MOMania

By sd

February 19, 2009 8:47 AM | Link to this

The answer is simple. Don’t buy your kids a cell phone with picture or texting capabilities. If they don’t have a job, then they shouldn’t have a nice phone. If they MUST have a phone at all, then give them one of the really old ones and keep an eye on who they call.

No job = no nice phone

By Cammi317

February 19, 2009 8:47 AM | Link to this

The conversation has been had about saying, acting upon or texting any inappropriate sexual content. Her phone would be gone and she would be grounded for life, if I ever discovered she did. She is only 11, but some of these children are hyper sexual. I cannot tell you how many times she has come home and relayed some inappropriate sexual thing a little boy in her class thought was cute to say to her and her friends. Thank goodness at the moment she thinks they are all perverts. I hope that is still her opinion a couple of years from now…..

By Jamie

February 19, 2009 9:03 AM | Link to this

The ad council has begun a campaign regarding behavior & the use of electronics - the website is http://www.thatsnotcool.com/

It is geared toward middle school age students - and is a resource for them to sort out what is and is not appropriate. It is a good resource for parents to see what issues their kids may be dealing with, and for kids, it actually gives them ways to “call out” friends that may be crossing boundaries, with them or someone else.

Hope everyone has a great day!

By Rod

February 19, 2009 9:55 AM | Link to this

I’m totally against the “sexting” thing and am unsure of the law (if it should be enforced).

However, if a teen is caught doing that and charged, it would not “ruin their life.” As a minor (they have to be a minor or the charge for child pornography wouldn’t exist), they wouldn’t go to Federal Prison and their records would be sealed when they turn 18 (they’d be in juvie as punishment). So, while it’d be rough in juvie for a little while - they might learn a lesson and the rest of their life would still be secure.

By Joel in ATL

February 19, 2009 10:10 AM | Link to this

It still starts at home with the parents talking openly and honestly about sex period. Today many parents do not talk about sex the way they should and let the entertainment and music industry teach their children. I thin kthat any underage teen should be charged with a felony crime if convicted but let’s face t, we live in a sex driven society so it will never be that bad. Most parents are doing it also and come to the conclussion that “teens are going to do what they want anyway so why waste my time”, which is sad but so true. The problem will only get worse as was the issue with phone sex when it first hit the mainstrea. Any platform for communication is a platform for sex, period. The respect and dignity of a person’s body is no long at the standard it once was becasue it’s all about ones self and they don’t care as long as they don’t “show their face, who will know it is mine”.

By chillmom

February 19, 2009 10:37 AM | Link to this

You’ll are so uptight about sex. I’m sure my 14 year old and her friends are doing this just get birth control, teach them to love themselves first

By NosyDad

February 19, 2009 10:47 AM | Link to this

I look through her phone periodically…just tell her to hand it over and go through the pictures, texts and email. If I find anything inappropriate she knows she will no longer have a phone to use. Also I can track her phone via GPS so I get alerts if her phone isn’t located at her school or wherever she says she is suppose to be.

By scrappy

February 19, 2009 11:10 AM | Link to this

Rod - So doing time in juvie is no big deal? That doesn’t ruin someone’s childhood? Yeah right.

If these laws are inforced the prosecutors and judgles should all be fired. Teens need advice on correct behavior, not jail time.

By SAR

February 19, 2009 11:31 AM | Link to this

There’s a televsison commercial that’s being aired now with an adorable young American-Asian child showing what she knows about a computer. Then she tells her age, she is four. Who in their right mind thinks it’s cute for a kid this age to have any tpye of computer access? Can you imagine some phedophile watching this and thinking ” Oh yeah mom and dad, let her on the computer…I can’t wait to get to her.” A kids access and actions on a computer or any digital device bought for the child and paid for by the parent should, by law, be the responsibility of the parent and to allow a child to be a victim, the parent should be held accoutable in a court of law.

By DB

February 19, 2009 11:41 AM | Link to this

Well, my children are a little older than most on this board, and yeah, there’s some talk going on that I’m not entirely comfortable with. However, I’m not naive enough to think that kids, especially the older ones, don’t talk like this amongst themselves when the adults aren’t around, so I’m not inclined to “shoot the messenger”, i.e., limit the cell phone. Goodness, are you folks trying to tell me that, at 15/16/17, you and your girlfriends didn’t sit around and giggle and whisper about the same things, feeling rather naughty, but oh-so-sophisticated?

The thing that bothers me, though, is how brazen some guys are about suggestive texting. Good heavens!! This is the sort of thing that, if said to a girl’s face, they’d probably get slapped for. My daughter shows them to me (“Can you BELIEVE this jerk?”) and we both roll our eyes. One particularly crude suggestion got a text message back from ME. I think the thing that shocks me the most is that they take it for granted that it’s ALLOWED.

