Opinion: Parenting After Online Exploitation

This is a guest post from therapist and founding member of International Protection Alliance, Jacob Ostler.

Imagine you’re a parent and you have found out that something happened to your child.  They could have been approached by someone online, maybe they experienced sextortion, or compromising images of them are being passed around without their permission. You have called the police, taken them in for a child forensic interview, and taken away their devices.  

What do you do now?  How do you move forward? How do you navigate your home life, your friends and families, and your relationship with your child, and the internet now that this has happened?

As  a therapist who works with survivors of online sexual exploitation — as well as with parents whose children have experienced these types of abuses — I can say that these situations are all too common, and don’t seem to be going away.  

Our online world is getting more dangerous and, as parents, we aren’t trained how to handle these situations. Here are some useful skills I believe every parent should know to help their child move forward if they were to find themselves in this situation.

First, Let’s Talk About Trauma 

Trauma is a buzzword today. People use it to describe a lot of things and don’t always have a full understanding of what it means. Trauma is not just what happened to someone, it is the emotional response we have to the event. Some of the emotional responses we can have to traumatic experiences include: 

• Panic
• Anxiety
• Shame
• Flight
• Dissociation 

In addition to emotional changes, we can see behavioral ones. Some behaviors commonly seen in people who have had a traumatic experience include: 

• Avoiding certain situations or people that remind us of traumatic events
• Panic attacks 
• Nightmares
• Concentration problems
• Social issues 

What causes a traumatic reaction in one person may not in another. Car crashes are good examples. Two people may get in a car crash, one may be able to drive the next day like nothing happened, while the other may be too nervous to ride in cars of any kind. They both had the same experience, but they are reacting differently. 

Trauma Informed: What Does it Mean?

“Trauma informed” is a concept that care providers use all the time. We are trained both in its meaning and how to make real world applications when seeing our clients.  As practitioners, when we do something that is trauma informed it means we do something without causing harm or with causing the least amount of harm as possible. It does not mean that something is healing.  

Child forensic interviews are trauma informed, but they are not usually healing. These interviews are designed to assist a child in reporting what happened to them, but they are not designed to help a child heal from abuse. This is in contrast to therapy sessions, which are designed to facilitate healing of a patient.

When you as a parent take your child to see someone for help, I would encourage you to ask them what they do to ensure they are trauma informed and how they implement that in their services.

Common Parent Experiences with Online Issues

Let’s apply this to a child who has experienced something horrible. As parents, it is normal to want to know everything that happened. It’s normal to think the worst and to let your mind wander. “Did my child share everything with me?” or “What aren’t they telling me?”  A big question that often comes up for parents is: “What did I do wrong?” or “How could I have prevented this?”  The questions can feel endless.

The short of it is, we can’t always prevent things like this from happening. One helpful concept is discussing safety and autonomy. These concepts inherently conflict one another. The safer we are, the less choices we have, and vice versa. When we wear a seatbelt, our movement is restricted, yet we are safer if an accident occurs. 

As parents, the more people who have access to our children, the less safe they are. The scary thing about children being online is it makes them accessible globally. That’s why Gabb’s philosophy of tech in steps is so helpful — it empowers you to find the right balance between safety and autonomy as your child matures, at whatever rate that might be.  

The only way we can fully protect our children from everything is to not let them interact with anyone, experience the world, or make their own decisions. This isn’t realistic nor is it good for our children. We want our children to experience the good the world has to offer and prepare them for the bad. 

Equipping Kids with the Right Communication Tools

Teach your child how to talk about online safety and bad situations. One reason children don’t tell us what happens to them, is they lack the language to do so. This is one of the reasons education around consent is such a big deal. It gives kids the language to tell us what is happening to them.

Another reason why children don’t report, or don’t tell us more, is that they fear consequences both for themselves and for the person that has harmed them. As parents, we can set the stage so our kids have the ability to tell us anything they want. If we tell our kids we won’t be angry at them for telling us something, we must live up to that once they do. They’ll likely test us with smaller things before they do that with bigger things.

Practical Tips for Every Parent

While all of the above principles are crucial for keeping your kids safe, I’ve found that parents are often hungry for very practical, actionable tips. I suggest five:

1. Be Honest

In these situations, child-parent relationships can be difficult for a variety of reasons. I always encourage people not to lie to their kids. That doesn’t mean you have to tell them everything. Just don’t tell lies. Make the statements you tell them age appropriate and true. Even if they are hard truths.  

2. Listen

When they open up to you about what happened, listen. Let them talk about it. Once they start talking, some good questions are “Do you want me to listen, or is it okay if I ask questions?” This can open the door for you to ask more about it if they are ready, and they may not be.  

Ask them helpful questions like “What do you need from me?” Your child may know some things you can do to help. Also be prepared for the possibility that they may ask you to stop doing something in order to help.  Once they open up to you, be encouraging. Seek to hold their confidence as they have shown a tremendous opportunity to build trust. Share with them how courageous they are, how strong they are, and how grateful you are that they are trusting you. 

They may not want to talk for long or in too much detail about what happened to them. That’s not abnormal. Just be ready when they do want too and create a space so they can. 

3. Assure Them It Is Not Their Fault

What happened to them was not their fault, though they may feel like it is. They may even feel like it’s their fault someone got arrested by making a report. None of this is their fault, just as it is not yours. They were living their life and someone targeted them. There is no “predator look.” Anyone can commit abuses and people who want to don’t advertise that about themselves. Predators can come from any background or relation to you or your child. The sad reality is, we just don’t always see them coming. Reassure your children, comfort them, and let them know that this isn’t their fault. 

4. Find aGood Therapist

If your child has undergone abuse of some kind, it is a good idea to get them in to see a therapist. Psychology Today is a great free online source to help you find a therapist near you. Your child may not need lots of therapy, but getting them in to see one and having the occasional check-in can be both reassuring as a parent and helpful for your child.

5. Help Them Get Their Explicit Photos Removed

One of the trickiest parts about online exploitation is the idea of digital permanence: once compromising content has been shared online, it’s not easy to get rid of it. If this applies to your child, take advantage of Take It Down — a free online platform to help people remove unwanted sexual photos of minors from the internet.

There Is Hope

These are just some of the things I share with clients. There is so much to be shared on this topic, and these are generalities. Everyone is going to experience this a little differently. Your child is fortunate to have a parent who cares so much and who is working so hard to help them. You can handle this. They can handle this.