To think it's absolutely not ok for teens to receive d*ck pics

[nomorechoco]

I randomly asked my 14 year old daughter if she's ever been sent a dick pic (off the back of an article I'd read earlier) and she said yes she'd been sent them on Snapchat by old guys and she just blocked them.

Now I don't use Snapchat but I think I'm right that you can't receive random messages from people unless they've asked to be added and you've okayed it?

Apparantly I'm making a big fuss over nothing and friends of hers have had much worse. So am I? Surely it's illegal to send these to minors (or anyone?). I think they should be reported to Snapchat at the very least and obviously she shouldn't be adding anyone she doesn't know.

Should I be doing more - monitoring her account etc.? I think so but I don't want her to regret telling me anything and just go underground with her activity.

The whole thing makes me feel sick. I'd love to take her off social media altogether but know it's better to teach her how to use it responsibly. God - why can't some men just keep it in their pants!

My son is the same age as your son and if I found out he had been harassing girls for nudes he would have his phone confiscated

I don’t know who you think you are making a statement like that to me. Never did I say I was minimizing anything.

Dont use capital letters (ie shouting) when addressing me.

Why are you addressing me in that fashion, you're rude. No one (and certainly not me) has made mention of any of your bollocks list

If I found out your son had been sexually harassing my daughter and still owned a phone I would honestly ambush him coming home and smash the fucking thing myself. My husband... would probably smash more than the phone. Do some parenting for Christ's sake, why does he not know right from wrong at 14?

Why does he even still own a phone? I'd have it off him, give him a brick Nokia and if needed grass up all his disgusting little predator mates as well. He is over the age of criminal responsibility and is actively distributing child pornography and engaging in child sexual exploitation. Both of which are serious crimes.

All it takes is a few parents like me who would phone police in a heartbeat about their children being sexually exploited and you're up in court finding out that him not having been raised any better is not an acceptable excuse and your son is placed on the sex offenders register with a criminal record. Good career prospects wouldn't you say?

@bellac11 You're right, I owe you an apology. It's her that I was addressing really, you just got caught in the cross-fire.

I also think it's unfair to attack smc. She has a) realised her son is doing this and b) admitted it on here to ask for advice. Unfortunately absolutely loads of teens are doing this, and their parents are burying their heads in the sand. No wonder if they get the reaction smc is getting.

It is true they are all doing it though, my dd comes home at least once a month telling some girls nudes have been leaked and these are 13 year olds! If you think it isn't happening everywhere you very naive.

If your son asked my daughter for a nude photo, the police would be involved and I would make damned sure he never did that again - but that's your job really, isn't it? Please parent your son.’

same - police AND the school. I know a girl who sent her ‘boyfriend’ a pic and he sent it around his friends, who then shared it all over the school.
it’s been AWFUL for her. And yes the parents did involve the police as she was 15. The boy was expelled and is now in one of those PRU type places, though that took months to get him a place so he was stuck without regular education for months.
You need an open relationship with your kid to talk about this stuff but also have zero tolerance when it comes to the sexual exploitation of children.

Yes hand wringing wet parenting isn’t in your sons best interests either. We had a talk by the local police who told us that he turned up at the house of a boy who had sent dick pics. Mummy was outraged “not my Nigel” until she saw the pics of her precious boys dick clearly taken in her own bathroom….

The boy who got expelled was a ‘good’ kid apparently and having a horrible time in the specialised unit which is full of kids who got kicked out of mainstream schooling.
SomI suppose he’s suffering too in a way although his dad doesn’t think he deserved what he go for ‘one mistake’.
Meanwhille parents of girls are thrilled that the school is so hardline.

You're telling me that all boys are sexual predators?

Get out of here.

Or, equally that all girls are happily sending nude pics around.

Neither is correct.

It happened at our local school and the Police were quickly involved. It was dealt with seriously.

It is very poor behaviour and illegal.

Re disappearing messages, be aware that there are ways to override this, so girl sends photo to boy, she thinks it's disappeared, in fact it hasn't

I don't recall details, but I went on an internet / social media safety course and the number of times they said "parents think X but in fact this is what happens / can be done" was terrifying

Years ago when my son was 13/14 we were on holiday and found out a teenage girl was sending boob shots to him. We spoke to him and the girl was sending the photos to all of the boys. We ended up speaking to the police and the girls parent. That didn’t go well. Police spoke to girl. Whether she stopped or not I don’t know but my son was dropped from the friendship group.

For all the posters slating the poster of the 14 year old boy, for him asking is a girl on the other end sending them.

My friends son gets nudes sent from girls his age completely unprompted all the time.

Social media and the use of disappearing chats/pics has allowed teens to erode and push the boundaries of risky sexual behaviour in ways they haven't ever before. Which in alot of ways feels safer to them than it has before because its not in person.

