, and safe communication both online and offline.

🔐 Teach privacy and personal safety online
Help kids understand why personal information, photos, locations, and passwords should stay private. Review app privacy settings together.

🚩 Talk about the different red flags that a predator or groomer might use:
Including: wanting to keep secrets, moving conversations to private apps, giving gifts or money, isolating them from family and friend, pressuring to send explicit content of themselves.

📱 Stay involved in their world:
Know what apps your kids are using and who they’re interacting with online. Create a safe space where they feel comfortable coming to you with concerns or questions. Open communication helps build trust and keeps conversations about online safety ongoing.

🔗https://thrive.psu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/thrive_resource_10-18-years_talking-tips-to-protect-your-child-from-online-predators-and-grooming_20260226.pdf
https://childrescuecoalition.org/educations/10-expert-tips-for-protecting-children-from-online-sexual-predators/

🚫 What you think grooming or abuse looks like could be the reason it’s missed.
Misconceptions create blind spots—and those blind spots allow harm to go unnoticed.

When we don’t know what to look for, we’re more likely to overlook the warning signs.
Take a moment to learn a few common myths—and the truth behind them.

Because awareness isn’t just helpful… it’s protective.
👀 Know what to look for
🧠 Challenge the myths
🛑 Help stop it early

⚠️ This month, we’re focusing on grooming—what it is, where it happens, and most importantly, how to prevent it.

Grooming doesn’t happen overnight. It's a process...

Perpetrators build trust over time to gain access, create secrecy, and manipulate a potential victim for sexual abuse.

That’s why awareness is everything.
👀 Know the signs
🗣 Speak up
🛑 Stop it early

Because prevention starts long before abuse.

🔗https://rainn.org/get-the-facts-about-sexual-violence/get-the-facts-about-grooming/