There’s a rather sad story out of Cincinnati where a high school girl hanged herself because a nude photo she sent to her boyfriend via cellphone ended up spreading around the school, if not the town itself. It’s called “sexting,” and it’s apparently a big deal on high school campuses. And because of this legitimate tragedy—why on Earth would kids tease this girl to the point where she decided to hang herself?—people are now wondering what, if anything, should be done to stop the phenomenon.
There’s a few approaches here. One is the hands-off approach: let kids run around and do whatever they want, and let them learn from their mistakes. That hardly seems effective, and could well be dangerous, as it was in Cincinnati.
Then there’s the educational approach: you can’t stop kids from being kids—sending photos back and forth—by force, so instead try to instill some common sense into these kids’ heads. Instead of banning cellphones or keeping teenage boys and girls on different continents (as if that will keep them apart!), schools and parents should teach their students/children that, you know, you may think you love this guy, and you may, in fact, love him, but there’s other ways to show that love than sending a blurry photo of yourself to him with a cellphone.
Maybe you should sit teenage boys down and tell them, “Look, stop pressuring these girls to send you photos of themselves. You guys are already together, right? So why risk the embarrassment?” (I personally think these guys are just asking for the photos so they can show their friends in the cafeteria at lunchtime, high-fives all around. Typical teenage guy nonsense.) Make cellphone etiquette, or however you want to classify it, a part of health class in junior high, where bad habits are first introduced and learned.
Or, you could whip out the ban hammer, and pass laws outlawing “sexting” altogether. We all know that’ll just encourage kids to “sext” even more: now, not only is it “naughty” or whatever, but it’s also illegal; thrills, ahoy, right? (That’s how teens think: you give me a rule, and I’ll break it, just because.)
I’m interested in hearing what you guys have to say about this. “Sexting” is obviously not a “harmless” thing, but parents and schools need to tread carefully with how they treat their children, who are both rebellious by default, and can run circles around their elders when it comes to technology.
My suggestion is thus: gouge out the eyes of your children to prevent them from seeing naked pictures altogether.
But then they might start sending breathy, suggestive voice messages to one another, so you’d better rupture their ear drums as well.
This really isn’t about pictures, cell phones, or any other technology. It’s about bullying.
You can’t teach horny, in love teenagers common sense. You can teach grade-schoolers not to bully.
After hearing stories of 16-year-olds getting felony convictions and labeled as sexual predators, we sat down our teenager and explained to her the potential pitfalls of sending out naked pictures of herself. Not sure what else should be done. If she cannot be adult with her cell phone, we will have other basic trust issues with which to deal.
There should be a parental control app that allows you to track the kids phone via GPS and also records incoming and outgoing SMS. you can view the pics in icon mode so you do not have to see them too well to view them.
Maybe just the threat of an adult seeing the photo will stop the spread of the image sending.
We have a very slippery slope here with the technology and pictures of minors. I do not want my kid become a registered sex offender for resending pictures of a minor, as a minor.
Parental control? Do you chain your child in the front yard so they wont run into the street? No. You teach them not to run into the street.
What was she doing sending her boyfriend nude photos anyway?! Sheesh!! Growing up it would never have crossed my mind to do such a thing.
Common sense seems to be lost these days. But, having said that, I agree with Lara. Bullying is the real issue here and l can personally vouch for the fact that what we see in the news is only the tip of the iceberg and no, bullying is not on the rise, it has just *always* been under-reported and now kids can bully each other in much more critical and public ways.
Monique: You know, that was my first thought: “what is a high school girl doing sending naked photos of herself to anyone?” Bad idea all the way around.
Parents need to do a better job instilling self confidence in their children – especially daughters – so they don’t feel any need to do this kind of thing. And maybe, just maybe, immature teenagers shouldn’t have cell phones paid for by their parents.
Another idea – disable text messages on your phone plan. That would do the trick to stop “sexting”, because you can also disable your child’s phone from being able to receive text messages.
