Online Grooming What Children Are Telling Us
Snapchat, TikTok and Instagram were the platforms children most often mentioned in Childline counselling sessions involving online sexual abuse during 2025 and 2026. Yet the latest research points to a wider concern: sexual exploitation can develop through ordinary online conversations, private messages and relationships that move between different services. Parents need to understand these behaviours, not simply recognise the names of popular apps.
New evidence from the NSPCC, UNICEF and the UK Office for National Statistics helps explain what children encounter online and why so many never seek help. For families in Ireland, recent CyberSafeKids research makes these questions especially relevant.
What children told Childline about online sexual abuse
In September 2026, the NSPCC published Childline figures covering April 2025 to March 2026. Counselling sessions involving online sexual abuse mentioned Snapchat 324 times, TikTok 234 times, Instagram 197 times, Discord 92 times and WhatsApp 39 times. Snapchat mentions rose by 19% compared with the previous year.
These figures show which services children named during sensitive conversations with Childline. However, they do not establish the rate of sexual abuse on each platform, because the figures do not account for the number of child users or how frequently children seek counselling. Nevertheless, they provide an important starting point for examining where contact occurs and how online services respond.
UNICEF reveals a much larger and often hidden problem
A September 2026 UNICEF Innocenti report, Through Children’s Eyes, estimates that approximately 20 million internet using children aged 12 to 17 experienced technology facilitated sexual exploitation or abuse in one year across 21 countries. That represents about one in five children in the populations studied. The research includes several forms of abuse, rather than grooming alone.
UNICEF also found that more than four in ten affected children disclosed their experience to nobody. Fewer than 1% reported their experience to police, a social worker or a helpline. These findings challenge the idea that official complaints or helpline disclosures reveal the full extent of harm.
The report links experiences of technology facilitated sexual abuse with markedly poorer mental health outcomes, including more frequent self-harm and suicidal thoughts. However, associations in the research do not prove that abuse caused every reported outcome. The findings still underline the importance of early support and a response that protects children from blame.
Private messages are a critical part of the risk
The Office for National Statistics reported in September 2026 that 12% of children aged 13 to 15 in England and Wales received at least one sexual message during the previous year. Among children receiving such messages, 87% received them through private messaging and 68% considered them unwanted. Of those receiving unwanted sexual messages, 53% told someone about them.
The survey also found that 19% of children who received sexual messages had received them from adults aged 18 or older. Importantly, a sexual message is not automatically evidence of grooming, and some messages came from children of a similar age. Even so, these findings explain why private conversations deserve more attention in online safety education.
How grooming can move between online platforms
Grooming can begin in a public comment, a gaming session, a group chat or a direct message. An offender may pretend to share a child’s interests, offer attention or emotional support, and gradually encourage secrecy. Some then ask the child to move to a different service where parents or moderators may have less visibility.
However, offenders do not follow one fixed sequence. Some use threats or sexual requests very quickly, while others build trust over time. The key warning signs involve manipulation, pressure, secrecy and an unequal relationship, rather than the presence of any single app.
Our earlier CODA investigation, How Predators Move Children From Gaming Platforms to Private Conversations, explains how apparently harmless online interactions can develop into private contact. It also reinforces why parents should pay attention to changing relationships and communication habits, not just screen time.
Irish children are already encountering troubling online contact
CyberSafeKids surveyed more than 7,000 children aged 8 to 15 during the 2025 – 26 academic year for its report The Year Little Changed. The organisation found that 70% of surveyed 8 to 12 year olds had accounts on social media apps intended for users aged 13 or older. It also found that 26% of 8 to 12-year-olds and 25% of 12 to 15-year-olds encountered content or unsolicited contact that bothered them.
Among children in those age groups who reported upsetting experiences, the report most frequently identified Roblox for younger children and Snapchat for older children. These experiences included a broad range of unwanted content and contact, so the results should not be described as grooming statistics. Nevertheless, they show why families need age-appropriate boundaries across gaming, social media and messaging.
