Smart toys have become a staple in millions of homes. Teddy bears that talk back, robot companions that learn your child’s name, and interactive dolls that hold full conversations — they feel futuristic and fun. But many of them are also recording everything your child says and sending that data to servers most parents have …
Parents today are asked to navigate a digital landscape that changes faster than any guidebook can keep up with. AI-generated content, social media algorithms designed for engagement, gaming platforms with open chat, and the constant threat of online exploitation — it is a lot. The problem is not that parents do not care. It is …
Online grooming is not a single event. It is a process, and it usually unfolds over days or weeks. Understanding how it works is the first step to stopping it before a child gets hurt. Grooming is the method predators use to build trust with a child and the adults around them. It can happen …
Federal investigators are sounding the alarm about a violent online network that hunts for children inside gaming chats, social media, and private messaging apps. The group, known as 764, has been linked to predators who befriend kids in public game lobbies, then move conversations into private spaces where they use threats and blackmail to pressure …
School is back in session, which means kids are spending more time online — for homework, social media, and connecting with friends. But the start of a new school year also brings renewed risks: strangers in group chats, unsafe links shared by classmates, and increased screen time that many parents struggle to monitor effectively. The …
Instagram is rolling out a new safety feature that notifies parents when their teenagers repeatedly search for suicide or self-harm content. The feature, arriving next week in the US, UK, Australia, and Canada, represents a significant shift in how Meta approaches child safety online. Here is how it works. Teens enrolled in Instagram’s “Teen Accounts” …
Online grooming remains one of the most underrecognized threats facing children and teens today. Unlike the stereotypical “stranger danger” narrative, grooming is a slow, calculated process where predators systematically build trust, create emotional bonds, and gradually desensitize young victims to exploitation. Research from the Crimes Against Children Research Center and the National Center for Missing …
As students head back to school this fall, there is a new threat parents need to know about: AI-powered nudify apps. These tools use generative AI to create fake nude images from ordinary, fully clothed photos — and they are being used to target teens in schools across the country. The National Center for Missing …
Online sextortion is not a rare crime anymore. It is a crisis. New research from the Cyberbullying Research Center, published in the May 2026 issue of Child Abuse & Neglect, finds that 15.4% of U.S. teens aged 13 to 17 have experienced sextortion. That is triple the rate from just five years earlier. Even more …
Conversational AI chatbots are exploding in popularity among teens — and so are the risks. A new nationally representative study published in the Journal of Adolescence found that 60% of US teens ages 13 to 17 have used a conversational AI chatbot at least once. More alarming: of those teen users, nearly half (46.8%) reported …