Talking to Kids About Online Safety: How to Prevent Trafficking Risks

January is Human Trafficking Awareness Month, and while it can be a hard topic to bring up with kids, it’s important to start preparing your child for potential dangers they may face online. While many parents may be familiar with more well-known threats like bullying and online predators, human trafficking risks aren’t talked about as much. 

In this post, we’ll explore ways to talk to your kids about online safety, discuss some common trafficking red flags, and give you some ground rules when it comes to digital interactions that you can put in place with your family. 

Key Things to Know About Human Trafficking

Human trafficking involves the use of force or coercion to get someone to work or perform sex acts. It happens to millions of men, women, and children across the world, and it affects people of all nationalities, races, and genders. It’s not always done by strangers, either — traffickers can even involve their own family members. The methods they use range from physical violence to emotional manipulation, making it hard to spot, sometimes. According to the Polaris Project, nearly 25 million people are victims of human trafficking, and it often starts with online grooming.

Start the Safety Conversation Early

You don’t have to discuss all of the details of human trafficking to start preparing your child for online safety — you can start with general safety rules to follow when they’re using devices. But whether your child is younger or older, we’ve got some ways to bring up the subject in a way that’s age-appropriate. 

Use real-life examples they can understand

Kids can better wrap their heads around situations when they can relate to them, so trying using examples they can easily visualize. Try saying something like “You wouldn’t go with a stranger at the park if they said they had candy, right?” When they agree, follow up with, “It’s the same with the internet — we don’t talk to strangers in a chatroom, even if they’re promising $1,000 Robux.”

For younger kids, talk about “tricky people”

You don’t have to scare your child into fearing the internet, but you should calmly and clearly describe that not everyone is nice. Explain that “tricky people” have bad intentions and may want to hurt kids. Ask your  child “Would you know if someone was a  grown-up dressed up as a kid? On the internet, it’s harder to tell.” 

You can follow up with: “Sometimes on the internet, like when you play Roblox or watch videos, adults pretend to be kids. They do this so other kids will trust them and they can be tricked easier.” Again, you don’t have to get into upsetting details, but this will put your child on the offensive when it comes to recognizing weird behavior from people online.

For older kids, have a conversation about online relationships and manipulation

Older kids, and teens especially, like to think that they’d never fall for a trick online. But predators and traffickers are literally expert manipulators, and the tactics they use are so subtle that it can happen without a thought. And even though many teens are extremely tech-savvy, they’re not immune from de-aging AI filters and carefully fabricated and made-up stories that are meant to strike up a relationship.

Teach Your Child to Recognize Red Flags Online

After you’ve talked to your child about tricky people, you can then teach them how to spot sketchy behavior from people online. 

• Users messaging them that they don’t know in real life
• Prying questions that reveal personally identifying information like school name, birthday, or street address
• Asking to move conversations to a different platform like texting or Snapchat
• Gifts, including promises of online currency for popular games
• Excessive flattery and compliments

Set Clear Rules and Use Parental Controls

One of the first things that families can do is to sit down and fill out a tech contract together. This will kick off an important conversation about online boundaries, acceptable tech use, and any repercussions if rules are broken. Stress that digital devices — especially phones — are tools. And like any tools, they need to be used safely. Here are a few rules and parental controls we recommend putting in place. 

Approve all apps

When you’re in charge of what your child can do online, you have a better chance of limiting their interactions with strangers. Parental control apps — especially the Bark Phone — can give you the final say when it comes to app downloads. Even the most innocent-seeming platform can have dangerous chat features, including fitness, religion, and cooking apps. Want to know if an app is safe for kids? Check out Bark’s app reviews for incredibly detailed research on the dangers and threats that popular platforms pose.

Turn off chat whenever possible

Speaking of chat — disable it as much as you can. Some apps allow you to do this with a PIN code or parental control dashboard (like Roblox). Keep in mind that if toggling chat off ISN’T locked, kids can easily turn it back on. Chatrooms, by and large, can be cesspools, exposing kids to not only predation and trafficking but profanity, hate speech, sexual content, bullying, and more. 

Manage all contacts

Like with apps, make sure you’re approving all of your child’s contacts. With the Bark Phone, you can allow only the numbers you know are safe, and the rest (like strangers and scam calls) will be blocked. 

Monitor for content

This is a must-do for families in the digital age. Kids don’t always know when they’re in over their head online, and they may be afraid to tell their parents when they’re in trouble. Monitoring a child’s online activities helps give your family a digital safety net. With Bark, you’ll get an alert if an adult is sending them inappropriate photos or using adult language so you know what’s happening. 

Have your child know they can come to you at any time if they feel uncomfortable

If your kid ever feels weird because of how something or someone online made them feel, make sure that you’re always a safe place to land. Let them know that you won’t be angry, and that you’re there to help protect them from the world. And remember, it’s never, ever a child’s fault if they are groomed or manipulated by a predator: they’re victims of a crime. 

Ways to Help During Human Trafficking Awareness Month

If you think someone you know might be at risk of human trafficking, call 888-373-7888 to reach the National Human Trafficking Hotline. It’s staffed 24 hours a day in over 200 languages. You can also report an incident to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s CyberTipline. 

Providing volunteer support or donating to organizations like Polaris or END IT Movement can also help remove kids from trafficking situations.

Finally, even just talking about this serious issue openly can help others understand it and learn to recognize just how dangerous and real trafficking is for people all over the world.

How Bark Can Help

Investing in a Bark Phone is one of the best ways to help keep your child safe from the threat of human trafficking, as it lets you manage nearly everything they can do on their device. And most importantly, our award-winning monitoring scans texts, saved photos and videos, Google Drive files, and 30+ apps and social media platforms for signs of online predation — along with dozens of other digital dangers. 

We also offer a variety of additional products that help parents protect their kids online, including the Bark app, the Bark Watch, and the Bark Home. Check out our products page to find out which one is the best fit for your family.