Sexting, Teens Putting Sex and Texting Together

the use of cell phones and in appropriate pics and comments has gotten out of hand just like the internet sites the kids are using…I check my son’s myspace and am disgusted with some of the pics that kids have posted of themselves to share…my son does not have a cell phone any longer and it has made life much better for all..too many kids have nothing else to do but waste their time on the internet and texting and too many parents have no clue about the extent of time their kids are doing all this…maybe they do and do not care…I feel sorry for our teens because they are not being taught to find joy in their lives. The sex stuff with the teens is so out of control and I feel like too many parents do not know what to do to get their kids back on track or help them. We keep spoiling our kids and trying to be their friends and it is back firing in a lot of families.

Amen to the above comment. I have five kids and none of them have texting or internet access on their phones. If you look around, kids do not socialize anymore, they huddle and constantly are either looking at their phone for messages or are texting away and sending pics. The fault lies NOT in the children, but us as the parents who have allowed our young kids to live in an underground websociety where rules of proper conduct are not enforced or encouraged for that matter. In our neighborhood, a 14 yo kid received a very R rated picture of a local girl. It seems the girl’s boyfriend and her broke up and this young man was sharing it with everyone. Problem was that the boy received the picture while on the school bus and his reaction made a lot of kids look over his shoulder to see what it was about. Long story short, somebody reported it and the boy who received the picture was “arrested” and as his mother put it,she is now going through a lot with him and the legal system. The neighborhood’s moms reaction was “What level of low self esteem must a girl get to to pose naked at the age of 14????”. Not only should she get mandatory psychological help as the ex-boyfriend.
Parental peer pressure is great, and everyone wants to make sure their kids get the best, but isn’t being a better parent more rewarding??????? Raising 5 kids has not been easy, but I am not doing it for the popularity votes. Parents HAVE to calm down, stop being “friends” to their kids, and be the parents that their kids deep down do crave.

I have been going through some texting issues with my daughter. She had not been going over her usage, so it didn’t occur to me that she was spending too much time texting. Well, it seems she was texting in her circle, so it was free and it amounted to 10,000+ texts per month! Upon inspection, I found that she was sending and receiving most of those to/from a senior boy! She is a freshman. Our children are indeed in an underground and it is quite sickening to me! I also check out her’s and her friends myspace pages. I tell her if they have it out there for all to see, then it is free for me to check out also. You would not believe the things these kids post and allow to be posted on their pages! They seem to have no worry about being caught doing something they shouldn’t (namely smoking, drinking and taking OTC drugs). She seems to think that I am the only mom who “lurks” on myspace. I told her I hope I am not, and if the other parents aren’t, then they should be. She had her cell phone taken away for a few weeks after we found out about the excessive texting, and she has to put it in the kitchen at night which prevents any late night calls/texts. The issue with the boy has calmed down after some myspace messages to him and lots of talking with her and counselors. I wish I had never allowed her to have a myspace. She knows that I have to have access to it or the deal is off, though. Sometimes I feel like I am the only parent out there who is vigilant with my child and her social life. It feels like I am constantly putting out fires. It doesn’t help that most of the boys and some of the girls in her group are risk takers. She doesn’t want to hang out with the studious crowd (although she is a straight A student)…..”too boring”. I find myself wishing away these next 3 years!

Young people have and always will be curious about sex and sexuality. They’re young and have so much that they are trying to figure out and manage with regard to their developing sexuality. While certainly the whole issue of “sexting” is disturbing, it’s really a by product of the technological age that we’re in and not that kids are any different in terms of their desire to explore. 10 years ago Jonny was bringing dad’s playboys to school in his backpack and today kids have the means to become the stars of their own R rated picture shows, via texting.
We as parents need to keep having conversations about what our values, expectations, and hopes are for our teens and give them and opportunities to have conversations about this stuff. I’m also in agreement with the other parents. Being involved and aware of technological trends is really important! Kudos to all who are working hard at staying connected. It’s not easy.

