How To Save Your Child From Teen Sexting

There are a lot of dangerous things your child might be getting into. Digitalization has been a boon for industries, but some teenagers use the same technology that can lead them to dire consequences. Your teen uses different social media platforms and messaging apps to stay connected with their friends. They share photos on Instagram, message friends through WhatsApp, always share their current location on Facebook. But teens don’t always make the wisest decision. This is when parental control apps like FamiSafe comes into play.

For some kids, sexting is just the usual way to communicate with their peers. They see nothing wrong in it. In fact, they have fun while doing it without realizing that the things they are considering to be innocent
can cause trouble later on. Yes, teen sexting exists, and more and more teens are being reported to be involved in sexting.

Sexting is when someone sends or receives sexually explicit messages, videos, or images through a digital device. And the worst part is out
of 4 teens, one teen gets sexts, and out of 7 teens, at least one of them sends sext content to someone or the other.

The dangers of teen sexting

Child pornography

Depending on the age of the child, the kind of photos they share and receive from other people can be considered child pornography. Child
pornography is referred to as minors’ semi-nude and nude photos. Even if your child is sharing those pictures with his or her own will, it can still be
considered as child pornography, and if found out, both the person sharing and receiving it can be charged with a crime.

Sexual bullying

Your child might have shared those images with someone known or might have uploaded them on their social media accounts. Evil people are lurking everywhere. If someone has a bad intention, these images can be used for sexual bullying. Those images can be further distributed to other people,
and they might laugh, tease, gossip, and even cyberbully your child. Sexual
bullying often causes severe depression among teenagers. And the worst that can happen is a young child taking his/her own life.

Sextortion

You never know with whom your child might be sexting. The teenager might have come across someone online and shared some personal images with that unknown person. These images can then be used as a bait by the receiver. The same person can also use these images to threaten the person and sexually extort the child, asking for more else they will leak the photos to embarrass them further.

Teen’s reputation is at stake.

Sexting can ruin your child’s reputation direly. If the receiver of those sexts is a person with bad intentions, they might later brag about it, making the child’s life extremely difficult. Youngsters are often impatient, and they often do something extreme after their break up. The receiver might leak those images after a bad break-up running your teenagers’ image in front of everyone.

Sexting comes along with many dangers, but the after effect of sexting is the mental agony the young mind goes through. Your child could be under mental pressure to share more personal photos. Studies have been
conducted where it has been found out that sexting often leads to severe
depression and anxiety.

Some of the dangerous social media apps and chat apps that every parent must know about are Snapchat, WhatsApp, Kik, Confide, Dust, Signal, Telegram, Whisper, and Omegle. The reason why these apps have been
talked about here is that teenagers use these apps the most. All the apps allow you to share online content. But someone with an evil intention can save personal images, click a screenshot of the sexting conversation or image, and more.

So, the first thing that you should do is identify all these apps, and consider downloading an app that will let you stop your child from getting into sexting. Here are a few things that FamiSafe can help you with.

Monitor text messages and detect sexting pictures

It is never easy for parents to detect sext messages, mainly because they can be quickly deleted or hidden. However, FamiSafe is aware of the leading social media platforms and messaging platforms, such as WhatsApp, Instagram, Kik, and more. In the case of sext text, the app will quickly identify and warn parents about it. The app can also detect nude selfies and explicit photos. Apart from that, you will find a list of risky keywords as well.

Block sexting websites

Teenagers are connected digitally, and they can come across some apps unknowingly that promote sexting. Through the parental app, you will
be able to go through incognito browser history and do web filtering. You can also block harmful websites and apps and stop them from using sites and apps that can harm them.

Talk to your kids today to know about their opinion on sexting. It is time for you to explain how dangerous sexting can be. Talk to them and let them know about the hazardous outcomes of sexting. And make sure to use the right parental control app that will keep your child away from sexting.