single sex boarding schools+sexting - parental involvement= ticking timebomb

[waca]

Have found very risque photos on my dd's phone of good friend's 15 y.o ds, and I mean risque: exposing himself with the message he doesn't get to meet females etc.

My dd is 13 and is at a mixed school and has very healthy friendships with normal flirting. We both like this boy and his family but I am shocked at what he's asking her to do.

This is awkward as they are very respectable neighbours. I feel this is unchartered waters, it is made worse by the fact he's dd's first love. Compared to the innocent banter of her admirers at her local school this is hard core. He goes to one of the top UK boarding schools, is very bright and I feel he is being warped by the lack of females present.

Social networking is supposed to be highly regulated at these schools but it clearly isn't.

Another friend said that she sent her dc to boarding school and I should do the same because they are too busy to even think about the opposite sex but the reality is you'll have no idea what your dc is up to. I don't think being blissfully ignorant is good parenting at all.

Not sure what to do now apart from tell her distributing/receiving nude under age photos constitutes child porn, would it be prosecuted as such if it fell into the wrong hands?

Hang on: this is a year 10 boy sending a year 9 girl photos which are described as "very risqué" by someone who describes her world as "very innocent". It does not follow that this is a matter of explicit porn from one minor to another.

I think talking to the family would be a good idea. Not least as the other child may have kept messages from the DD. This won't be the first text they have exchanged.

She treated it as a joke tbh but I think l it is bravado more than anything and your comment gettinghappy about her liking him and more likely to do what he asked her was/is my biggest concern. The fact that she didn't this time is a relief and it could be that he's put her off.

What this has uncovered though is that it is IMPOSSIBLE to keep your dd safe if they have access to social networking sites/mobile phones. Despite having curfews for all electronic devices (as we have done) there are plenty of mums, dads and carers of teenagers who do not know or care to know what their dc are up to and therein lies the problem.

According to my friend's boarding school son parents of single sex boarders are blissfully unaware that porn is being made and distributed regularly by all and that they are unlikely to find out because the true extent is too shocking.

Schools have a policy but it easily breached.

And you think this is only a problem in single sex boarding schools? Not mixed boarding schools, or day schools, or comps? You are very naive.

I'm not sure of the nature of the relationship between the boy and girl is (I have asked before). If there is one then this isn't really 'porn' per se is it. It is a sexually explicit photograph being sent between a couple (albeit an underage one). I expect the police wouldn't be that interested.

Children aged 13-15 are an interesting group wrt sexual activity. It is illegal for them to partake but in general if they are doing it with each other (i.e. both parties are underage) then no consequences tend to exist.

I do wonder if some of the posters above have spoken to any teenagers recently. I come into them infrequently at work but have good friends who work in teenage sexual health services which is probably why I think this behaviour is normal. It may not be but for the group of teenagers who are accessing appropriate contraceptive and GU- type services it is.

Whilst I don't necessarily think overt sexualisation at 13 is a great thing if it is happening it needs to be acknowledged and the young people involved given advice to enable them to protect themselves from pregnancy, infection and the consequences of their actions (at several boarding schools being caught engaged in sexual activity, even in consensual, results in immediate expulsion). Now that does Fuck your life up. I know of at least 3, now adults, that it happened to.

In fact I've just found this: new report about an article in Pediatrics (respected Paeds medicine journal).

1% of american teenagers (10-17) have texted sexually explicitl images.7% have received them.

www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/238662.php

lurkerspeaks is right, but seriously underestimates the frequency of sexting.

Your daughters might not be sending dirty pictures or having sex but I'll bet you a pound to a pinch of (something) her friends or girls in her class will be. The last serious study on teenage sexuality in the UK was part of a World Health Organisation study and it found that 35% of 15 year old girls in the UK had had full on sex at least once and that 55% of these girls had first had full sex while they were 14 or younger - so one in five teenage girls loses her virginity at 14 or younger. This is only penis in vagina sex, many more will have had oral or anal sex, engaged in mutual masturbation or sent dirty texts.

In my experience, year 9 is the year when sex becomes fascinating for many children. Most people aren't having it, but most have just discovered the terminology and start giggling every time someone says "I'm coming" or "the witness fingered the suspect". It's also around the time many girls start dressing like hookers or having come hither Facebook profile pictures.

Boarding school has absolutely nothing to do with this. Do you supervise your daughter 24 hours a day? Even late at night or when she goes to the bathroom? How do you make sure she hasn't produced images and then deleted them or that she isn't deleting her texts to stop you finding them? Or that she doesn't have another sim card? Or another Facebook account?

I thought the numbers seemed low!

But then it is from the US which has a huge abstinence culture....

Huge numbers of adults I know sext and think nothing of it. I see no reason why it would be different for sexually active teenagers, particularly because they all think they're bulletproof.

O/T but I feel like posting this because it's the best thing I've ever read about teenage sexuality:

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/sep/21/children-drinking-sexualisation

blergh, I mean

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/sep/21/children-drinking-sexualisation

OP you need to separate your obvious distaste for private schools and sexting. I went to a good ol' fashioned comp a few years ago nineties and sex was rampant. More bragged about it than actually did it I'm sure but I can't get all bothered about this as some people. The police?! Really for two teenagers overstepping the boundaries in exploring their sexuality?

I would use this as an opportunity to talk to dd about what is / isn't appropriate, safe sex, that she shouldn't feel pressurised to do anything and she can always turn to you for support no matter what. And that includes if she engages in sexual activity and wants to talk to you about. My concern would be that if you go at this as if he's a sexual deviant and act all aghast, if she were to do something either soon or later, she may not feel that you'll understand and come to you for advice.

still hung up on the Boarding School aspect

OP, take your head out yo' ass

Waca - so what action have you taken or decided to take?

I am sorry but I dont go along with the line that parents of boarders at single sex schools think their kids are not indulging in any kind of sexual exploration be that pron, gossip, sex it self. Teens are teens and curious about sex regardless of what school they go to. There will be the odd parent that is very naive about what teens get upto and how much they know at all kinds of schools. You do seem to be very hung up on the boarding and single sex school side of this - more so than what is actually happening between your DD and your friends son.

Have you spoken to your friends yet Waca??? If not why not???

Typo - Pron = Porn

what did you do about this OP. I would have approached the parents, did you. what was their reaction

It's hugely popular. As is sexual experimentation at that age. DD2 is 14, there are 2 or 3 girls in her class who have lost their virginity, one at the age of eleven. Probably the same number of boys, which would make it roughly 1/5 of the class. That's just PiV sex, plenty more will have done other stuff. And sexting is all pervasive at their age.