DiGirolamo: Teen sexting—What every parent needs to know

By John DiGirolamo | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice

How Teens Make It Worse:

Taylor Swift wrote that when you’re fifteen, and someone tells you they love you, you’re going to believe them. Almost twenty years later, a teen’s definition of love and what’s fun and flirty now includes sending nude images. 

The number one activity where teens contribute to their own detriment is sexting. According to the nonprofit Fight the New Drug, most teens have viewed pornography, with the average age of exposure at eleven years old. If explicit images are viewed frequently and at a young age, sending and receiving nude pictures become normalized. Over 90% of teens have sent or received explicit images by the time they graduate high school. 53% of boys and 39% of girls believe pornography is a realistic depiction of sex. Thus, their view of intimate relationships has become warped.

If a teen sends images, it doesn’t seem odd when an online “friend” (who might be a predator) asks for pictures. This has contributed to a rise in cyberbullying, depression, sextortion and self-harm. More information about cyberbullying can be found: https://cutterlaw.com/social-media-and-cyberbullying-guide/ 

How Worried Should You Be?

The short answer: parents should be very worried. According to the National Center on Sexual Exploitation’s 2022 report, 42% of youth who had sent sexts experienced at least one picture shared or posted online without their consent. The report stated that children 9-17 years old who shared their own images, 50% sent it to someone they’d never met in person and 42% sent the picture to an adult. This feeds the trend that much of the pornography posted on the internet is self-generated. For more information, go to: https://endsexualexploitation.org/

There are daily headlines about middle and high school students sending and receiving explicit images. Many times, the images are sent in a group chat, so innocent kids are receiving unsolicited child pornography on their phones (Child Sexual Abuse Material).

According to Bark, a parental control software company sexting is considered by many teens to be the “new first base.” According to Bark’s research, 69% of tweens and 91% of teens encountered nudity online.

Some Signs Your Teen Is Sexting:

1. They use a “vault” app. These are secret, password-protected applications.
2. Apps hidden from the phone home screen.
3. The teen positions the phone away from others so no one can see what they’re doing.
4. The teen resists having a parent check their phone.
5. Behavior changes, including becoming withdrawn or lashing out.

Teens may feel a false sense of security about sending explicit pictures of themselves because many articles (e.g., Seventeen Magazine) and websites provide instruction on how to safely send nude pictures. Once a picture has been sent, there is no control over what happens next.

The question for every parent is: What are the chances this image or video will be shared or posted online? It is simply not possible to send an explicit picture and the receiver guarantee it won’t be shared or viewed by others without consent. Websites that cater to parents (e.g., https://www.sheknows.com/) are not much better with their message that kids will do it anyway, so parents should simply accept it. Researchers have also found that kids endure peer pressure to send images, and if it happens frequently, it normalizes the behavior.

Talk to Your Teen:

1. Discuss your values on sex, explicit images, relationships and marriage.
2. Discuss the risks involved, such as public humiliation if the image is seen, long-term consequences of having pictures online, and the possibility of police intervention if images are distributed.
3. Explain the difficulty with removing explicit images from the Internet.
4. Any pictures received should not be shared, as your child does not have the right to send someone else’s picture to another.

For more information about talking to your teen, check the website: https://www.missingkids.org/content/dam/netsmartz/downloadable/tipsheets/Talking%20to%20Teens%20About%20Sexting.pdf

John DiGirolamo is a speaker and critically acclaimed Christian author of four books, featuring stories of police officers, spiritual warfare, human trafficking advocates and survivors and a pro-life doctor. His third book, It’s Not About the Predator: A Parent’s Guide to Internet & Social Media Safety, is a practical 65-page booklet to help parents keep their kids safe online. The book details the predator’s playbook, grooming tactics, and specific proactive actions for parents. John is the Board President of Bringing our Valley Hope, whose objective is to end human trafficking in central Colorado through education and survivor support. He’s also on the parent council of Defend Young Minds, a nonprofit that equips parents to defend their children from the harm of pornography. John is a member of the Chaffee County Patriots, and his books are available on Amazon. More information can be found: https://itisnotabout.com/

Editor’s note: Opinions expressed in commentary pieces are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the management of the Rocky Mountain Voice, but even so we support the constitutional right of the author to express those opinions.