Child Grooming

Child Grooming is complex. Generally, Grooming can be defined as the process an abuser uses to desensitise someone – to make them less likely to reject or report abusive or exploitative behaviour. We will assess how grooming usually happens when there is a power differential within a relationship, which the abuser exploits for their own gratification. The age difference is often a common example of a power differential. In our society children are taught to respect older children and adults, and this is fully taken advantage of through the process of child grooming. Someone who was groomed as a child might find it hard to accept that what happened to them was a form of ‘abuse’. The abuser may have taken an interest in them in a way that other adults did not or allowed them to do things other adults did not allow.