To think that we should be holding parents more accountable if their young children are abused by men they meet online..

[TheInnerVoice]

Story on the BBC this morning about how tinder and grinder need to take more responsibility to prevent young children being abused by men they meet online. The examples they gave were of children as young as eight having been groomed on tinder, and obviously the man who had sex with a twelve year old believing she was nineteen.

Now, it goes without saying that if a creep goes online to groom young vulnerable children he is the criminal here. But I can’t help also thinking that if an eight year old has un-checked access to tinder the parents are in part to blame for allowing her to be in that situation in the first place.

And no, we’re not talking teenagers who might be influenced by their friends or might go online at a friend’s house. Eight year olds are to young to have the kinds of friends who would lead them into the likes of tinder, and as such, if an eight year old has tinder and has been groomed online then surely the parents are responsible for allowing that to happen/not knowing what their children are doing?

@JellyBaby666

Not really helpful advice from a parenting perspective though.

I don't think ANYBODY will argue that those people that abuse children should be dealt with in the strongest way the law allows! Yes, at some point these people have been failed by those around them but it's not impractical to eliminate the potential threat entirely.

It's a bit shocking that a child as young as 8 has enough unsupervised access to the internet that they can get abused like this.
there has to be parental responsibility and education!

This!!

The amount of kids (older than my eldest thank goodness) I know that have unlimited and unsupervised access to the internet, whether it’s through games such as Fortnite or watching Youtube or things like Skype, sends chills up my spine. The amount of parents that I know, that think I’m an unreasonable strict parent because I place and enforce restrictions on what my 6 year old DD can and can’t do on a device, is jaw dropping.

I don’t think criminalisation of the parents is a good way to go though, neither is an age restriction on the internet. The focus needs to be on education. Education for the children that are growing up in this crazy access all areas world (so very grateful this now starts in Year 1!) and education for the parents, who never grew up in that world and mostly can’t comprehend how situations like these come about.

@PB I appreciate that, I was just fed up as I've read nothing but parent blaming like that's the sole way to prevent something happening. You can have brilliant parents and still find ways to rebel such as using your mates phone, or whatever and still shit happens. I used to work in a SARC and parents were often gobsmacked to learn what their children got up to that they had no idea.

I think you have to hold parents responsible though. Yes of course the offenders bear the blame, and their guilt and punishment shouldn’t be mitigated by actions of parents BUT parents do put their children is really vulnerable positions. At the very least you can turn off WiFi / remove screens until you do know. I knew nothing of xboxes and Harry Potter until Ds was interested so I learned. He uses YouTube for kids app, before I allowed it I spent ages googling every rude word and dodgy phrase I could think of to see what happened.
I think it’s hard to police where your children are once they are out of sight but you attempt to control it and you control what happens in the house. I will check Ds phone when he gets one. I don’t care that they’ll be texts about me being a cow and Holly from maths having a nice bum etc but I need to who he’s talking to and what he’s sending.

I will check Ds phone when he gets one. I don’t care that they’ll be texts about me being a cow and Holly from maths having a nice bum etc but I need to who he’s talking to and what he’s sending.

^^ This (Never done a 'this' post before...felt good!)

There is an argument (not one that I agree with) that checking your child's phone/internet history is somehow an invasion of privacy.

Firstly, bollocks. Their safety and security has to always come first. Education and communications are important but can be futile when met with curious, hormonal, rebellious teens with peer influences.

Secondly, as the poster above said, we're not policing their thoughts or their teenage foolishness, just looking out for potential dangers in order to keep them safe.

For example, if I had to reprimand my stepdaughter for something and then found a text to her friend saying "My stepdad's such a twat, I wish he'd just fuck off". Obviously I would never condone this language and would pick her up on it if I heard it but it's not my place to police her private messages. If she said "My stepdad's a twat, I think I'm going to run away and stay with [name of boy you don't know]"...THEN I'm in a position to do something to protect her.

Same with internet history. If a teenage boy had a standard boys internet history (Fortnite, YouTube, Football Scores etc) then all is good. This might be controversial but even if, mixed in with the above, there were Google searches for "Selena Gomez Topless" (no idea who teen boys fancy these days!) then it really wouldn't worry me. However, if there were searches for some extreme/degrading/rape/fetish porn or, worse still, visits to suicide sites or whatever then you can detect it and act on it.*

*Possibly worse still, NO internet history.

We are NOT looking to be nosy or police teenage silliness, simply look for signs where they might be in danger.

It's not that difficult. Keep computers in public areas of the house and don't let under 13s have a smartphone.

Keeping children safe online is hard. My kids don't chat to strangers but they've all accessed porn underage and I know it's a common problem . I have filters and they work to a certain extent but I've learned that it's not possible to block it all unless I go down the route of white listing websites that are safe.

I wonder if these kids have their own phones/tablets or are using their parent's devices. I see a lot of parents letting kids use their phones in public and I wonder if they learn about Tindr etc

@PB brilliant rules, imho.

Especially if you make it that clear to the kid. 'you will not be in trouble for insulting me, or for anything you might find embarrassing, all I care about is things that might end up being dangerous.'

It promotes transparency and understanding. And by expecting them to do normal teenage things like look up topless celebs and say mean things about their parents it's also taking the pressure off them a bit.

Keeping children safe online is hard

Absolutely agree, unfortunately some people seem to us this as an excuse not to bother, instead siting reasons such as:

"It's an invasion of their privacy"
"We don't need to check, our children tell us everything" (Pah!)
"The kids are too tech savvy for us" (Educate yourself then!)
"They'll just delete anything they don't want us to see" (There is no bigger admission of guilt than an empty internet history...just ask any man!)

It is hard to keep on top of (and impossible, short of removing access entirely, to be 100% safe) but keeping them safe has to be a priority.

@Kismetjayn

Thanks :)

It’s 100% the parents responsibility. An 8 year old shouldn’t have unsupervised access to the internet.