“Sexting”: What Is It, and Are Your Kids Doing It?
Parent Alert!
According to survey results released in December 2008, one in five teen girls ages 13-19 years (22%)—and 11% of teen girls ages 13-16 years old—say they have electronically sent, or posted online, nude or semi-nude images of themselves. Guys are doing this too with just slightly reduced percentages.
Most of this electronic sending is with the kids cell phones; the ones you, mom and dad, are paying for.
This is what is happening: Cell phone + Sex + Texting = Sexting.
A more complete definition would be: sending sexually explicit text messages, photographs, or videos via cell phones. This technology, with its built-in high resolution camera and Internet access, now allows your kids to, both, send and receive porn over their cell phones, with the outgoing porn being of themselves.
It is not just the computer that you have to monitor and or filter anymore.
If you have not yet read: Your Kids Privacy At The Expense Of Their Safety-No Way, I recommend you do so. I hope it will encourage you, as a parent, to not be overly concerned about your child’s privacy, and to take whatever steps necessary in order to protect your kids, even from themselves.
Besides being incredibly stupid, sexting can open oneself up to a very public humiliation when the pictures, thought to be private, start appearing on the cell phones of every other kid in the school. Oh, by the way, if the child is under 18 years of age, then you have child pornography ramifications for both the sender and receiver of the pictures. Underage sexting can label teens as sex offenders for the rest of their lives.
What is a parent to do?
This Sex and Tech link gives parents some thoughts on talking to their teens about Internet safety, and the 5 things to think about before pressing “send” is a good review of Internet dangers related to teens and cell phones.
Check with your cell phone service provider. Most all now have parental control options for your kids phones and they may include some form of text message capture. If that option is not yet available here is a link to Text Message Spy, a Mobile Spy software that installs to your Windows Mobile, Symbian OS Smartphones and Apple iPhones. It then records every SMS (text message) and logs every call including phone numbers with durations. You can then View real time results in your private online account. You can find others by searching “texting spyware” or “cell phone spyware”. (Disclaimer-I have never used/tested any cell phone parental control software/spyware.)
You do not have to believe me when I say teen sexting is out of control, so I offer the following news articles as Corroboration.
Seduced by sexting
The Sexting Generation
Sexting Shatters Lives…
Police Say Teens Text Explicit Photos
School Leaders Target Sexting
Teens Caught Sexting Face Porn Charges
Sexting and Another Suicide
That should be enough to get you sick to your stomach.
Moms and Dads, it is wake up time. Your kids are at risk. Internet dangers are real whether they come through the computer or the cell phone. Do not think that what you read in these news stories cannot happen to your kids. Not only can it happen, but it will happen if you are not involved in your teens Internet life.
Parenting has never been easy and protecting your kids from Internet dangers will be no different. The world is out to rip your kids from the safety and protection of the family. You must be willing to make some hard choices: hard only in the sense that your kids may “hate” you for not letting them do or have things that most of the other kids have. I urge you to persevere for their sake.
————————-
Be sure to review the other Internet Safety links found in the top navigation bar, and in the sidebar catagories list.
Why not subscribe to the RSS feed for this website so you can stay up to speed with what your kids may be getting into that you do not want them into.
Take courage, my friend.
***Be a friend to your friends with kids and share this web site with them. Buy them a Kid Safe Cyberspace booklet too (order here). You may prevent the heartbreak that is inevitable if Internet porn or other online dangers win the day.***
Filed Under: Internet Safety • Sexting
