What you can do
- Tell your child they can ask an adult for help with demands for private images, money or meeting alone. They do not have to do what the person asks.
- Practise saying to an adult: ‘Someone in the game is pressuring me. Can you help?’ Agree who else your child can ask if you are unavailable.
- Note the username, platform and time, and keep threatening messages. Do not forward intimate images. Ask specialist support or the police how to preserve evidence if the messages also contain intimate images.
Avoid
- Listen first, without blaming or shaming your child.
- Do not forward private messages, intimate images or explicit screenshots.
- No app can protect against everything. Do not promise that it can.
For parents
Make clear that your child can get help even if they have broken an agreement.
Read more
- Make clear that your child can get help even if they have broken an agreement.
- Ask what happened without pushing for every detail.
- Help end contact if needed and find someone you can ask for advice.