Social networks, the internet, and risks: portuguese parents' perception of online grooming

The paper presents an exploratory and descriptive quantitative study, involving 560 Portuguese parents with school children, aged between 6 and 17 years. Data collection was carried out through a questionnaire that was made available online and focused on the use of social networks, the Internet and the risk of online grooming. The results showed that about half of the participants did not know the term 'online grooming'. After defining the phenomenon, 97% of the participants considered it very seriously. To prevent risk, 52% of the participants reported talking with their children about online risks and taking precautions to reduce the children's vulnerability. Approximately 89% of the respondents said they knew where to report cybercrime. The study aimed to contribute to a greater awareness of the risks associated with the Internet, involving parents and caregivers in the prevention of situations of victimization of children and adolescents.This work was partially financially supported by Portuguese national funds through the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) within the framework of the Research Centre for Child Studies of the University of Minho (CIEC) project under the reference UIDB/00317/2020.