I believe that the problem starts inside your house.
Its pretty normal boys and girls trying to discover sex, and all that things our hormones make us want real bad.
But teenagers dont have proper talk about sex with their parents.
Teenagers are most part of the time forbidden to talk about it, or look for it on magazines or web.
A good talk with parents may change a lot of minds.
A talk without repression or guilty, but something like friend-to-friend, an open talk, full of advices.
Teenages shouldnt be forbidden of trying to learn about sex, but they should have some guidance.
sorry about my poor english =D
Have kids always been this stupid?
I mean when I went started highschool 6 years ago there was some mean bastards, some stupid kids, socially awkward people but no one died. The chick that was branded as a “slut” through out the school didn’t kill herself, even after many though a STD should be named after her and rumor passed that she was using a screwdriver in the back of some kids truck to do unsavory things.
And wasn’t bullying worse even further “back in the day” like when mullets were cool.
Tell kids to quit crying and quit being retarded.
Although I hear that girls are a crap ton meaner to one another then guys are, and guys tend to resort to physical abuse.
At some point people are going to forget to breathe and become extinct. I think that may happen before we are wiped out by a meteor or even nuclear holocaust
I think it’s the fault of teachers. If they were doing their jobs correctly, these kids would have learned all about proper morals, decency, and respect for their own bodies, and these things wouldn’t happen.
As a parent, it makes me sad. I send my child off to school with the simple expectation that they will be taught everything they need to know. If their teachers aren’t up to the task, maybe we should find someone better able to do it.
I’d look into it, but I’ve got my career to think about during the day, and at night I go out.
Maybe we should pay teachers more and offer better benefits to attract more people (and better candidates) to the jobs. Not that there aren’t great teachers out there, but its hard to pay off college loans on a teachers salary.
Really, there aren’t many more important roles in society than educating our children. The way teachers and educators are treated should reflect that more than it does.
:) My wife is a teacher, and I agree. I think you missed the heavy dose of sarcasm my post was written with. It was intended to be pointing to the current trend of “it’s someone else’s problem” parenting.
The problem is simply this: Parents are not passing on good morals, values, and respect (for yourself and for others) to their children. Either they are too busy to get involved in their child’s lives, or they just expect someone else to do it.
It is only going to get worse until as a whole the parents wake up and live up to their title.
You are absolutely right, sorry I never pick up on sarcasm. I was actually thinking the same thing after the post, and parents need to start stepping up too.
I had a great discussion with a friend a few weeks back regarding the increasing role television/computers/cell phones/porno are being relied on to educate children. I read this well written but disgusting article about how some grandparents nowadays don’t want to be known and “grandma” and “grampa”, but instead “glam-ma” (or something around glamorous) because they don’t want an association with being old. They want to be seen as “friends” instead of elders. I’m not a parent but I wonder how common that is with parents now too.
Wow, just wow. There it is fully internalized and justified.
“I couldn’t possibly be the cause of this problem”
Lemme guess, your wife is part of the admistrator-teacher clique at school that name all the problem children… Ohhh starting in kindergarden or so, and then they pass that information around to the other teachers so the children never have a chance to grow and change, and the expections of them are pre-conceived all through school. Oh, and the same judgement gets applied to any other siblings of the child as they move through the school.
LOL, and you utterly fail to see it happening, and it is chronic and systemic throughout all schools in America.
Also, it is only going to get worse until we have privacy rules in schools. Abandon teaching notions that were developed in pararie schools 150 years ago. Have merit pay for good teachers, and can fire the horrible ones.
The lolz come from your inability to see that you are committing the EXACT same type of bully behaviour that resulted in this girl acting out the way she did.
It’s not a teachers job to raise your kids. They teach your kids the subject for which the class is intended.
Teach your kids morals and values yourself!!!!
Hellooo, Jason? I think a huge dose of irony just whizzed over your head.
If parents give there kids phones but have no idea how to manage it, then only have themselves to blame.