Meanwhile, the Irish Internet Hotline Annual Report 2025 recorded 49,808 reports assessed as child sexual abuse material. This reflects reports assessed by the service, not a count of Irish victims or grooming incidents. It demonstrates a different part of the child protection challenge: identifying illegal material and securing its removal.
Sexual extortion is another growing threat
The Internet Watch Foundation assessed 397 reports of sexually coerced extortion involving child sexual abuse imagery in 2025, a 127% increase on 2024. Boys aged 14 to 17 featured in 98% of these 2025 reports. This particular reporting channel captures only a subset of incidents, but it shows why families should discuss sextortion with boys and girls alike.
In a sextortion incident, an offender may threaten to distribute intimate imagery unless a child sends more images, pays money or meets other demands. Manipulated or AI-generated imagery can also become part of these threats. Children need reassurance that asking for help will not lead to punishment for having trusted someone online.
Why parental controls cannot carry the responsibility alone
Parents can use account privacy settings, contact restrictions, reporting tools and age-appropriate device controls to reduce some risks. However, these measures cannot reliably identify every deceptive conversation, prevent every move between apps or replace a trusting relationship with a child. They should support prevention rather than become the whole safeguarding strategy.
CODA has already examined independent tests of child safety features and why parental consent does not make social media safe. Together, those discussions reinforce the need for stronger product design, enforceable responsibilities for platforms and better education for families. Safety should not depend solely on children recognising abuse or parents finding every hidden setting.
What parents and schools should do now
For national school children, CODA supports delaying smartphones and social media access, reducing unnecessary recreational screen use and prioritising real world friendships and activities. However, children who already use digital services still need practical safety guidance. Parents should explain manipulation in simple language and make it clear that children can disclose uncomfortable conversations without fear.
- Talk about behaviour, not just apps. Ask whether anyone online has requested secrecy, personal images, private conversations or contact on another service.
- Review contact settings together. Limit messages from strangers, check privacy controls and discuss how to block and report accounts.
- Notice changes without jumping to conclusions. Sudden secrecy, anxiety about messages, threats or requests for money can warrant a calm conversation.
- Respond supportively to disclosures. Tell the child they did the right thing by speaking up, avoid blame and focus on immediate safety.
- Preserve appropriate evidence and report. Save usernames, relevant non-explicit messages and dates, but do not download, copy or forward child sexual abuse imagery.
If a child faces immediate danger in Ireland, contact An Garda Síochána or emergency services. Report suspected illegal child sexual abuse material through Hotline.ie, and seek safeguarding advice from relevant child protection services. Schools should follow their child safeguarding procedures and refer concerns through the appropriate channels.
The bigger message for parents and policymakers
The NSPCC figures make Snapchat, TikTok and Instagram impossible to ignore in discussions about child online sexual abuse. Yet UNICEF and national research reveal an even bigger problem, many children experience unwanted contact or exploitation without ever disclosing it. Effective protection must address the way online relationships develop, the incentives and designs of platforms, and the barriers that keep children silent.
We should not expect a child to recognise every offender or manage every digital risk alone. Parents, schools, regulators and technology companies all have responsibilities. The most effective response combines delayed access where appropriate, safer platforms, meaningful protections and trusted adults who listen when children speak.
References and further reading
- NSPCC: New Childline data reveals top five platforms and apps linked to online child sexual abuse (2026)
- UNICEF Innocenti: Through Children’s Eyes (2026)
- ONS: Children’s perceptions of crime and online safety, year ending February 2026
- CyberSafeKids: The Year Little Changed (2026)
- IWF: Sexually coerced extortion, 2025 data
- Irish Internet Hotline: Annual Report 2025
- CODA: How Predators Move Children From Gaming Platforms to Private Conversations
About Children of the Digital Age
Children of the Digital Age provides online safety education and training for schools, parents and organisations. Our guides support practical conversations about online behaviour and the choices people make. However, education and app settings do not replace safeguarding or professional support.
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