All About Living With Life: Sexting and Your Child

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Sexting and Your Child

According to Wikipedia sexting (from sex and texting) is the act of sending sexually explicit messages or photos electronically, primarily between cell phones.

A dumb and stupid thing to do

You can send revealing photos to your friend that you trust. How sure are you that it will not be circulated? It can be sent accidentally by your friend to another cell phone or computer and eventually it can be seen by all on the Net. If you are a student and the whole class and even the whole school have seen your racy photos on YouTube, do you think the headmaster will allow you to continue with your study? Where are you going to put your face? If you are applying for your first job and the prospective employer has found out about your exposed body on the Net. Do you think you can get the job or any other jobs at all?

It’s illegal

According to CNET News, there was a case in Florida about two teenagers, Amber and Jeremy (not their real names), who took digital photos of themselves naked and engaged in unspecified ‘sexual behavior”. The two sent the photos from a computer at Amber’s house to Jeremy’s personal e-mail address. Neither teen showed the photographs to anyone else. But somehow Florida police learned about the photos. Amber and Jeremy were arrested. Each was charged with producing, directing, or promoting a photograph featuring the sexual conduct of a child. Based on the contents of his e-mail account, Jeremy was charged with an extra count of possession of child pornography. It is commented that if these pictures are ultimately released, future damage may be done to these minors’ careers or personal lives. These children are not mature enough to make rational decisions concerning all the possible negative implications of producing these videos.

For the parents

Parents should be proactive and talk to your child about sexting on its legal, social, and reputation risks. Help your child to understand that it is against the law, morally not right, and a very dumb and stupid thing to do.