The advice that could save your child from a predator: Ex-cop reveals the five stages of grooming that every parent must know – and the easiest red flag to spot

Kristi McVee has the job that, in an ideal world, should not exist.

As the founder of Child Abuse Prevention and Education Australia (CAPE), she teaches parents tough – but necessary – lessons in how to protect their little ones from the monsters who prey on the innocent.

For mums and dads in the rose-tinted bubble of early childhood, the idea there are predators who seek to harm their children is unconscionable.

But Kristi knows they are out there – and far more than you could imagine.

She knows this because she has spoken to hundreds of their victims during her ten years working as specialist child interviewer and a detective senior constable with Western Australia Police Force.

In her first week on the job, Kristi, who was a new mother at the time, was exposed to the sexual abuse that more than one in four Australian children experience.

She never could have imagined just how prevalent child abuse was in Australia. Now she sees the potential for evil everywhere she looks. 

Now retired, she has dedicated herself to educating parents on abuse red flags, the tactics used by paedophiles and – perhaps most important of all – the warning signs someone is trying to groom you and your child.

Most child abuse begins with grooming, she says, with few attacks being random, opportunistic acts. It typically happens in five distinctive stages.

‘Grooming is a step-by-step process that allows a predator or abuser to essentially prepare the child for abuse,’ she says.

‘It doesn’t always work but pretty much all abusers follow the same pathway that works both online and offline.’

Phase One: Finding a victim 

All sex criminals are contemptible creatures, but paedophiles are particularly loathsome due to the calculated way they target society’s most defenceless.

‘Firstly, they are looking for children who are vulnerable,’ Kristi tells me.

‘Often these children don’t have lot of parental support or supervision. Maybe they are lacking self-esteem or education around [what sexual abuse is]. Maybe they have some mental health issues.

‘They’re mainly looking for a child that isn’t too confident or doesn’t have a protective parental figure.’

The 2023 Australian Child Maltreatment Study found 32 per cent of children had experienced physical abuse, 28.5 per cent had been sexually abused and 30.9 per cent were emotionally abused

Phase Two: Establishing a connection

Groomers are chameleons – and it is this stage when they adopt the persona they believe with bring them close to their target child.  

‘Once they’ve found the right child, they will work at gaining their trust – and the family’s trust,’ Kristi explains.

‘They’ll begin to change their behaviour – many will adopt a “cool” persona and try to be someone for the child to lean on.

‘They’ll provide the child with a lot of positive reinforcement and make them feel special. That could also include gift-giving or special trips.’

Phase Three: Isolation 

The presents and the trips are often done under the eyes of the parent – but the next stage is all about ‘isolating the child’ from their caregiver.

‘Abusers will find ways to be alone with the child and make the child trust them over their own parents or carers,’ Kristi says.

‘They’ll also encourage the child to tell them secrets and encourage keeping secrets from parents.’

Phase Four: Abuse begins

Once secrecy has become normalised, the paedophile starts to feel comfortable injecting sexual themes into their conversation and behaviour.

‘They’ll add inappropriate things into their interactions with the child,’ Kristi says.

‘Abusers could start sexualising their connection with a child by asking them questions like, “Have you ever kissed a girl / boy before?”

‘They might pretend to accidentally show them pornography and ask them, “Did you like what you saw?”

‘This could then lead to physical sexual abuse, though it doesn’t happen in all cases. Any type of abuse can be traumatic.

‘Even if the child is uncomfortable by this stage, they are unlikely to say anything because of the connection the abuser has built.’

Phase Five: Maintenance 

Once the abuse has started, the next phase is maintaining control by manipulating the child using threats and emotional blackmail. 

‘If the child is reliant on the person, the abuser could say things like, “If you tell anyone, I’ll go to prison and we won’t have this special connection anymore” or, “If you tell anyone, no one will believe you”.

‘In some cases they will explicitly threaten the child or their family – which is a form of emotional abuse.’

Kristi compiled 10 years’ worth of policing into an educational plan for parents so they can better understand the warning signs of grooming and abuse

Thirty-two per cent of Australian children have been physically abused, 28.5 per cent have been sexually abused and 30.9 per cent have been emotionally abused

Prevention, Warning Signs and Intervention

Kristi is a firm believer that education – for both parents and children – is essential to preventing child abuse.

‘Most people don’t understand abuse. They don’t know what abuse is. I call it willful ignorance,’ she tells me.

‘There’s not many people in Australia who are openly talking about what abuse is and how to intervene, like myself.

‘For children that have been abused, it’s a life sentence. Being abused will affect their whole life, their partners’ lives and likely their children’s lives.’

Kristi has created a tool for parents and carers to use to help young children learn about abuse without exposing them to unnecessary distress.

‘Sometimes children don’t understand what it means to feel unsafe, so they don’t understand when something inappropriate is happening,’ she says.

‘When I talk with kids as young as two or three, I’ll say, “When I feel unsafe I get butterflies in my tummy, my hands feel sweaty and my voice is shaky”.

‘That helps kids to identify if they’re feeling unsafe.’

One of Kristi’s proven strategies is to encourage a child to create a list of people who make them feel safe – it can include a parent, a teacher or even a police officer.

Once a child has made their ‘safe list’, tell them: ‘If at any time you feel unsafe, you should go to one of those safe people and tell them what’s happening.’

When a child has a circle of ‘safe’ adults they can confide in, they are more likely to report adults who make them feel unsafe or do not respect their boundaries. 

Kristi explained abusers often seek out children with low self-esteem, limited education on abuse and low parental supervision

The most notable red flag parents will notice when their child is being groomed is the desire of the abuser to spend an inappropriate amount of time with their child

Often, the most glaring red flags for a parent don’t come from their child, but from the abuser – this is because vulnerable children are often manipulated into being secretive.

‘They often want to protect themselves as well as their families – especially if they’ve been threatened. Some will even be manipulated into protecting their abusers,’ Kristi says.

‘Also, a lot of the time kids are trying to fix things for themselves. I’ve seen little kids as young as six and eight try and fix their problems for themselves.’

The red flag that’s easiest to spot 

The grooming stage that is easiest to spot from an outsider’s perspective is when the abuser is working to establish a connection with a child.

‘Look out for those people who are paying way too much attention to kids,’ she says.

‘No one should want to spend more time with your child than you want to spend with your child.

‘As parents, we don’t always want to be around our kids – they’re annoying at times. So there is not one adult that should want to be around your child more than you do.’

When it’s time to intervene in a case of suspected child abuse, Kristi recommends parents focus on creating an honest, open and non-judgmental environment.

‘Someone asked me, “How do I convince my kids to talk to me?” but it’s not about convincing – you need to show them you’re trustworthy through action,’ she says.

‘Kids are smarter than we give them credit for. Often they’ll test whether they can trust us with the small stuff before they open up about the big stuff.

‘Kids might be trying to tell their parents that something’s wrong but they’re worried they’ll overreact or be judgmental. They might test how their parents react to something little, like spilt milk.

‘If we are constantly criticising, judging or talking badly about them, they are not going to trust us enough to tell us about something as big as abuse.’

When it’s time to intervene in a case of suspected child abuse, Kristi recommends parents focus on creating an honest, open and non-judgmental environment 

The easiest way for parents to begin fostering a good relationship with their children is by ‘creating moments to listen’.

‘We need to be calm and actively listening,’ Kristi notes.

‘Question yourself: are you the type of parent that listens when your kid tells you about the really mundane, boring things? If so, it’s likely they will feel comfortable telling you about the important stuff.

‘Listening is really important. We need to listen more than we talk.’