How to Teach Children to Avoid Blackmail, Coercion, Deception
Blackmail, coercion, and deception are forms of manipulation people use to place demands and threaten victims into giving them what they want. Anyone can fall for these forms of manipulation, but the ones who suffer the most are kids.
Unlike adults, children are naive and don’t yet understand the ways of the world. An adult can detect a negative character and distance himself, but a child can’t. Manipulative individuals are often friendly, and children can easily fall for their tricks. That’s why parents need to teach kids how to detect signs of manipulative individuals and how to avoid them.
What’s even better, the teachings will go a long way in positively influencing the character and the personality of a child, even in adulthood. That said, let’s look at various ways parents can teach children or young people how to avoid being blackmailed, coerced, and deceived.
Kids should learn there’s always a solution
Most kids suffer from blackmail and extortion because they don’t know where to go when they experience such forms of manipulation. However, parents and teachers should always inform kids that they can come to them if they’re in trouble. Parents and teachers must accommodate and help kids all the time. Once kids feel safe, they can easily open up and explain the issues they’re facing.
Exercise safe browsing
The internet emerged as an effective way to access information, but over-time it developed into a playfield for blackmailers, scammers, and extortionists. Without property measures in place, kids and students can easily fall victims to these perpetrators.
One popular form of manipulation students fall prey to is sextortion. Sextortion is a crime that happens online. It involves an adult convincing a child below 18 or college students to share sexual pictures or carry out sexual acts on a webcam.
Once these perpetrators gain access to the pictures and videos, they use them to threaten the victim into producing more. Most of the time, this crime starts when young people believe they’re communicating to someone their own age who’s truthfully interested in a relationship. Sometimes the perpetrators can offer something of value to convince a young person to produce sexual images or videos.
After improving your internet security, it’s wise to complete your college essays so you can go back and browse or chat safely with your fellow students. At https://gradesfixer.com/essay-types/exemplification-essays/, students can check great examples of free essays and papers from different universities written by professional writers and backed by in-depth research. These essays will help them in writing augmentative papers that can earn them good marks.
Besides completing their essays, students should make sure the sites they’re using to access study materials are safe. Hackers and scammers tend to design websites that can mimic educational sites to steal student information. So be careful of the sites you visit.
Raise Awareness
Parents should work with schools and the community in general to build awareness of child blackmail, coercion, and deception.
Schools are in the perfect position to teach students about the different ways they can get manipulated and how they can shield themselves. Schools can also promote healthy relationships and ensure that students know who to talk to if they require assistance.
The community can be the strongest ally in protecting children from exploitation. Some community members are very vigilant and can easily recognize perpetrators of child based crimes.
Talk to children about exploitation
Some forms of exploitation and manipulation, like sexual exploitation, can be difficult to discuss with a child or young person because they might be reluctant to share information and disclose detail about the abuse.
When listening to a student disclosing information about potential exploitation, including blackmail or sextortion, it’s crucial to avoid asking intrusive questions. A parent or guardian should receive the information unbiasedly and reassure the student or kid that they no longer have to deal with the abuse or exploitation alone.
Final Thoughts
People who manipulate and exploit children can be from any ethnic background; they can be men, women, or even other young people. While any child can be a victim of blackmail, coercion, and deception, isolated or disabled children are much more likely to fall victims to such crimes.
Therefore, parents need to be vigilant of the signs of manipulation and exploitation in their kids. Parents must also be committed to keeping their kids safe from any form of crime. And the best way to achieve that is to teach them how to avoid manipulation, extortion, and exploitation.