I am all too familiar with “sexting”. My now 15 year old daughter was directly involved with a situation. About 6 weeks ago, a boy was caught at her school with 100+ pics and videos of 3 different girls on his phone. One being my daughter. Because of the excessive amount of pics everything was turned over to the police. There is such a large amount of cases that the DA has up to one year to press charges. However, the person who sends the pics is more at fault than the one who receives them. Sending them is distribution of child pornography. Simply receiving them does not get you in trouble, keeping them though is, pocession of child pornography. Both are treated as adult crimes because the laws have not kept up with teens and technology. If convicted, these children will be considered sex offenders, which cannot be removed off their records. My daughter does not seem to have a clue how severe this is.
Whats worse is that she didnt even have texting on her phone. She had lost that a long time beforehand due to excessive texting. She actually used both of her grandparents phones to do this! Obviously, she would delete everything right away. She went on with this for about 6 months until we were informed by the VP of everything. Needless to say she has no phone, no computer access, much fewer visits away from home and many more visits to counselors.
It is so hard to be a good parent, it takes a lot of hard work and some very angry kids but is absolutely necessary.

These are very great and true comments. One additional comment I wanted to make is about MySpace pages. When “checking” their MySpace page, just because it’s not blocked and you can check to see what is up and who their friends are doesn’t mean you see everything. There is a whole messaging system that is private. You don’t even need to be communicating with someone on your ‘friends’ list. So, just because you know all their friends listed, that doesn’t mean they are not communicating with people they shouldn’t be. Especially if they know you are checking their site, more of a reason to be careful or sneaky. If you don’t have their user name and password, you’re not really checking everything. Most teens communicate by text and myspace/facebook etc. instead of email. Just keep that in mind.

Keep in mind though that it is not becuase you remove their phones or internet privileges that they are safe. I try to remind my kids that in these days of cameras everywhere – everything they do may turn up on internet or circulate by cell phone, and that goes for teens as well as anyone. So, just behave, at all times, in all places!! As I say, someone could break into my email, FB account, cell phone, etc… they’d be bored stiff – and that’s the way it should be!

Everybody has valid points. I have no problems with kids doing “kids” things as they grow up. And yes discovering one’s sexuality is something that has been around for ever, but one thing that has to be stressed to the teens now is that having a permanent “web”marker of one’s mistakes, faux-pas, insecurities, sexual growth will be in the forever twilight zone of the internet. Are you prepared to have it be there for all to see now and 10 years from now?

Oh my, I can’t believe I am reading all this. I thought I was the only one going through this. facebook, myspace and texting has been out of control. I am taking back my right as a parent, I don’t want to be my daughter’s friend anymore if it means putting her in danger. Even by trying to be her friend , she doesn’t like me any better for it. The only thing I am getting is a distance daughter who seemingly hates my guts. This is a whole to road for me, sexting. 14 and 15 year olds. ew! I had a heck of a time trying to delete things and one thing led to another thing and so forth. Its so easy for our kids to sign up for things but not so easy to delete accounts. fb will even keep your account on file and if you sign back in it will bring it right back up. Myspace was a little easier to deactivate but then it sent a message to my daughter’s email, if I didn’t know her password, I would have been stumped. Then her cellphone was somehow connected with the internet and man, it was a long internet trail that interwhined all the systems together. Oh and then there’s AIM that allows messages to your cell phone. Hunting down all these ways of communication has been a full time job. Needless to say, we have taken away the cell phone and we have concluded the internet and she seems to be a better / more happy person without it. She is now forced to communicate with her lips.

I just went through this, this week. I need to see my 13 yo texts on demand. When she couldn’t find her phone…I knew I had a problem. The wakeup text for the day was “Hey sexy you up?” Read the 200 texts that I could, and promptly called the Sheriff. Turns out the phone had been given to an older boy whose dad dated the previous boys mom, with her number still in it. No laws had been broken as far as the language I was reading, but that boy was 30 days from 18!

I am glad to know there is a small group of concerned parents left! My twin 14 year old stepsons are adicted to their new I-Phones which were purchased by their non-custodial mother trying to “buy” their love. Last school term, these two kids were in constant trouble with their middle school and father over inappropriate texting and excessive phone use The father would take the phones away and the mother would threaten him with police intervention if he did not return the phones to the kids! This last time the father took the phone away when he noticed “sexting”. Although the mother was informed the kids returned from their visitation with her with new phones, equiped with 24 hr. unsensored internet capabilities. Both boys refuse to limit their texting and internet use stating the phones are their property and the father has no control over them! When the father refused to allow the children to take the phones to school today, he had to literally pry the phones from their hands! Last week when we visited our favorite resturant, one of the boys refused to stop texting during our meal. The father had to wrestle the phone from the kid! In order to help resolve these issues, we have tried in invoke some sort of time contraints, no texting before 7 am or after 10 pm, no phones to school and texting between the hours of 8-10 pm. after homework if finished. They are furious and act like addicts!