Sexting In Schools

Imagine your teen facing pornography charges, as they are forced to register as a sex offender. You may think this is an image in a bad movie, but it happened in North Carolina, New Jersey, Utah, and several other states. In these states, 16 to 18 year old teens teased each other with “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours” type dares. After sending each other nude selfies, they found themselves charged with distributing child pornography. Imagine the enormous stress, public humiliation, and legal feels their parents and they faced. Parents can no longer turn a blind eye to sexting. Recent research found that over 20% of American teens admitted sending a nude selfie and over 25% admitted to forwarding a sext, which they received, to friends.

In the US today Americans recently discovered an emerging trend known as adolescent sexting. Sexting has been defined as the sending or receiving of sexually explicit or sexually suggestive images, messages, or video through a cellphone or the Internet; sexting can also be referred to as sending nudes. As Guidance Counselors at a High School it is imperative that we educate ourselves and our students on the consequences sexting may have. Many students fail to realize that once the photos or messages are sent there is no turning back. Those images/messages may be forwarded to audiences via the internet and various social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat etc. causing humiliation, depression and in some cases even causing suicide.

By restricting access and deterring inappropriate use. Children and young people still seem to experience some possible risks. Such as, contact with people not known to them and cyber-bullying. Which emphasises just two safeguarding issues derived from the national concerns highlighted from the e- safety policy. Therefore, to give a fuller picture of safeguarding issues more research would be beneficial. However, as stated by EUKGO (2014) not all contact young people have with people not already known to them is bad.so by restricting a child’s use of communication sites could result in lost opportunities for children and young people to socialise. Therefore, as suggested by Byron, (2014) approaching on-line risks the same as offline risks will take into consideration the bigger picture of how the internet affects the child when they are on-line and off line.as the quote from the 12 year old girl showed, in the EUKGO 2014 “It’s easier to say horrible stuff about people on [the Internet]. It got really horrible in Year 10. Lots of people were being bullying over [the Internet]. It gets brought into school. When friends do this, it’s horrible. It makes you really upset. You don’t want to go into school

Americans recently discovered an emerging trend known as adolescent sexting. Sexting has been defined as the sending or receiving of sexually explicit or sexually suggestive images, messages, or video through a cellphone or the Internet. Sexting can also be referred to as sending nudes. As Guidance Counselors at a High School it is imperative that we educate ourselves and our students on the consequences sexting may have. Many students fail to realize that once the photos or messages are sent, there is no turning back. Those images/messages may be forwarded to audiences via the internet and various social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat etc, causing humiliation, depression and in some cases even causing suicide.

Some states have enacted laws against sexting that occurs between teenagers, with penalties that aren't as severe as those that apply to an adult who sends illicit images to an underage person. Other states punish sexting under pre-existing laws against child enticement

Parents also need to educate themselves about the problem of "sexting", including the potential issues of this behavior, and the resources which can help them address the issue with their children. (Social Policy Law, 2015)

As a result, kids who participate in sexting often regret having done so. It also impacts self confidence leaving them feeling vulnerable and

In today’s generation, teenagers have not known a life without technology. To them, it is second nature. Teenagers, with their raging hormones and access to technology, are inevitably going to discover sexting especially since it is growing due to its popularity in social media. It is more common than people may think. To minors it may seem like a harmless act to explore their sexuality. However, the law says otherwise. If they engage in sexting, adolescents can find themselves with a criminal charge. To gain a clearer understanding of the controversial issue on teen sexting, it is essential to know the development of adolescents, the impact sexting has on teens, and finally the sex laws set that relate to sexting.

Sexting is defined as the act of sending or receiving sexually explicit messages through mobile devices (Temple et al., 2012). The practice is increasingly common among hormone-driven teenagers who are becoming more sexually curious. Although sexting may seem quick and harmless, these 14 to 17 year olds do not realize the lasting consequences of their actions. The reality is that adolescents who engage in sexting are at greater risk of being victimized. Victims of sexting scandals may be exploited and publicly humiliated if their messages are abused or misdirected. In the case where a minor is involved, the act of sexting may lead to serious criminal consequences. Both the minor and the recipient may be convicted of a felony and charged with the possession, distribution, or receipt of child pornography (Jaishankar, 2009). Additionally, those who fall victim to sexting scandals may also be at risk of victim-blaming and victim-shaming. Both approaches hold the victim accountable for his/her own victimization and believe that he/she shares some responsibility for the harm directed against them. Nevertheless, the act of sexting can cause an individual to become a victim of bullying, blackmail, unwanted attention, and psychological distress (Temple et al., 2012).

The next group of students, grades seven through nine, will increase be more relevant to what exactly sexting is.  The average age that children now-a-days are getting cellular telephones is 11.6 years of age (The Online Mom).  Therefore, text messaging will be come more relevant to this junior high school age, and it will greatly benefit the students to know exactly what cellular telephones are supposed to be used for, and what sexting entails.  This will educate the students about what kind of text messages are appropriate, and what kind of messages (including what sexting is) are inappropriate, and the consequences that can entail sending sexts.

I believe the discussion surrounding sexting and youth presented my best work within the discussion component of this course. This topic in itself really interested me because I’ve seen the negative impacts that sexting can have on young individuals when I myself was in high school. I began the week only really viewing sexting as a fully negative thing to do when individuals are young, but by the end of the week I grew to have a more complex opinion and I believe that came from properly participating in the discussion and truly taking an interest in the topic.

In this article the author discusses about the harmful actives that the internet dose to the youth. With two main points; cyber bullying and sexting, the author briefly discusses what they are and what threat that occurs from them. The article is useful to me because it shows the harmfulness on what could happen on the internet. However, this article is very vague and lakes a certain amount of information to achieve its point.

Internet safety has been an extensive issue for children and adolescents since accuse to the Internet has become readily available in homes. With Internet use increasing at such rapid rates and a large proportion of adolescents using the Internet daily, the awareness of Internet safety should be addressed. The term Internet safety can be defined as “the knowledge of maximizing an individuals safety to private information, and self protection from using the Internet”. The impact and influence that the Internet has on adolescent life is far-reaching and research findings by Norris (2007) indicate that one-quarter of the American youth that go online at home, do so in the privacy of their rooms. Additionally, with the recent trend of wireless connections there has been a profound expansion in private Internet usage. The diverse means by which adolescents are using the Internet has become coupled with inherent risks of unsupervised and uneducated use.

Some parents are not aware of dangers of internet that brings to their children particularly making friends through internet. For example, their children might get cheated with someone else on internet and their children will not tell what happen to them when they encounter danger. According to BBC News, a 47 year old man defrauded a 13 year old girl online and asked to meet face to face. Luckily, the girl’s mother found out beforehand or else her daughter might be in danger. From this news, we can see that there internet friends are not always honest and they are more likely to consider as un-trustful strangers. Therefore, parents should concern more about their children, teach them about the dangers of making friends on internet, and avoid them from going out with a stranger.

Two years ago the word sexting did not exist. The combination of the words “sex” and “text” is now a term that is heavily discussed and causes issues for parents, students, educators, and law enforcement. Although there is no legal definition of sexting, it generally refers to writing sexually explicit messages, taking sexually explicit photos of themselves or others in their peer group and technologically transmitting those photos and/or messages to their peers. Now many people don’t know the problems associated with sexting. Most of these problems occur when one or all parties are minors. When a minor is involved there can be serious consequences that can follow a person for a life time.