What Can Parents Do To Try To Help Their Kids With This Issue

With some children joining social media underage (13 years is the legal age for social media) and many children being exposed to pornography at an average age now of 11 years of age, some younger children are also seeing this behaviour as sophisticated and cool. Parents clearly need to address this issue of sexting earlier than the teenage years. Privacy settings that work, and culling unknown followers/friends can cut down the unwanted photos and videos substantially. The survey didn’t say if the unwanted photos and videos came from people the girls knew, but from feedback that I receive from teenage girls at my cyber safety talks many of these approaches come from social media and messaging apps like Kik Messenger, an app with no real privacy settings. The girls in this survey wanted more education around this issue, and wanted more education about the influence of pornography on the “normalisation” of such requests. The survey also showed that many girls were receiving unsolicited indecent or sexual images and video. Almost all surveyed thought it was unacceptable to be asked to send sexting photos, but many of the girls surveyed felt very uncomfortable reporting such solicitations. A Recent study by Plan International shows an alarming amount of teenage girls are being pressured into sending nude photos or “Sexting”.

Skype sexting privacy settings