Networks can offer more control over what services are allowed on the network with browser based control to switch off features.
Maybe need to think more about why a society has come to the point where a naked picture is cause to commit suicide…
I don’t have any kids and but i have to say its the lack of common sense. If you don’t want anyone to see that picture don’t send it to someone BAM there you go.
No as for the bullying its been going on long since this and i think that no offense kids need to harden up. I’m not saying it OK to bully but life’s not easy so harden up.
Parent’s need to be more involved with their kids and know what is going on in thier lives and what they are doing. There’s this whole debate about privacy, but I got a text message reader from brickhousesecurity.com. she may not like it but there shouldn’t be a debate when it comes to protecting our children. One can’t be too lassez faire about instilling right and wrong.
After much consideration and some moderation, we should vigorously censor all viewpoints and ideas which we might find troubling.
Since parents might not be up to the task, we should assemble the teachers and administrators from our local school districts to enforce this censorship policy because they are obviously the paragons of virtues and values that we as a society need.
LOL, ignore this. Meta moderation going on or is Comcast messing with my browser cache?
Who the hell deleted my earlier post? First time that’s happened.
Also, Gryphyn, I wrote back to your response that I basically agree with what you’re saying and acknowledging sarcasm on these boards tends to go right over my head.
As for my previous post – here is the answer (again). If parents don’t want their children “sexting”, than disable the ability to send and receive picture messages. And if you’re children aren’t responsible enough to have phones, THAN DON’T PAY FOR THEM. Hopefully whoever moderates this thing doesn’t delete this too…if it even posts this time.
Well, we certainly cant stop those who wish to indulge in it. But we can have some technology in place which can prevent circulation of such stuff.
1. we could have one time messages. which are seen / read only once after which they are automatically deleted.
2. We could have messages which cannot be forwarded.
3. We could watermark every message we send out so that if the message is circulated then we know who the culprit is.
I wonder how difficult it would be to enable such control over messaging and why isnt it in place already for general public use.
Why not just let them do what they want? It’s no one’s fault but that girl’s, if she didn’t want anyone to see her, she shouldn’t have sent them. As for killing herself, that’s stupid too, over a naked picture; she’s in school and that’s when crazy things like this happens. Where I went to school a lot worse things have happened and no one killed themselves. You can’t stop a teenager from being horny, but if the parents raised them right, that would have at least helped somehow. It’s all childish, just like that MySpace thing that was in the news a few months ago.
No parent can fight the combined force of media and society that shapes modern children. Unless adults starts denying themselves the freedom to enjoy the mass communication of adult entertainment/reality tv etc… children will be affected negatively.
The problem will get worse because porn/ sexual imagery, gangsta music, nutty reality shows etc.. are everywhere. On your cable, on your computer, on your mobile, on the billboards etc.. All used by adults to make money and enjoy themselves without concern as to what happens to the children.
As an adult I can listen to 50cent and realise that the 35 yr old rapper is a fantasist. Thats easy for me. But a 15yr old think it’s real. And more to the point they think it’s right. No amount of parental care can stop “mass media” affecting the kids. It makes me laugh when people blame the parents all the time. The parents cant stop this, the media bombardment is far too much.
So it stands to reason that if your a 13yr old girl watching booty videos on BET all day, you would take naked pic’s of your self and send it to your boyfriend. It makes complete given the programming that these children are receiving from us adults…
Why doesn’t the school adopt a BlackBerry Enterprise Server?
Ban all other cell phones but the one’s that the school district gives to the students.
Push down IT Policies to the devices that mandate what the kids can and can’t do on the phones.
Enable data capture and voice recording so the parents and school district know what is going on.
It sounds like Big Brother, but it’s a sign of the time.
This will enable students to:
* Use the calendar, task list and memo pad features to stay on top of assignments, exams and social events.
* Use the web browser for conducting quick research online.
* Stay connected to your class with social networking sites.
* Doing all this while giving the parents and teachers a piece of mind and an insight on what is going on.