The Conversation That Can Protect Your Kids Online: What I Said on Despierta América

This past Friday I went back on Despierta América for a conversation every parent wishes they never had to have and every parent needs to have before there is a crisis.

I joined Jomari Goyso and Detective Álvaro Zabaleta to talk about grooming, online predators, parental controls and what a family should do when something feels wrong. The technology matters. The settings matter. The apps matter.

But the most important protection we discussed cannot be downloaded.

It is the confidence your child has that they can tell you what happened without losing your love, getting blamed or being punished for asking for help.

An online predator rarely looks like a villain

When parents picture a predator, they tend to imagine an obvious stranger making an obvious threat. Grooming usually starts much more quietly.

The person listens. They share the child’s interests. They offer compliments, attention, gaming credits or digital gifts. They may pretend to be the same age. The conversation feels friendly long before it feels dangerous, and that is exactly the point.

It can start on a social network, but it can just as easily happen in a video game, a livestream, a messaging app or any platform with a chat box. I said this on the segment and it is worth repeating: if a service lets one person communicate with another, it can become a door.

That does not mean we take every device away and make our children afraid of the internet. It means we stop treating safety as a list of “bad apps” and start teaching them to recognize bad behavior wherever it appears.

Ask better questions:

• Who do you talk to while you play?
• Can people you do not know send you private messages?
• Has anyone asked you to move the conversation to a secret chat?
• Has anyone offered you money, gifts or game credits?
• Has anyone asked you to hide a friendship from us?

This is not an interrogation. You are helping your child see the moment when a friendly conversation begins crossing a line.

What Jomari shared changed the whole conversation

During the segment, Jomari spoke openly about the abuse he suffered when he was 13. He explained that he did not tell his parents because he thought the truth would hurt them.

Sit with that for a second. A child may stay silent because they are trying to protect the parents.

They may also believe you will not trust them. They may be terrified that you will take away the phone, yell, ask why they responded or blame them for sending an image. To an adult, those fears may sound irrational. To a frightened 13-year-old, they can feel like the end of the world.

We cannot wait until something happens to announce that our children can trust us. That trust is built in small conversations, over time, while nothing is on fire.

Here is a sentence every child should hear more than once:

If anyone ever makes you uncomfortable, asks you to keep a secret, threatens you or asks for a photo, tell me. You will not be in trouble. We will solve it together.

The repetition matters. In the moment when fear tells a child to hide, they need to remember your promise more clearly than the predator’s threat.

Talking about sexuality is part of digital safety

This is where many families freeze. Parents worry that talking about sexual content will introduce ideas too early, so they avoid the subject completely.

Silence does not eliminate curiosity. It sends the questions somewhere else.

The conversation has to be appropriate for the child’s age, but it also has to be clear. A child or teenager needs to know:

• Nobody should ask them for an intimate photo or show them sexual material.
• An adult should never ask them to hide a relationship or conversation.
• A photo or video call does not prove that someone is who they claim to be.
• They can leave any conversation that creates fear, pressure or confusion.
• If they already replied, accepted a gift or sent something, they can still ask for help.
• The responsibility belongs to the person who lied, pressured, manipulated or threatened them.

Clear language does not take away a child’s innocence. It gives them the vocabulary to recognize a boundary and ask for help.

Your first reaction becomes part of their safety system

Detective Zabaleta was direct about this: when a child says something happened, act. Do not minimize it, show shame or make them feel as if they committed the offense.

Start with three sentences:

1. I believe you. Do not turn the first conversation into an interrogation.
2. This is not your fault. That remains true even if they replied or shared an image.
3. Thank you for telling me. Asking for help takes courage.

Then move carefully:

1. Stay calm and find out whether there is immediate danger or a planned meeting.
2. Preserve the username, profile link, messages, dates and threats.
3. Do not pay, negotiate or send more content.
4. Do not delete the account or conversation before preserving the evidence.
5. Report the account on the platform, then block it after the evidence is saved.
6. In the United States, report it to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children’s CyberTipline or call 1-800-THE-LOST (1-800-843-5678).
7. If anyone is in immediate danger, call 911 or local law enforcement.

One important warning: do not download or forward a sexual image of a minor just to “keep a copy.” Save the messages, links and account information, and follow the authorities’ instructions.

If an intimate image taken before age 18 is being shared or may be posted, Take It Down can create a digital fingerprint of the file without the image ever leaving the device.

Make online safety a ten-minute family habit

Safety works better as a routine than as one enormous annual lecture. Once a month, take ten minutes and review these together:

1. New friends and followers. Does your child actually know them?
2. Game and app chats. Who can message them or add them to a group?
3. Privacy and location. Are accounts private, and is location sharing off?
4. One hypothetical situation. Ask, “What would you do if somebody offered money for a photo or asked you to switch to a secret chat?”
5. The family promise. Remind them that asking for help will not cost them your love or make the abuse their fault.

Do the review with your child, not only to your child. Explain what the controls can see, why you use them and where their limits are. Secret surveillance can break trust and simply push the conversation to another account or device.

Parental-control tools help when they are actually configured

On the show I mentioned free and paid tools that can limit content, manage contacts and, in some cases, flag concerning communication. My advice is simple: it is better to choose one tool and configure it completely than install five of them and leave every one half-finished.

Use the controls already built into the phone first. Review who can contact the account. Turn off public location sharing. Set age-appropriate content restrictions. Then look at a dedicated parental-control service if your family needs more visibility or alerts.

I have talked about this issue on Despierta América for years, including the tools parents can use to monitor teenagers online. The products change. The principle does not: filters are one layer of protection, not a digital babysitter.

An app can close a door. It cannot promise your child that they will be heard calmly.

The strongest defense is limits plus trust

Protecting children online does not mean banning all technology or secretly reading every word they type. It means reducing opportunities for dangerous contact, teaching them to recognize manipulation and giving them a clear exit when something happens.

Configure the device. Review the chats. Set limits. But make one idea unmistakable:

No mistake, message or photograph can take away your child’s right to ask you for help.

Technology can buy time. Trust gives them a way out.

That conversation can start today.