Influencer reveals the terrifying way a stranger tried to ‘groom’ her child through a very popular kids game

A South Australian influencer was left stunned when she discovered a stranger was attempting to ‘groom’ her 10-year-old daughter Valentina online.

Hayley Berlingeri, 35, confiscated her child’s iPad for three months when she discovered the pre-teen had been talking with someone on the online game Roblox. 

Sharing the shock details on Instagram, Hayley warned her followers that her daughter discovered how to turn on the disabled chat feature, leaving her vulnerable to being contacted by strangers online.

‘Girls, just a little reminder to keep vigilant with knowing what your kids are doing online!’ Hayley began her lengthy message to fans.

‘I took Vali’s iPad away for the last three months because I found her messaging with a random person on Roblox after she worked out how to turn on the chat feature which I had turned off when she first got the game. Turns out it was a groomer!’

Hayley said she began going through all the messages between Valentina and this stranger, and discovered they had been offering to give her new ‘pets’ in the game and show her new rooms.

‘This is how it starts. It’s just like textbook playground grooming where the kidnapper offers the kid a lolly,’ Hayley said before sharing the online username of the ‘random person’. 

Hayley went on to say she used to frequently check Valentina’s iPad for suspicious activity but ‘got slack’ because she ‘is such a good girl’. 

‘So grateful that I found all of this out when I did before anything unfolded,’ she added.

‘And I’m so grateful for the lesson I’ve learned not to just blindly trust my children, even if they are so good and sweet and lovely. They’re still kids at the end of the day.’

Valentina has since been given back her iPad ‘with all chat features turned back off’ and Hayley said she will ‘be keeping my eyes peeled’ for any more inappropriate behaviour her eldest may encounter online.

Roblox is an online game platform which allows users to communicate with each other as well as ‘create, share experiences with friends, and be anything you can imagine’. 

It’s not the first time Hayley’s children have been exposed to shocking online interactions.

Moments after sharing what happened to Valentina, the mum-of-four—who shares children Valentina, Rome, eight, Sonny, six, and Giulietta, two, with her husband of 14 years Paolo—said she had to confiscate the iPad from her two sons as well. 

Hayley confiscated her child’s iPad for three months when she discovered the pre-teen had been talking with someone on the online game Roblox

Sharing the shock details on Instagram, Hayley warned her followers that her daughter discovered how to turn on the disabled chat feature, leaving her vulnerable to being contacted by strangers online

It’s not the first time Hayley’s children have been exposed to shocking online interactions. Moments after sharing what happened to Valentina, the mum-of-four said she had to confiscate the iPad from her two sons as well

Hayley shares children Valentina, Rome, eight, Sonny, six, and Giulietta, two, with her husband of 14 years Paolo. All pictured

‘We’ve also banned our boys from their iPads for three months too because an older kid who we trusted showed them inappropriate things online and then they looked stuff up again and didn’t tell us about it,’ Hayley said.  

‘It can so easily happen and even the “best” kids can hide things from their parents, no matter how educated they are or how many conversations around the topic have been had. 

‘This whole online world is scary and we just have to be so on top of it all, which is really hard when time is so short these days.’

Hayley said her family of six has ‘had a real shakeup’ in recent months when it comes to online activity ‘because a few things happened that we never thought would’.  

The mummy blogger was left shaken because she said she’s always made sure to have ‘very direct conversations’ with her children about the dangers being online can bring.

She added that her kids’ school also ‘has really great online safety programs’ which teaches students how to be careful when navigating online spaces.  

‘Even with all of that, this stuff has still happened and our kids still didn’t come to us,’ she said.

‘It’s been a very welcome wake up to be even more vigilant with checking what they’re doing online, and to not blindly trust them because at the end of the day all we want to do is keep our kids safe and happy right?’ 

Hayley is an Adelaide-based influencer who boasts 126,000 followers on her public Instagram account where she frequently shares pictures of her four children and the lavish holidays she takes them on.