What's the difference between grooming and being friendly?

[littleoc]

Hello :)

I know it is kind of an odd question, but I couldn't find it when I searched around the forums.

I'm a bit confused on the difference, and hope no methods for grooming will be mentioned, exactly, as much as just defining it (with specific examples, if necessary).

How can you tell danger from opportunity, or blessing from temptation by an evil person?

(Is that a clear enough question?)

 

[Sideways]

Here in Aus, ‘grooming’ has now been given legal definitions for the purpose of child protection laws.

It varies slightly between jurisdictions, but is essentially behaviours by an adult, towards a child, for the purpose of creating opportunities for sexual conduct.

That’s an incredibly non-specific definition. And it’s intended to be. Grooming behaviours are often generalised behaviours like pushing friendship and trust with a child, to giving presents or special treatment.

It’s a lot easier to identify in retrospect. But the type of thing you look for tends to be: is the adult pursuing a healthy relationship here? or are they going beyond what would be considered appropriate given the nature of the relationship?

Eg. It’s appropriate for a child’s teacher to be creating a special, private friendship with specific students, or singling out particular students to give presents.

It’s the responsibility of the adult in the situation to assess, and consistently enforce, healthy boundaries with children that they interact with. So, to use the teacher example, it’s the teacher’s responsibility to recognise that they can’t give every student individualised gifts and private attention outside the classroom, and so doing that for individual students is inappropriate.

I’m not sure you could ever come up with an objective checklist. One of the things that is important to healing from child abuse? Often includes re-learning what a ‘healthy’ adult/child relationship actually looks like.

 

[Friday]

The end result.

 

[Friday]

How can you tell danger from opportunity, or blessing from temptation by an evil person?

Experience.

Just wanted to expand a little bit, from my super brief piece above.

What’s the difference between true friendship & friendship feigned (for sexual purposes, profit, influence, etc.)? Really is the motive // what the other person wants out of the friendship. All of the behaviors, actions, etc. are the same whether you’re dealing with a bestie, a conman, a ladder climber, a gossip, or a sexual predator.

The difference? Is their motive & the end result. What they want out of it.

Those colours? Take time to show. Unless they just really suck at what they do.

Drunks are a great example of people sucking at trying to make friends for a free drink or quick lay, swaggering up and laying on the compliments, their motives as clear as if they were wearing neon signs. In no small part because they tend to lay all their cards on the table in 2 minutes flat. MOST people? Aren’t that blatant. It usually takes time to suss out what they want. Regardless of what their motives are. Pure, self serving, or criminal.

Just like it takes time to learn WHO someone is, and not just who they say they are, or how they present themselves.

There is no way on planet earth to expect a child to be able to differentiate between someone making friends with them, or grooming them. The ones who haven’t been sexually assaulted? Tend to take friendly actions at face value. The ones who have been sexually assaulted? Tend to take friendly actions as sinister. There is very little in between.

It’s hard enough as an adult, with years and decades of thousands of experiences instructing.

 

[Sideways]

It’s hard enough as an adult, with years and decades of thousands of experiences instructing.

This.

Just to be clear - I really don’t think there’s any way you could expect children to know whether an adult’s behaviour towards them is appropriate or whether it’s grooming.

We can certainly teach our children about healthy boundaries, and communicating with trusted adults if they ever feel uncomfortable about the way someone is behaving towards them.

But most often, grooming behaviours are all about an adult working to gain a child’s trust. It’s not a bad thing for children to respond warmly to gifts, generosity, special attention and kindness from an adult. It’s not a bad thing for kids to decide they like an adult that seems to care about them. Kids aren’t equipped to detect ‘good’ kindness from ‘malicious’ kindness - that’s hard enough even as an adult.

 

[Deleted member 45988]

Hello :)

I know it is kind of an odd question, but I couldn't find it when I searched around the for...

There is a documentary on YouTube from the 90s called "chickenhawk" about nambla (national man boy love assaociation). Around middle of the film you can see guy walking up to boy trying to make friends with him. It sort of looks like he just takes way too much interest in inserting himself in the boys world (boy has figured out how ro make public telephone ring by dialing a code and pedophile seems to be highly interested in how he did it). I think a mother mentions she is afraid to be upset with her son with this same yellow sweater guy around, because he might run to pedophile.

I think difference might be nice and interested versus too nice and too interested in a way which many adults can interpret as a show of sexual interest, but kids probably can't nearly as often.

Another thing is adults should have common sense, like maybe if boy wants to show friend of family remote control car he has in the basement and no one else is there, man should suggest the car be brought outside or something. I think even if there is no sexual interest, the adult male should decline the invitation simply because it looks bad and anyone jumping to go with child to place where they are alone together should be viewed with suspicion, because even if they have no sexual interest, they should understand that such things should probably be handled differently.

