The growing number of online child exploitation cases is putting increasing pressure on investigators and raising an important question for parents, schools and society:

Are we preparing our children for the digital world they are already living in?

In Ohio County, Sheriff Adam Wright says his department has handled 36 cases involving online exploitation this year alone. The cases highlight the risks children can face online—and the urgent need for stronger parental involvement, digital education and child safeguarding.

The Core Safeguarding Concern

The danger is not simply that children use social media. The deeper problem is what happens when children are given access to digital platforms without adequate preparation, supervision, guidance and trusted relationships.

When a Stranger Is No Longer at the Playground

“You put your children at the playground, and you’re letting strange men start showing up and interact with your small children. You wouldn’t be okay with that on the playground. Why are you allowing that to be okay on social media?”

Parents would rarely allow an unknown adult to approach their child at a playground, establish a relationship and begin asking personal or inappropriate questions. Yet online, the same interaction can happen behind a screen, often without parents knowing.

How Online Exploitation Can Develop

• An offender may pretend to be another child.
• Trust and familiarity are gradually established.
• An apparently innocent friendship can become sexual or coercive.
• The offender may request photographs or videos.
• Shared material may be used to make further demands.
• Threats, blackmail or pressure to meet in person may follow.

Safeguarding lesson: An apparently harmless online interaction can develop into manipulation and exploitation.

The Child Is Not the Problem

The child is not responsible for the offender’s actions. Children can be manipulated because offenders understand how to build trust, exploit vulnerability and create fear.

In one case investigated by Wright, a teenager reportedly spent more than $10,000 trying to stop threats before eventually telling her parents.

Children may remain trapped because they are afraid of getting into trouble, feel ashamed or embarrassed, do not know how to make the situation stop, fear law enforcement involvement, or believe they will be blamed.

Exposure Is Inevitable. Preparation Must Be Intentional.

Children are growing up in a digital world. The answer cannot simply be to pretend technology does not exist or that every child can be permanently shielded from it.

Exposure is part of growing up. The question is whether that exposure happens gradually, responsibly and under guidance.

✓ Age-appropriate education and clear boundaries.

✓ Appropriate supervision and active parental involvement.

✓ Trusted adults who are available when something goes wrong.

✓ Teaching children to recognise manipulation, coercion and unsafe interactions.

If exposure is inevitable, preparation must be intentional.

Parental Controls Are Not a Substitute for Parenting

Sheriff Wright advises parents to know what their children are doing online, including which applications they download, who they communicate with and how those platforms work. He also recommends parental controls.

These measures matter—but technology cannot replace relationship.

• A parental control can restrict access; it cannot teach why an unknown person should not be trusted.
• A filter can block content; it cannot teach a child what to do when pressured for a photograph.
• Monitoring can reveal a problem; communication can make a child feel safe enough to report it.

The goal should not be surveillance alone: Connection + Education + Supervision + Protection

Our Children’s First Safeguarding Tool Is Relationship

We often ask, “What is social media doing to our children?” Perhaps we should also ask, “What are we doing with our children?”

Children need adults who are present enough to notice changes, interested enough to understand their digital environment, connected enough to maintain trust and trustworthy enough to approach when something goes wrong.

Parents should discuss

• Online friendships
• Privacy and personal boundaries
• Manipulation and grooming
• Inappropriate requests
• Reporting concerns and seeking help

Most importantly, children need to hear repeatedly: “You can tell me.”

And they need to believe it.

Building the Inner Guardrails

Integrity: responsible choices even when nobody is watching.

Discipline: pausing before responding, posting or sharing.

Self-worth: recognising attempts to exploit or manipulate them.

Boundaries: understanding that they have the right to say NO.

Courage: speaking up when something feels wrong.

Discernment: understanding that not everyone online is who they claim to be.

These are the inner guardrails that technology cannot install.

From Fear to Formation

Fear alone will not prepare our children. We cannot frighten children into wisdom; we must form them into wisdom.

The conversation must move beyond banning, blocking and monitoring alone—and toward education, preparation, digital literacy, safeguarding, healthy boundaries, responsible use and open communication.

The internet contains genuine dangers, but also education, creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship and opportunities for positive influence. The goal is not to raise children who are terrified of technology, but children who can use it without being consumed or controlled by it.

Parents Must

✓ Become active participants in their children’s digital lives.

✓ Understand the platforms their children use and establish age-appropriate boundaries.

✓ Encourage open communication and monitor wisely without destroying trust.

✓ Make it safe for children to report concerns.

Schools Must

✓ Strengthen digital safeguarding education.

✓ Teach responsible digital behaviour and online risk awareness.

✓ Establish clear reporting and referral pathways.

✓ Equip teachers to recognise signs of online grooming, exploitation, coercion and distress.

Teachers and Educators Must

✓ Understand emerging digital risks and their safeguarding responsibilities.

✓ Create environments where children feel safe speaking up.

✓ Respond appropriately to concerns rather than dismissing them.

Society Must

✓ Promote child-centred digital safety.

✓ Support parents and schools with safeguarding resources.

✓ Hold perpetrators accountable.

✓ Ensure children can access appropriate protection and support services.

The Question We Must Ask

The question is no longer whether our children will encounter the digital world. They already have.

Will they enter it alone, or will we prepare them?

Final Reflection

The Ohio County cases are more than statistics. Behind every case is a child who may have experienced fear, manipulation, shame, coercion, exploitation or trauma.

Our response must therefore go beyond telling parents to “check their children’s phones.” We must build relationships, teach values, provide age-appropriate digital safeguarding education, establish clear reporting pathways, supervise wisely and strengthen safeguarding in homes, schools and other institutions.

The real problem is not simply social media.

It is uncontrolled access without adequate preparation, guidance and protection.

Our Children Deserve Formation

• Adults who understand their digital world.
• Knowledge to recognise danger.
• Courage to speak up.
• Confidence that someone will listen when they ask for help.
• Protection that begins before harm occurs.

“Because safeguarding begins long before the crisis.”

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