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How Could This Have Happened?

Mom and daughter sitting on couch

What You Might (and might not) Know Right Now

It may not be clear what has happened to your child at this stage. What is known is that the police have identified an image of them and need to make sure that they are safe. They also need to investigate further to get a better understanding of what has happened.

How Children are Targeted

The blame always rests with the perpetrator. In this situation it is the person who had the image of your child on their device. Abusers use various methods to get children to engage, such as through social media or gaming, and once that contact occurs the abuser can use a range of methods to manipulate, coerce or control them into sending explicit images of themselves.

The methods used to obtain the image may leave your child with very confused and mixed emotions. These are very common feelings expressed by children and are the impact of a determined offender whose aim was to obtain the images.

Young boy gaming

Why Children Often Don’t Tell

It is also common for a parent/carer not to realise what is being done to their child. The offender will have deployed strategies to silence them by reducing the options for them to tell anyone. This may include making them feel they are the ones who wanted this, they are the ones who are bringing shame to themselves, or there is nothing wrong with what is being done to them, it is “normal” relationship behaviour. Equally they may have been blackmailed, bullied or threatened to produce the image and to keep them silent. 

Your child may not have told you for other reasons such as:

  • Guilt that they been involved in something that they feel you would not approve of.
  • Fear of the reaction of you, friends, other family members if you found out.
  • Fear of someone seeing the images and seeing what they have been doing.
  • Fear of getting into trouble.
  • To protect others – they don’t want to be the cause of any upset for those they care about (you, siblings, family members, friends).
  • Embarrassment - being the subject of intimate images is not an easy thing to talk about with anyone but especially your parents/carer.
  • Not knowing how to talk about it.
  • The offender may have threatened to physically harm a member of their family.
  • Shame they may feel in what has happened.
  • Not understanding it was abusive (younger children may think they are playing games; others may think they are in a genuine relationship).

Often the Offender will want to cause a divide between your child and you. This is to try to isolate the child and reduce the chance of the child confiding that something is happening. They may try to make it feel like you’re the enemy - not them.

Next

What happens now (police process)

What to expect from the investigation - why devices may be taken, typical timeframes, how statements work, and the stages that may follow.

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