Hello :)

I know it is kind of an odd question, but I couldn't find it when I searched around the for...

Corey Feldman (of "Goonies") is saying he was sexually assaulted by 5 different men in Hollywood when young and he wants to make a documentary about it, but he can't get funding. There is another documentary about pedophilia towards males in Hollywood called "an open secret" that didn't get distribution interest despite being made by academy award nominated documentarian and getting very good reviews on rotten tomato. Corey Feldman also thinks actor friend Corey Haim turned to drugs and died because he suffered worse pedophilia than Feldman did. Feldman also says he's sort of in fear for his safety in bringing up this issue.

From reading about Feldman, etc, I get the impression that *any adult* who thinks it's a good idea for boys to sleep over should be viewed with suspicion. I think problem with boys and pedophilia is still being way underreported, and things should be treated more like they are with girls. Like I think it's sort of known that guy being highly interested in young girl and then somehow finding an excuse to be alone with her is possibly grooming and then trying to commit a crime, but I think it's not fully appreciated how often this also happens with boys.

 

[Suzetig]

I think even if there is no sexual interest, the adult male should decline the invitation simply because it looks bad and anyone jumping to go with child to place where they are alone together should be viewed with suspicion,

I couldn’t disagree with this more strongly - I want my children to have strong, safe relationships with the adults in their lives and certainly wouldn’t automatically think someone’s intentions were sinister because they went to look at a toy alone with my child. My children will take adults to see their bedroom, their new best toy etc - it’s my job to make sure I only introduce safe adults to my children lives, which is about the person they are, not where they are with my child. I know children who have been groomed and abused in full sight of their parents, if someone wants to do it they’ll find a way.

Part of the difficulty is that predators groom the adults before they work on the children. So parents think “uncle Bobby” is a fine upstanding man who would never hurt anyone, leave their kids with him etc. As adults we need to be aware of relationship dynamics, listen to our intuition and listen to our kids.

As someone who was groomed and abused over a very long time, the head f*ck of it all is that it feels like a consensual relationship, looks like a consensual relationship - until it doesn’t. I need to fight the urge to be suspicious of every adult in my kids lives and I’m hyper vigilant about who my kids are around, but I’m not worried about them being on their own with safe, trusted adults.

 

[Sideways]

Part of the difficulty is that predators groom the adults before they work on the children. So parents think “uncle Bobby” is a fine upstanding man who would never hurt anyone,

So true.

Grooming isn’t convincing a child to go down to the basement to play with a toy.

Grooming is all the work that gets put into leaving both the parents, and child, convinced that being alone with this adult is both normal and safe. Grooming is the behaviour that creates the belief that “This is one of the safe adults in my child’s life”.

Too often, that grooming is supplemented by the nature of the person’s relationship to the child and parents: relatives, family friends, teachers, pastors, sports coaches...

Hats off to any parent who can figure out how to deal with that.

 

[littleoc]

As someone who was groomed and abused over a very long time, the head f*ck of it all is that it feels like a consensual relationship, looks like a consensual relationship - until it doesn’t.

Wow... rings too true.

@Sideways Yeah, good luck to anyone trying to see the difference at all, looks like...

 

[Deleted member 45988]

So true.

Grooming isn’t convincing a child to go down to the basement to play with a toy.

Groomi...

What about how to deal with someone like a Michael Jackson? I think he legitimately enjoyed being around children and felt like they were easier to deal with than adults and felt like he lost his childhood and being around children sort of made up for things he missed, and children could be around him and be around a certain musical genius who also had his own zoo. I have no idea if he was a pedophile or not. My inclination is that even with all the positives, his being extremely friendly with children and then inviting them to spend the night is just too big a risk too take. Like I don't know if his interest was genuine or grooming or a combination of both, but it's like there are just too many risks. Like I feel that such things are gambles based on perceived odds and there aren't necessarily right answers and wrong answers because there is just too many unknowns, so every decision has to be a guesstimation of how to proceed.

 

[Suzetig]

There was so much wrong with the Michael Jackson situation I’d not know where to start - any adult who finds children easier to relate to, and where there are no known developmental delays, has many issues and wouldn’t be alone with my kids. That’s very different from my son dragging his very loved auntie upstairs to see his new truck or whatever, or indeed said auntie asking him to show her his new toy which happens to be in his bedroom.

You can’t make blanket rules where kids are concerned, you look for signs that all may not be well with this person in this situation and go from there, that’s what makes it so hard.

 

[Sideways]

What about how to deal with someone like a Michael Jackson?

I think planning how to deal with the ‘musical genius with his own zoo’ possibility is so remote as to perhaps trivialise the discussion.

Lots of people genuinely enjoy being around kids. Doesn’t make them all pedophiles.

Dealing with a person with serious pathology of any kind on the other hand? Probably not a great idea to give them sleep-over privileges.