Ten Tips for Parents on “Sexting”
- All teenagers take risks as a normal part of growing up. Risk-taking is the key tool adolescents use to define and develop their identity.
- Healthy adolescent risk-taking behaviors which tend to have a positive impact on an adolescent’s development can include participation in sports, the development of artistic and creative abilities, volunteer activities, and travel. Inherent in all of these activities is the possibility of failure. Parents must recognize and support their children with this.
- Negative risk-taking behaviors which can be dangerous for adolescents include unsafe sexual activity, drinking, smoking, drug use, reckless driving, disordered eating, self-mutilation, gambling, running away, stealing and gang activity among others.
- Some adolescent behaviors are deceptive – “sexting” – the texting of sexual materials, including language, photos and videos, may begin as healthy risk-taking as a teen begins testing their sexiness with exciting verbal exchanges but then gradually evolve into dangerous and humiliating behaviors.
- Although one study reported that both teen boys and girls say that they are texting nude photos of themselves, there is strong indication that this behavior is following gender lines with girls texting nude photos and videos of themselves and boys texting photos of nude girls.
- Parents of daughters need to be aware that their daughters may be asked or volunteer to text this explicit sexual material.
- Parents of boys need to know that many boys feel pressure to be “sexperts” and may be texting nude photos and videos.
- Parents of both boys and girls need to be talking with teens about sexuality. Ideally, these conversations should begin in childhood and cover topics such as biology, language children may hear outside the home and messages about sex in the media. Ideally, sexual conversations are ongoing dialogues which communicate information, values and questions.
- Parents also need to educate themselves about the spectrum of adolescent sexual behaviors, remembering that enforcing rigid gender roles or sexual orientation can be damaging.
- Look out for red flags to dangerous sexual risk-taking such as unprotected intercourse, repeated exposure to victimization in unhealthy or dangerous sexual relationships, or a history of sexually abusing others. Other more general psychological problems such as depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, self-mutilation and clusters of unhealthy risk-taking might also occur at the same time.