It was the number one issue in my dd school for both boys and girls and according to her principal more of her year were engaging it that weren't, and those were only the times that had been flagged to the school by one of the kids involved getting caught.

Considering snap chat is now used as one of the easiest ways of sexting/porn for adults it doesn't mean teens using it are 'sexaul predators'.

And throwing out words like that makes it easier to move away from the uncomfortable fact that teens are exploring and engaging in sexual activities in ways they weren't 10/15 years ago with blurring of what they consider somewhat safe because it isn't in real life.

They can access pretty much any only fans content creator on reddit for free. Twitter is flooded with sex video clips.

The reality is once you give a teen a phone you no longer have really any control over what they are looking for/texting/watching.

They can by pass parental controls easily. If you stop them having Snapchat, they can use IG DMs or Twitter or WhatsApp.

So to an extent unless you take a phone away from and full Internet access if they want to they will find a way to engage in this behaviour.

It's the exact same as not being able to control if they decide they want to have sex.

At 14 I would ban snap chat, because it is one of the most difficult to police.

Check your Internet safe searching and connect to a family monitoring account.

Do random spot checking on her phone.

Go online and watch some Internet safety videos and watch them with her. Explaining what can happen if she chooses to send nudes or videos. Or shares ones she receives.

Tell her she can always always tell you if she does something or receives something that makes her uncomfortable.

@Balloonhearts

You are also shockingly naive if you think her 14 year old son hasn't received unprompted nudes from some mothers 14 year old innocent daughter. Who no doubt has a mother with similar views to you, that her darling daughter would never willing engage in that sort of behaviour.

And because of that, while the law allows it, its unlikely her 14 year old son would end up on the sex register because the police recognise that 9/10 it is reciprocal behaviour by immature and irresponsible teens sharing images of each other with each other.

Some very naive parents on this thread. And just a heads up, if you’ve ‘banned’ Snapchat, they most likely have a secret account, back up insta accounts, the works. Of course it’s awful that teenagers request and send nudes, it is TOTALLY normalised though. I’m not suggesting that’s ok whatsoever, but in my experience the ‘handwringing/my ds or dd would never’ parents are always the ones with the kids up to the most. Always.

‘My friends son gets nudes sent from girls his age completely unprompted all the time.’

well my 14 year old doesn’t. Nor does he ask for them.
And the second he did his smart phone would be replaced with a Nokia that he can text on and make phone calls on.

we have talked to him about this. He always seems offended that we would suggest he or any of his mates would behave like this, but we still bring it up. It’s an ongoing conversation.
It has to be.

‘ And just a heads up, if you’ve ‘banned’ Snapchat, they most likely have a secret account, back up insta accounts, the works.’

Just on this - there are several apps available that monitor which apps and sites your teen uses, how and when they use it. You can also block Insta and others using this parental app - it stops the whole ‘secret account’ business.
We use one. It’s brilliant. Very effective but doesn’t replace talking with you kids.
We also don’t let ours have ANY social media. They’re fine. They still have friendship groups and activities. They are not suffering in any way not being able to access Tiktok etc in their own phones.

They can use WhatsApp and text, and that’s enough for them to organise themselves.
And both those are much easier to monitor than Tiktok, Youtube, Snap, Coverstar etc etc etc

Also, nobody is saying "my daughter would never do that" or "no way my son would do that".

Knowing that, actually, your child is a teenager and MIGHT try doing stuff that we don't agree with, is wise. And then how you react and deal with a situation; that's very important.

Your working of the assumption he would 100% tell you.

That is not guaranteed. He can get them via text and WhatsApp, which is really moving towards being SM with disappearing messages and delete/archive ability. His friends could receive them and show him and his views may change as he begins to encounter and explore his own sexuality.

I agree though it has to be an ongoing conversation, along with views on sexting in general, what do they consider as porn, how to react if they accidentally do come across something inappropriate.

I think its like anything with teens drugs, alcohol and sex it comes down to communication, boundaries and alot of hope that while they may push them they don't obliterate them in a way that has the potential for long term harm to be caused.

@Halllooo does the app monitor incognito use? Or let you know if they have been using it?

When I had parental controls for my older phone/devices I couldn't find one that got around that. But my next child is at the age I need to definitely start thinking of using something more than the standard parental safe search and family linking we already use.

This.
Please don't ignore it and give up. He could end up with a conviction one day. Just because he says others do it, doesn't mean it's OK and to give up trying to explain why it is inappropriate and illegal.

Friend's son was sent a nude of a girl. Asked for a nude in return. Fortunately he didn't send one.
It turned out the girl was an adult male attempting to get pictures of boys and the picture was on an abused girl forced to pose.