BellaOnline Forums Family Siblings What Parents Should Know about "Sexting"

see siblings article

What Parents Should Know about Sexting

Lots of parents have no idea what "sexting" is or know of the legal problems it can cause their teens. I've talked to a few teens and they think everything associated with "Sexting" is "no big deal". Parents have you talked to your teens about this?

Good information Nina!

We have our children's phone accounts limited to only 10 people that they can call and text to AND from. So I couldn't figure out how they kept receiving ad type text messages from unapproved accounts. Obviously it is from their e-mail accounts. I never thought about this before.

The whole reason we downgraded (in our kids opinions, we as parents considered it upgrading) to the limited accounts was because my 16 yr old son received sexually threatening text messages last year. We actually wound up getting the police involved in it. He was sent nude pictures, too. But honestly I was not disturbed by the pictures nearly as much as the things that were said. "I will rape you, faggot" - and things like that. It was truly disturbing.

Wow! I'm sorry to hear about your family's problem with the threatening texts. I hope everything is ok now.

I don't think some parents even know how central texting (or cyberspace in general) is in the social lives of teens.
It's not just for quick messages for social fun - they use it for everything including bullying (like in your case). There's a way to clone a number when you send out bad messages so that it's hard to trace the origin. Technology is great, isn't it?