Navigating the teenage years includes learning to set their own personal boundaries, and having the self-respect to know when you’re being insulted.

My daughter would no more send a picture of herself nekkid to someone else than she would prance down Peachtree Street at rush hour wearing nothing but a pink feather boa. That’s just basic ol’ self-respect.

Plus, at 10 pm, the phone gets turned off, anyway, just to give her a chance to finish homework and get to bed at a reasonable hour. Otherwise, she and her friends would text until the wee hours of the morning, because “it’s rude not to answer a text message, mom!”

By W

February 19, 2009 11:45 AM | Link to this

Im a high school teacher, so I think we must remember that kids in the pre-teen and teen years ARE GOING TO THINK ABOUT SEX!! Duh, this is not a big one. Plus, they will grope each other, fondle/touch each other, etc. That is a “normal” rather common experience of kids. Shoot, we did it as teens too. However, now they have the access and ease of electronics. Should there be a law against and governing that? I dont think so, as its natural for them to be curious and use any out they have. Yes, talk to your teens/pre-teens, and give them boundaries, guidelines, and so on, but they as teens will go beyond that. I have always kept the communication door open and give them liberty to experiment within them. Ive only had I think less than ten of my personal students actually got pregnant over the years. Lets use this as a teaching and guidance moment, not a punativeone.

By W

February 19, 2009 11:47 AM | Link to this

Im a high school teacher, so I think we must remember that kids in the pre-teen and teen years ARE GOING TO THINK ABOUT SEX!! Duh, this is not a big one. Plus, they will grope each other, fondle/touch each other, etc. That is a “normal” rather common experience of kids. Shoot, we did it as teens too. However, now they have the access and ease of electronics. Should there be a law against and governing that? I dont think so, as its natural for them to be curious and use any out they have. Yes, talk to your teens/pre-teens, and give them boundaries, guidelines, and so on, but they as teens will go beyond that. I have always kept the communication door open and give them liberty to experiment within them. Ive only had I think less than ten of my personal students actually got pregnant over the years. Lets use this as a teaching and guidance moment, not a punativeone.

By W

February 19, 2009 11:49 AM | Link to this

Im a high school teacher, so I think we must remember that kids in the pre-teen and teen years ARE GOING TO THINK ABOUT SEX!! Duh, this is not a big one. Plus, they will grope each other, fondle/touch each other, etc. That is a “normal” rather common experience of kids. Shoot, we did it as teens too. However, now they have the access and ease of electronics. Should there be a law against and governing that? I dont think so, as its natural for them to be curious and use any out they have. Yes, talk to your teens/pre-teens, and give them boundaries, guidelines, and so on, but they as teens will go beyond that. I have always kept the communication door open and give them liberty to experiment within them. Ive only had I think less than ten of my personal students actually got pregnant over the years. Lets use this as a teaching and guidance moment, not a punativeone.

By Very sad grandmother

February 19, 2009 11:58 AM | Link to this

Rod, If you think a child cannot and are not charged as adults today you are wrong. Yes they go to Juvinile until they reach 17 years of age; then they are sent steight to adult prisons. There are DAs out there who feel no remorse in ruining a childs life. They are real sneaky about it. A child might commit an offense at the ripe old age of 13 or sometimes younger, but they will put off doing anything until they are about 15 or so and at this time they are beginning to look a lot more adultish, I guess this way it makes it easier for them to sleep at night. If parent do not wake up and have these laws changed back so juviniles are treated as what they are; juviniles, we are going see our prisons in America turning out harden criminals that could have been productive citizens if given the chance to change. Children are a product of the homes they live in and the inviroments of the commnity. In today world an adult can commit any sexual offense as adult, adultry, fornication, sodomy and that’s ok. they are adults. They are not hurting any one. Wrong! The kids are watching, they immatate what they see. Whether it be at home on the tv or computer etc. When they (juviniles) cross the line in commiting sexual offense they can be and are charged as adults and made to sound like they are the scum of the earth. There are DA’s out there that do not abuse this law that gives them a lot of lee way. If your child is lucky enough to get one of these, you are blessed. But I will tell you they do not advertise so it’s like playing the lottery your child might win or might not, and until you have gone through it you have no idea of the heartbreak to see the fear and mental stress these unlucky kids face. It dosen’t go away. I have read articles written by people who investigate these things. Kids that were sent to prison at young ages become insane. What a sad fact. That’s not justice that is curelty. It seems to me when our laws allow that to happen, we do not help the situation we just create a worse one.

