A recent national poll of parent concerns for children and back to school registered the highest alarm for bullying but ironically, the lowest for sexting.
Considering an alarming 95% of children ages 12-17 have phones (Pew Research Center), this is concerning to me. Today, I’m going to share with you two stories based on real life accounts of why every parent should be teaching their children about the harms of sexting.
Story One: She is a freshman. He is a Junior. They trade digits. They text each other for a week and he tells her how pretty she is and that he’d like to be her boyfriend. He thinks she’s the prettiest girl in school. He wants to see more. At first, she says no. She asks her friends about it. They say it’s no big deal. And he’s a Junior. It’s cool that he likes her. Her best friend tells her to do it because the boy is on the swim team and it could get around the school that the freshman is a prude. Besides, everyone does it. The freshman sends him a nude photo. He shows it to the guys on his swim team and they rate her. A couple weeks later, they break up. The freshman’s best friend has a fight with her. Former friend texts the Junior boy and asks for the nude photo. He sends it to her. She shares it with all of her contacts. One of her contacts shares it with all of her contacts and soon enough, the nude photo is all over the school and the county. In the end, the junior boy and best friend are charged with distributing child pornography because sexting is considered a federal crime. It’s knocked down to a misdemeanor with probation. The nude photo follows the Freshman girl for the rest of her life. Kids bully her and call her a “whore” and a “slut”. Friends make fun of her. Teachers chastise her. A coworker of her father solicits her for sex. She can’t get a job once she graduates.
Story Two: She is fourteen. She shares photos of herself in bikinis and push-up bras to her boyfriend through her social media. They are supposed to be private. Her account is hacked. Hundreds of photos of her are now being shared in every corner of the internet. Today, she is recognizable everywhere. Other girls still tell her “that won’t ever happen to me”. She has endured relentless cyber bullying with degrading names of “whore” and “slut” and that she planned for these photos to go viral. Other comments are more threatening. “Would smash, don’t care how old she is.” The photos are passed around her school. Students constantly attack her. Everyone says she will be a porn star. Her parents support her by taking her out of school. But the hurt runs deep and she turns to alcohol and drugs to numb the pain. She is so tired of the criticism. She just wants some love.
Parents, you should be concerned about sexting, and place it on the same priority level as cyber bullying. One leads to the next. Even the end of this article references a Mott professor of pediatric’s and the poll’s co-director encouraging parents to regularly discuss internet safety with their children and teens and ways to prevent problems”. Freed added, “Simple, effective strategies may include not providing personal identifying information on social media, chat platforms, or in shared gaming environments.”
Tweens and teens experience an extraordinary amount of pressure to become more sexualized from an early age. You think it could never happen to your child. Those parents didn’t either. Please talk to your child about sexting. It is far more empowering to address this issue and to engage with them than to assume they will never fall prey to it. Don’t leave them in the dark.
General tips:
Be a safe space. Listen without immediate judgement. This is important to establish trust. Remember, their pre-frontal cortex is still radically developing, leaving them vulnerable to making risky decisions. Conversations are key.
Don’t be shockable. Our kids are growing up in a sex-saturated culture and are far more aware than we believe them to be. They will be curious. They are also very receptive to our body language. Something as simple as an eye roll on our part can cause them to shut down as it sends the signal that we are judging or responding in frustration.
Finally, be a lighthouse parent. Not a helicopter parent. Helicopter parenting simply denies your child the ability to grow and learn how to make responsible choices. You are here to center them, to guide them through the storms. You are there to be that circle of protective light to lead them to the safe shore and for believers, you are there to model the light of Jesus Christ.
More research for practical applications: