The 3 Categories of Grooming Behaviours You Should Never Ignore

Grooming is a manipulative process designed to gain the trust of a person to exploit and abuse them. And the grooming behaviours that groomers use often go unnoticed until it is too late.

Regardless of your age, gender, physical or personality characteristics, anyone can be groomed.

But spotting the signs of grooming can be a monumental task because:

• There isn’t a definitive list of grooming behaviours
• Many grooming behaviours can be interpreted as ‘normal’ interactions between two people
• Groomers are calculated and know how to act so as not to raise suspicion

However, I did find a study that categorised three sets of grooming behaviours into high-risk, moderate-risk, and lower-risk behaviours.

After reading these lists, you’ll probably be more aware of just how challenging it is to spot grooming behaviours.

High-Risk Grooming Behaviours

The first set of grooming behaviours is considered to be high-risk and very complicit with sexual grooming.

Some of these behaviours are obviously sexual abuse. However, others can still be explained away as normal adult-child interactions, for example, a gym teacher needing to correct a student’s pose.

These ‘red flag’ behaviours include:

• Sexualised touching of a child over time.
• Exposing their naked body to a child.
• Watching the child undressing or whilst they are naked.
• Showing a child pornography, in any format.
• Telling a child about past sexual experiences.
• Separating or isolating the child from their peers/family. This separation could be physical or emotional.
• Seemingly innocent or non-sexual touching of a child.

Moderate-Risk Grooming Behaviours

The second set of behaviours is considered a moderate risk for grooming to occur.

They will represent behaviours that are between 3.8 and 6.7 times more likely to occur in cases of child sexual abuse.

Again, so many of these behaviours can be explained away as normal adult-child interactions. For example, rewarding a child could be a normal part of a youth club’s system; teaching sex education fits a school curriculum, and a child lacking adult supervision could be very normal for older teens:

• Giving a child rewards/privileges.
• A child lacks adult supervision.
• Teaching the child sexual education.
• Providing the child with drugs/alcohol.
• Using inappropriate sexual language/telling dirty jokes around the child.
• Getting close to the child’s family/social group to gain access to the child.

Lower-Risk Grooming Behaviours

The third set of grooming behaviours represents behaviours that are 1.6-3.4 times more likely to occur in cases of child sexual abuse.

These behaviours seem more generalised and less specific than the previous two lists but need to be noted, nonetheless.

I defy you to read through this list of lower-risk behaviours and tell me that you’d recognise any of these as acts of grooming. All of these can be explained as normal adult-child interactions, depending on the context.

Note that these behaviours are defined as being lower-risk, not low-risk:

• Participating in activities with the child that exclude other adults.
• The child receiving a lot of attention.
• The child lacks confidence/feels unwanted or unloved by others/feels needy/feels lonely or isolated from others.
• Giving the child compliments.
• Seeming nice, charming, likeable.
• Giving the child rewards/privileges.
• Taking the child on overnight stays or outings.

Context Matters

You’ve probably noticed that most of these grooming behaviours, regardless of which category they sit in, could happen in totally innocent settings.

Examples could be:

• A dance teacher correcting a pose
• A youth worker giving a compliment
• Acoach spending extra time with a teen who lacks confidence

These interactions could all be completely normal and appropriate to their situation.

And that’s what makes grooming so difficult to spot.

Context is everything.

It’s not always about what’s happening.

It’s often about how, why, and how often these actions are happening.

Questions you might want to ask yourself if you’re suspicious of child grooming include:

• Is the behaviour part of someone’s role and clearly understood by others?
• Is the behaviour happening repeatedly with the same child?
• Is the adult seeking opportunities to be alone with the child or stepping outside of professional boundaries?

Groomers are calculated.

They don’t rush.

They often test the waters and push boundaries bit by bit, while keeping everything just innocent enough that people don’t get suspicious.

If they’re clever, they’ll even look like a pillar of the community. Remember, most groomers are often described as being:

• Friendly
• Helpful
• Someone who ‘goes above and beyond’

But sometimes, that’s exactly how groomers get away with their behaviour

So when it comes to recognising grooming behaviours, you really can’t rely on a checklist of symptoms like you might do for a medical diagnosis.

You need to look at the bigger picture and spot the patterns.

What to Do If You Suspect Someone is Being Groomed

If something feels off; say something.

It’s better to be red-faced and wrong, than stuck with the wish that you had said something sooner.

You don’t need to be 100% sure and you don’t need all the details.

If you’re worried, that’s enough of a reason to raise your concern. It’s hard to speak up, but silence only contributes to groomers being enabled to abuse.

Here’s what you can do if you are suspicious of grooming behaviours.

• Write it down. If you notice worrying behaviours or interactions, keep a record. Dates, times, what happened, who was there. These notes might be really important if concerns escalate.
• Talk to someone you trust. This could be a safeguarding lead, a manager, a teacher, or even a helpline like NSPCC. Don’t sit on your suspicions, even a quiet chat can help you process what you’re seeing.
• Trust your instincts. Grooming doesn’t always look how we expect it to. If someone’s behaviour is making you uncomfortable, it’s okay to question it.
• Report it. If you think a child is in immediate danger, call 999. If not, but you still have concerns, you can contact your local authority’s safeguarding team or contact an organisation such as the NSPCC.

If you’re the one who’s been groomed or abused, please know that it’s not your fault. It doesn’t matter how subtle or confusing it was or how long it took you to realise, abuse is always the responsibility of the abuser.

Summary

In this post, we’ve discussed 3 categories of grooming behaviours that you need to be aware of.

However, it’s also important to bear in mind that it’s the context of the behaviours that is key.

On saying that, we also need to remember that groomers are clever and manipulative.

They aren’t going to suddenly apply a tactic or behaviour to a situation where it doesn’t fit. For example, a youth club that has never run overnight visits would not be the place for a groomer to start initiating overnight stays or outings. But giving a child compliments could be appropriate to almost any setting.

An interesting factor that we’ve noted is that of the groomer being deemed as ‘nice, charming, likeable’.

As I’ve previously mentioned, this is part of the manipulation for the groomer to go undetected.

No one is going to suspect the nice, charming helper, are they? And no one is going to believe accusations against that charming and likeable person, are they?

Nearly all of these grooming behaviours listed within this post above can easily be explained away as normal adult-child interactions. This is particularly true when a teenager starts to become more independent.

It is safe to say, though, that as each of the behaviours is so nondescript and could easily be explained away innocently, it’s no wonder that it’s easier to spot the signs of grooming retrospectively rather than when it’s happening.

Keeley Brennan

Keeley Brennan is a writer and campaigner who speaks out about Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG), using her own lived experience to raise awareness and inspire change. Through her blog and upcoming books, she’s creating space for difficult conversations to happen. The name Keeley means beautiful, and Brennan is Irish for sorrow; a reminder that even in the darkest places, something meaningful can grow.