Children in today’s society have a lot of pressure on them and are having to grow up too quickly. It’s unfortunate that they can’t enjoy their childhood without being pressured into doing things they normally wouldn’t do. When I was growing up, I of course had peer pressure but a different kind than kids have today.
My childhood pressures consisted of an innocent game of truth or dare. The dare being something silly like run around the room with a trash can on your head. The pressures today consist of kids taking naked photos and sending them to their boyfriend/girlfriend. As you can tell they differ greatly. What happened to letting kids be kids and enjoying their youth?
When I was in school, children played outside, read books, and enjoyed board games. The kids nowadays are interested in cell phones, video games, and computers. Notice the difference? The problems that they have today are much greater because everything they say or do can become viral within a matter of minutes. I understand that we have come a long way since I was a child playing Oregon Trail on a floppy disk but I still wonder what happened to kids being innocent.
One of the current trending topics around the nation is sexting and the statistics are quite alarming. Thirty-nine percent of teens have sent a sext and 48% have received a sexually suggestive message. Did you know when a child sexts another kid they can be charged with child pornography? Does that seem a little too harsh? Maybe…maybe not. I’m sure Jesse Logan’s parents don’t feel that way. Jesse Logan(picture above) was a high school student who sent her boyfriend a nude picture of herself. The boyfriend sent it to his friends and the whole school eventually saw it. The girls at her school called Jesse filthy names and threw things at her. The end result of the harassment…Jesse hanged herself in her bedroom.
This should be a wake-up call to parents that they need to keep an eye on their children to see what they are doing. Now, I realize that all sexting incidents don’t end tragically like Jesse’s did but everyone should know that it does happen. It’s hard enough being a kid so let’s help them and take some of the pressure off.
If kids have all the information needed on this topic to make the right choices they have a better chance of preventing some damaging situations. A solution to avoiding sexting issues is to get a parental monitoring system. This will give the child a way out because all he/she has to do is say “sorry I can’t because my parents monitor my cell phone.” It’s easy and will relieve some of the pressure so kids can get back to being kids.
