Some children are more at risk of grooming, particularly those who are vulnerable. Children in care, with disabilities or who are neglected can be targeted by groomers. Groomers will exploit any vulnerability to increase the likelihood a child or young person will become dependent on them and less likely to speak out.
Grooming is a form of abuse that involves manipulating someone until they're isolated, dependent, and more vulnerable to exploitation. Grooming itself is not listed as one of the 10 categories of harm in The Care Act.
Many adults in toxic or abusive relationships will experience grooming as their partner's attempt to build a false sense of extreme emotional connection, create a sense of dependence, and overall more vulnerable to physical, emotional, and sexual abuse.
Grooming steps include: Identifying and targeting the victim. Any child or teen may be a potential victim. Some predators may be attracted to children and youth with certain characteristics or may target youth with certain co-existing factors—such as vulnerable parents—to facilitate the crime.
But many of the types of harm listed in The Care Act, including modern slavery, physical, sexual and financial abuse, can happen as a result of grooming. When most people think about grooming, they think about children. But adults are vulnerable to grooming too.
If someone's being groomed or hurt, they might: keep secrets, or lie about what's happened. feel scared to talk about things, or avoid talking about it. suddenly have money, or new things like clothes or phones that they can't explain.
Malignant narcissists begin their relationships with excessive amounts of contact, praise, flattery, and attention – this is known as love bombing. They use love bombing to groom their victims in order to get them invested in a fabricated future together – one that they never plan to deliver on.
Abusers Often Come on Strong
Intense romance can be a form of grooming, a predatory tactic that is meant to build a deep emotional connection. Abusers know exactly what they are doing.
The predator identifies a victim who seems vulnerable, often looking for a child with low self-esteem, an obedient/compliant personality, or mental disability. If possible, he or she also assesses the child's home life for signs that the parents are uninvolved or pre-occupied.
Children are perhaps most likely to develop a trauma bond when exposed to sexual exploitation and targeted grooming. Sometimes, they may never have experienced physical intimacy, and grooming tactics can lead them to believe that their abuser has genuine feelings for them, and that their behaviour is normal.
Children who have been victimised and experienced grooming are likely to suffer from serious long-term mental health issues such as anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress, and suicidal thoughts.
No one is immune to grooming, though some are more susceptible than others — including minors, "because of their naiveté,” Marlowe Garrison says. “[Grooming] can occur at any age, and it has a great deal to do with gullibility, insecurity, religion, and culture.
A male predator tends to view aggression and violence as necessary characteristics. He may enjoy pornography, telling sexually offensive jokes or making suggestive or offensive comments about women. He will quickly dismiss questionable comments or statements, by saying he didn't mean it or was "just joking."
You may have heard the term as it applies to children, but adults can also groom other adults. In fact, some adults may use other adults, and particularly women, to help them in their grooming. As with other forms of manipulation, grooming is not a simple cut-and-dry technique.
Gaslighting is a common form of emotional/psychological abuse and can be used as a tactic in grooming children for abuse. The term comes from Gaslight (1944) a movie where the technique is used by the characters. Gaslighting is sometimes also called “crazy making”.
Grooming Is A Form Of Gaslighting
You're suffering the consequences of someone else abusing you and that feels terrible, which is why it's so hard to admit the abuse is going on in the first place for most of us because the consequences are very dire. It's like facing the thing you don't want to ever face.
In fact, narcissists are often attracted to strong, confident, and self-assured women. While this may seem counterintuitive, it is important to realize that the narcissistic traits of grandiosity and confidence are really a mask for deep insecurity.
They will often deploy a variety of narcissistic relationship patterns such as manipulation, charismatic, and exploitational tactics in order to ensure that their own needs and wants are met. As a spouse, you may be the subject of their manipulation and abuse, while your partner treats everyone else positively.
Following a grooming experience, the child may suffer numerous negative effects such as embarrassment, irritability, anxiety, stress, depression, and substance abuse. Even in the absence of physical sexual abuse, the child may be traumatized and suffer long-lasting emotional damage caused by non-contact sexual abuse.
Grooming can take place online or in-person. It's usually employed by a family member or someone else in the victim's circle of trust, such as a coach, teacher, youth group leader or others who naturally have some interaction with the victim.
The way you dress, groom and carry yourself affects how you feel and think about yourself. Being well groomed leads to a bolstered sense of self-esteem which affects how you come across to others. If you feel unkempt, you will appear diffident in your outlook. This will impact negatively on how people perceive you.