This is the sad nature of society today. Young girls don't understand that sending out nude pictures of themselves can be very harmful to themselves and it is in fact illegal. I understand that there is some sort of sexual exploration that they go through, but having personal cell phones and access to many other ways of communicating in the digital world has changed things for the worse. They may think that sending something naughty to a boyfriend is fine, or perhaps they are proud of their body and want to show it off to the world. Problem is, it isn't legal. They are underage. You can blame many different reasons for this be it the parents not keeping an eye on them, the teen not understanding what is okay and what is not, or even the perv on the other end begging for pics of these young girls.

I know from experience that this is nothing easy to deal with, but a large part of it for me and her mother was that we didn't teach her what was right and wrong with a cell phone. She would get into chats with people halfway across the world, just trying to engage and socialize. Problem is, those people were interested in nothing other than sexual intentions with her. What was worse, I believe, is that she wanted to satisfy these people, she wanted to make them happy. Luckily we caught on when it was only a handful of pictures sent out, and she didn't ruin her life by sharing with anyone close to home. It isn't easy sitting down a teenager and talking to her about her activities online, especially when they were supposed to be private, but it has to happen. I believe teens are not dumb, but very intelligent and sometimes it takes an intervention to show them the error of their ways and to make them better people. We haven't had issues with our daughter since.

Now, do I believe this girl should have been arrested? Made a spectacle of? No, no, no! They did the worst thing possible by going this route. Something like this should have been kept private, the content removed, and the teen needs to have a very serious coaching about what she did. The damage was already done when she decided to publicly post these things online, but now she will be ridiculed at school and other areas of her life. She will be shamed and made to feel terrible about herself, not to mention possible jail time and a sex offender status!? Making this a public spectacle is the worst thing for her, when she needs to be educated about it. I hope this turns out alright for her, but unfortunately it has progressed beyond saving with proper parenting.