Run this with a class, a club, or one kid at the kitchen table

Read this before you teach it

Teaching this topic tends to surface a disclosure

A lesson about sextortion and grooming often prompts a student to tell you something is already happening, either during the session or in the days afterward. That is a sign the lesson worked. Plan for it rather than being surprised by it.

• Tell students up front what you must pass on. Say it plainly at the start: “If you tell me someone is hurting you, I have to tell someone who can help. I cannot promise to keep that secret, and I will tell you before I do it.” Students who learn this after they disclose feel betrayed.
• Give a private route out of the room. Not every student will speak in front of peers. Offer a slip of paper, an email address, or a stated office hour before you begin.
• Do not investigate. Do not ask who, or ask to see the images, or ask the student to log in and show you. Take the disclosure, write down what the student said in their words, and hand it to the people whose job it is.
• Know where your school counselor is that day. Warn them the lesson is happening.

• Educators are mandated reporters in Maryland. The state names health care practitioners, educators, human service workers, and law enforcement officers as required by law to report suspected child abuse or neglect (Maryland Department of Human Services).
• Report both ways, and quickly. Maryland requires mandated reporters to report orally and in writing. The oral report must be made immediately, and the written report within 48 hours of the contact that disclosed the suspected abuse (Maryland DHS).
• Report to your local department of social services or local law enforcement in the jurisdiction where you believe it happened (Maryland DHS).
• Suspicion is the threshold, not proof. Maryland states that reports of suspected child abuse are immune from civil liability unless purposefully erroneous or malicious (Maryland DHS). You are not required to be certain, and it is not your job to decide whether it is true.
• Follow your district policy as well. Your school system almost certainly has its own reporting chain on top of the state duty. The state duty does not go away if the internal chain is slow.

This is a plain-language summary for planning purposes, not legal advice. Check your district's current policy and your school's designated reporting contact before you teach the lesson.

• “What would make you turn your location off for a friend?” Location sharing between friends is social, not technical. This gets at the actual reason it stays on.
• “How would you tell a friend to stop sharing their location without it being weird?” Peer scripts spread further than anything an adult says.
• “What is in the background of the last photo you posted?” Nobody has to answer. Watch how many people pick up their phone.
• “Why would someone not tell an adult, even when they know they should?” Ask about the barrier rather than the behaviour and you get honesty instead of the right answer.
• “What should a school do differently when this happens?” Students have specific opinions here and are rarely asked.

Every page here is set up to print properly. Use your browser's Print command and choose Save as PDF. Navigation, buttons, and the Quick Exit control drop out, every walkthrough prints open instead of collapsed, and web links print with their full address so a student can type them in.

• Lock it down prints as the full settings handbook with tickable boxes. Long, but it is the one worth having on paper.
• Get help now prints as a resource sheet with every phone number and URL spelled out. Good for a counselor's door or a nurse's office.
• Check yourself prints the eight questions for a no-phone version of the self-check.

Tip: to print only part of the settings handbook, type an app name into the search box on Lock it down first. Filtered-out walkthroughs do not print, so you get a one-app handout instead of the whole thing.

• Change the Conversation — a Maryland non-profit working to prevent child sexual abuse and support healing. Their Road to Online Safety guide and trainings are built for students, parents, and educators, and they are a partner on this project.
• NCMEC on online enticement — the source behind most of the statistics on this site, plus NetSmartz, their free classroom curriculum with age-banded videos and activities.
• Take It Down — NCMEC's free service for getting a nude image of a minor removed from participating platforms. Worth knowing how it works before a student needs it, not after.
• Thorn research library — where the platform and behaviour data on this site comes from, if you want the underlying reports.

If you are a parent rather than a teacher

Do the walkthroughs alongside your kid rather than to them. The fastest way to lose the conversation is to take the phone and start changing settings yourself. Two things carry more weight than any toggle: that they know you will not take the phone away if they tell you something went wrong, and that they know which adult they would go to if it is not you.

There is a walkthrough written for exactly this on Lock it down — it is written to the student, on how to raise it with you.