By JJ

February 19, 2009 1:06 PM | Link to this

I don’t know why people are so afraid to talk to their kids about sex. I have have dialogue with my kid about sex since she was 8 years old.

Also, I look at her phone all the time. I also check book bags, and her room.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, as long as I am footing the bill, and you are living in my house, I have the right to check EVERYTHING!!!!!

Know I don’t know everything, but I do know alot about my kid. We talk. Often. She knows she can talk to me about anything, any time, and so do her friends. They can come to me anytime, and they do. Some of the conversations I have had in my house with my daughter’s friends, both male and female, would make hairs stand up on your neck. But alot of these kids don’t feel comfortable talking to their parents, but they feel comfortable talking to me. And I’m glad.

By momtoAlex&Max

February 19, 2009 1:32 PM | Link to this

My first thought was to agree with Cammie317 , but maybe that’s not very realistic.

After all, taking away the phone will not prevent him/her from actually TALKING (in person) about it or actually DOING it. I am inclined to have frank conversations about the sanctity of the body, the fact that once a pic/text is “out there” there is no way to get it back, the consequences of adult behaviour when you are still a child, etc. More like what JJ does.

By Copyleft

February 19, 2009 2:29 PM | Link to this

I understand pens and pencils can also be used to WRITE about sex!

Better take those away, too. Just to be safe, you understand.

Grow up, parents. Locking up the computer, the TV, the cell phone, and the Internet is no substitute for actually talking to your kids honestly about sex.

The rest of the world is not going to censor itself for your convenience. Step up to the plate and RAISE your kids.

By Becky

February 19, 2009 3:52 PM | Link to this

Amen, Copyleft…Have all parents forgotten what it was like to be a teen???

By Keith

February 19, 2009 5:00 PM | Link to this

Hey guys — I think everyone knows teens think about sex almost constantly — or write about or talk about it with their friends. But electronic communications can introduce a litany of problems that either weren’t an issue when we were younger — or were at least more difficult to achieve.

Hard copies of photos/written messages could have been mass distributed, but it would have required much more work and thought than a simple push of a button.

Teens may not think twice about sending a nude photo they took themselves with a camera phone and sent “privately” to a boyfriend/girlfriend mobile-to-mobile.

But most teens WOULD think twice if they had to take the film to a Fotomat, drop it off, have a person develop it (and therefore see it) and then pick it up.

Those kinds of things do make “sexting” a little different, I think. That, and the potential for child pornography charges, of course.

By fk

February 19, 2009 7:07 PM | Link to this

My son’s high school had a guest speaker (J. Tom Morgan, former DeKalb County prosecutor) come in and discuss teens and how GA codes affect them. 17 is the magic number, not 18. He wrote a couple of books on the subject. Photo texting was a hot topic at the school assembly the kids can get into serious trouble, especially when they forward the pics on to others.

By Alexis

February 19, 2009 7:36 PM | Link to this

Well, I will say this. I have a 7 yr old daughter and I will give her a cell phone in a few years and when I do, trust be it will be something like a “jitterbug” cell or a firefly cell in which the parent controls who calls them and you can’t text with that. Birth control is not always the answer. I feel you should talk to your kids and make them feel that they are able to approach you and if after educating them about sex, their bodies, reputations, etc and they are wanting to be active, then educate them on the importance of birth control and how it is important to use it. Also let them know they must love themselves. For this sexting thing, educate your child on pornography and the laws concerning sex crimes like child pornography, etc just like you would tell them about drugs or alcohol.

By Alexis

February 19, 2009 8:00 PM | Link to this

Well, I will say this. I have a 7 yr old daughter and I will give her a cell phone in a few years and when I do, trust be it will be something like a “jitterbug” cell or a firefly cell in which the parent controls who calls them and you can’t text with that. Birth control is not always the answer. I feel you should talk to your kids and make them feel that they are able to approach you and if after educating them about sex, their bodies, reputations, etc and they are wanting to be active, then educate them on the importance of birth control and how it is important to use it. Also let them know they must love themselves. For this sexting thing, educate your child on pornography and the laws concerning sex crimes like child pornography, etc just like you would tell them about drugs or alcohol.

By Peachy

February 20, 2009 9:01 AM | Link to this

Kids don’t need sex ed, many of them learn by WATCHING their parents have sex with their ‘friend” in the child’s presence.

And we wonder what is wrong with our society and why our schools are in such a crisis?

By joe

February 20, 2009 10:23 AM | Link to this

nothing is more important than talking to your child about sex as parents, honest and always in the appropriate words depending on the age. If you do not want your child to be educated about sex on the street do it yourself