Teens and sexting

something that I do with my bio son 15 is always do random checks on everything he has. IPOD, phone and facebook. He is not allowed to delete history without me..you can keep track of the dates and he has to give me his passwords to do the random checks or he loses the item. Sure he gets angry and says that I am creepy for checking out his friends facebook pages but hey facebook isn't a life requirement so passwords or simply do not have it.:arrow:

Oh, shavon, absolutely inform the mom of the girl! I am the mother of adult daughters. I relied heavily on my community informants from time to time! I can't be everywhere at once, but thanks to our "village" they really thought I could. Both are now grown and happily married, so I guess it works. The trick to informing parents is to do it with an attitude of concern. No one likes to hear bad things about their kids, but the gotcha attitude tips me over the edge! And as the mom of young women, I know that I always needed to know what my girls were up to so that I could help "encourage" them to make good choices. Even when they didn't like it! Especially when they didn't like it. But then again, I treated my grown son the same way!

Well...when my bio son came home we took his cell and looked thru it...our fs forwarded some very explicit pictures to him..it wasnt any one we knew just pornographic pictures tat was sent to him :( We had decided that if it didnt envolve our bio children that we would just sit down with fs and let him know the consequencis for receiving and forwarding porno..and we were going to make him call the girls parents and explain to them that he had received pics from their daughter and have him appologize to the girl for being so disrespectful to her.. Now I dont know what to do..this directly affects my son!!! I am sure if it wasnt foster son that sent those kinds of pics it would have been one of his friends..BUT his friends dont live with us..and if it would have been one of his friends he would have been baned from our home..but what do you do when the kid already lives here?????? I am at a loss on what to do...I want to give fs a chance but at the same time I want to protect my bio kids.. He broke the law... If he had any inclination of making someting of his self I think I would want to try harder but at this point he says as soon as he turns 17 he is outta here...he said he will go back to grandma or mom... any suggestions????

I vote follow through with your original plan. Except now you need to discipline both of the boys. I'd take the phones, do the apology thing, and consider how long to keep them. Yes, it's serious. It's not, however, the end of the world. And both boys are involved. Maybe only one sent the message, but the other knew it was not right and sisn't spill the beans. You gotta do what you gotta do.

greenrobin...I have disciplined both boys..mine a little harsher... Now family service is saying that since it was forwarded that now it is a legal matter..we have to turn his cell phone in to the cw and he has to turn it in to the juvenile division.. We didnt punish our bio for receiving the text...he cant help what is sent to him..we did punish him for not telling us about it and not deleting it..He is grounded from his cell for one month, has to use the home phone only in the living room, no driving is car, and no extra activities on the weekends...My sis says that is pretty harsh..I dont think so..I think he needed to get into enough trouble that he would be more careful of his actions... You are right it is not the end of the world but I do feel like it is the end of innocence...My bios were born premature and although they are 16 in age they are no where near 16 in experiences...They are both virgins (huge deal for boys that are almost 17) never used drugs or drank alcohol and their friends are the same, but now I have invited a boy that has been exposed to all of those things into my home where he can influence my boys.. I guess it is just the momma bear in me..I only took him in because they said he was going to have to go to a group home if they didnt find him a place.. If I knew then what I know now I never would have...He is a good kid but he has been exposed to way more than my kids have..

shavon IMHO ...maybe was a bit harsh for your bio for a first offense that he didn't have control over. We have a neighbor boy also adopted from foster care at an older age that was very exposed to sexual stuff. He and my son were closely supervised friends for a number of years. He ended up uploading porn onto a gaming system and showing it to my son IN MY HOUSE under MY watch!! I was so upset and angry with both of them. When we discussed it and were upset with my son for not telling us it finally came out it was because he was too mortified to tell me and didn't know how to handle it. If it is a first offense maybe discuss with him as to why he didn't tell you and go from there

If your son truly is the innocent you profess and there has never been an issue like this before that you are aware of... in my opinion, the punishment was way to harsh. Your child and you'll do what you feel is best, but I wouldn't have felt comfortable at that age, or even now, discussing certain things with my parents... especially anything that touches on sex.

