08/26/2026
**🚨 Back to School: Talk to Your Kids About Sextortion**
As kids head back to school, it’s a good time for an important conversation about **sextortion** and online safety.
Sextortion occurs when someone online tricks, pressures, or threatens a young person into sending an intimate image or video—and then demands money, additional images, or something else in return. Predators may pretend to be a peer, create fake accounts, or build trust before making threats.
**Parents and caregivers:**
🔹 Talk openly with your children about online friendships, private images, and manipulation.
🔹 Remind them that **no one has the right to pressure or threaten them for an image.**
🔹 Encourage them to come to you or another trusted adult—even if they feel embarrassed or afraid.
🔹 If something happens, **don’t blame or shame them.** Save the evidence, stop communicating with the person, and report the account.
🔹 **Do not pay or send additional images** in response to threats.
🔹 If there is an immediate threat to your child’s safety, contact law enforcement.
Most importantly, make sure your kids know:
**❤️ You will not be in trouble for coming to me.**
A difficult conversation today could help protect a child tomorrow.
Please share this with other parents, caregivers, educators, and members of our community. đź’™
