It is perfectly normal to feel a knot in your stomach when you hear words like grooming associated with the games your children enjoy so much.
As they grow up, their desire to socialise online increases, and with it, so does our sense that the digital environment is becoming a more complex place to navigate.
Technology moves fast, and what matters most is not that you become an expert, but that you try to maintain that emotional bond and trust with them — your best protection tool.
What is grooming in video games and how does it affect children and teenagers?
The term can sound intimidating, but at its core we are talking about a process of emotional manipulation.
An adult gains the trust of a minor, often by pretending to be someone their age or sharing the same interests in the game, with the goal of obtaining images, personal information, or in-person meetings.
For a child or teenager, this can be very confusing. What starts as a fun friendship based on tips for levelling up or gifts of virtual items, can turn into a relationship of dependency.
The impact is not only digital, it directly affects their emotional wellbeing, their sleep, and their ability to enjoy real-life experiences away from screens.
Warning signs to detect grooming in online games
We all tend to worry about aspects of video games such as microtransactions or screen addiction, but sometimes these dynamics can also give us clues to detect other complex situations.
To identify whether something is making them uncomfortable, it is enough to pay attention to their behaviour at home. The answers usually appear when you connect with their emotional world and observe those small changes in their mood.
- Excessive secrecy: If you notice they quickly hide the screen when you walk by, or if they seem very tense when you try to ask who they are playing with.
- Unexpected gifts: The arrival of virtual currency, skins, or in-game upgrades that they have not purchased themselves and that you have not gifted them.
- Sudden mood swings: Especially frustration or anxiety when they cannot log on, as if they feel they "have to" fulfil a commitment to someone online.
- Social withdrawal: They start distancing themselves from their school friends to spend more time with "friends" they only know through their headsets.
How to prevent grooming in video games
As pointed out by expert child protection organizations such as Save the Children in their guide on grooming, this is a reality much more common than it seems in today's digital environments.
Preventing these situations means creating a safe, consistent environment at home, always prioritising trust and accompaniment.
Encourage gaming in shared spaces and keep phones free of distractions
One of the most effective and simple measures is to separate devices by their purpose. The phone, by its very portable nature, invites private use, hidden under the covers or in corners where supervision is impossible.
With our devices for children from Balance Phone it is possible to encourage the use of a distraction-free phone, ensuring that the handset is purely a communication and utility tool.
Gaming should be a living room activity. Ideally, video games should be enjoyed on static consoles or PCs placed in communal areas of the home.
This allows gaming to be something transparent and natural, where you can see who they are interacting with without having to constantly “watch over” them. The phone should be used solely as a communication and utility tool.
More ways to keep your kids safe online
- Configure privacy settings: Make sure profiles are private and that they can only receive messages from people they actually know in real life.
- Talk about in-game purchases: Explain that gifts from strangers in games almost always have an ulterior motive, helping them develop critical thinking.
- Encourage offline time: Offering real-world leisure alternatives that motivate them as much as the digital world helps make gaming a complement, not the centre of their lives. Some of these alternatives include sports or rediscovering the reading habit that many young people have already lost.
Our limited device Balance Phone was created precisely for this: so that the phone becomes an ally of real life and not an open door to unnecessary risks while your children are in their bedroom.
