School officials in Barrington, Ill., have scheduled a few events in the coming weeks, at which they hope to educate parents about online safety, because two middle school boys were charged as juveniles with possession of child pornography, the Chicago Tribune reports. Police say the students sent sexually explicit pictures of fellow students to several people via text message, a practice known as “sexting.”
“These students and their parents find themselves in a severe situation,” the paper quoted Barrington Community Unit School District 220 Superintendent Tom Leonard as saying in a written statement. “Their futures may be forever stamped by the careless use of an app, the tease of a text message, the unthinking post of an indecent photo. … The ‘delete’ button can never fully erase the reach of social media.”
WLS-TV (ABC affiliate) reported that both boys are 14 years old and that some parents were “conflicted” that the case had risen to the level of a crime. “I find that very surprising, although I’m not familiar with the specifics of the case,” the station quoted one Barrington Middle School parent as saying. “It’s sad. It’s sad, and it’s scary. I don’t think that the kids that were involved knew the repercussions of what they were doing,” said another.
Parents should use this incident as an opportunity to discuss appropriate technology use with their children, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. Police in Barrington offered the following tips:
- Set guidelines on appropriate use of cell phones. This means no inappropriate texts or embarrassing photos or videos.
- Tell your teen that sexually explicit material of any kind is not allowed.
- While they may not think it is a good idea, you must look through your child’s phone and monitor his or her usage.
- Establish real consequences when parental rules or boundaries are broken.
- Teens should be told to think about the consequences of taking, sending or forwarding a sexual picture of someone underage.
- Teens should never take images of themselves they would not want everyone to see.
- Before hitting send, teens must know they cannot control where an image may end up.
- If a person forwards a sexual image of someone underage, that person is as responsible for this image as the original sender. A distributor in this instance could face child pornography charges, go to jail and be required to register as a sex offender.
- Teens must report any nude pictures they receive on a technology device to a trusted adult, such as a parent or a school counselor. They should not delete the message. Instead, they should involve parents or guardians, teachers or school counselors immediately.