I am with everyone else, that was extremely harsh punishment for a kid that wasn't asking for porn to be sent to his phone and didn't know how to handle it. That's the problem with kids being so completely sheltered... when they are faced with 'real life' situations like this, they don't know what to do... it's not your son's fault that he didn't know how to handle a situation that he was never taught how to deal with. How does grounding him for a month teach him anything? The punishment really should fit the crime here, and I'm not sure he did anything wrong. If he's not comfortable discussing sex with you, then maybe that facet of household dynamics should change.

No, I think the punishment for forwarding the texts is too harsh..they could be labeled as a sex offender and distributing porn for the rest of their life.... I didnt ground him for a month, I grounded the cell phone for a month... He is not completely sheltered, he knew that it was wrong to have porn on his phone, he just chose not to delete it..He didnt even have to tell us he could have just simply hit the delete button! He knows how to deal with these situations he just chose not to deal with it the right way. Believe me he is comfortable discussing sex with us. we are a very open family, he just chose not to... These were all his choices...thankfully he knew enough not to forward those images or he could be dealing with law inforcement and not us..I think their punishment would be a lot harsher than ours..with us he lost phone privilages, his car for 2 weeks, and after school activities. With law inforcement he could have possibly been labeled a sex offender, distributing child porn, and the loss of jobs...Now to me that is harsh...

I do not have any children and have not had to deal with this sexting issue before. But I do know in my state they just had on the news that they were charging a 16 year old boy and I believe a 15 year old for child pornography because of them sending nude pics to each other. I would take his cell phone away. It doesn't matter who is paying the bill. You are his parent and are responsible for teaching him right from wrong and steering him in the right the direction. I would tell him if he wants to use the house phone that he has to do it in the livingroom where you can the conversation and that he will not get his cell phone back until he prove that he has learned his lesson. Sexting in my state is illegal and punishment if caught by the police or a parent who decides to press charges is jail time.

sunnylove.....You are absolutely right...I am glad I am not the only one who sees the seriousness of this offense... It is illegal here also... I am sure my son and foster son will appreciate the sterness of the punishment I hand out instead of what the prosecutor could hand out. Here it is not illegal to have it in your posession it becomes illegal if you forward it...or that is what the cw told me, so we shall see how this all turns out..

My 15 yr old daughter actually got caught doing this with her cousin! YES, her cousin!!! We immediately took the phone away for 5 days and she was grounded. When we ground it means NOTHING, no phone, no computer, no ipod, no TV, nothing. If you take one thing away they don't feel it as much as if you take everything away. Learned this technique from her therapist whom deals with alot of teenagers. It works wonders! Then when we gave it back after 5 days we also called AT&T and setup for 4.99/mo a parental control on her phone. I shut off her texts completely (set it up for zero texts for about 2 weeks) just on her phone. We have unlimited family texting so I was not about to shut ours off. Then we gradually gave her back a few here and there and monitored them. I also have her phone setup not to work school hours too and I blocked the number she was texting to (it has allowed and blocked numbers in the controls). We also explained to as others have that it's illegal to do these type of things. And also explained how innapproriate it was. As teenagers they will try to get away with it. I felt if I took the phone away completely then that would be too harsh a punishment but her earning it back was better. In fact, now she does chores around the house weekly to earn her texting limits I setup under the parentall controls.

Good for you, shavon. I think your punishment was just fine. You're sending a very clear message to your son that this is completely unacceptable. He'll remember it. I'm sorry, too, that this is now a legal matter for your fs. Yes, an end of innocence, but it eventually happens to all of us....just not always in the same way.

Shavon Yes, maybe in your son's case if he knew better then it is appropriate. When I think back my son was a lot younger {which made it more icky} but we really hadn't had those conversations about porn yet because of his age and he didn't have access. I am sure you are doing what is right for your family.

Greenrobin..YOU ROCK, thank you!!! Thanks everyone :) I am sure everything will work out fine.. I appreciate the support.