It's a lot easier controlling/monitoring social media, computers, phones when kids are younger. Once they become teens, they are often more savvy than their parents. I belong to a safe school consortium and it encompasses elementary thru high school topics. I'm constantly amazed at the technology our kids know about. There are calculator apps on phones that parents don't even know about that kids use for sexting and passing pictures. Most parents wouldn't even know about this. Too bad for my kids.
Nicole's parents may have had no reason to think she was on all of these dating websites. For all they knew, she was in her room watching Justin Beiber videos. Hopefully, this is a wake up call for parents. I regularly go thru history on our computers, phones and am looking for the latest and greatest filters. I am not naive to think I know everything this type of thing.
+1 to all you've said here. Fact is, parents DON'T always know what their teens are doing - that hasn't changed since the beginning of time. The one big difference these days is, many teenagers are inviting strange men into the house via technology. What's even more maddening, is that MOST of them know exactly what they're doing - but think they're too smart for anything bad to happen to them. Many (if not all?) of them lie about their age to access certain kinds of apps, and many of them use the fake apps designed to keep their naughty little habits a secret from parents.
It's not as if these teens are accidentally stumbling into this adult world where pieces of garbage predators hang out waiting for a chance to exploit them. They go there on purpose. They post the seductive pics on purpose, and they know all of it's wrong because they do it on the sneak (multiple accounts, hidden accounts, etc.). It's SO frustrating
All you can do is talk to them, show them articles online where the last girl (take your pick, sadly there's TONS of them to choose from) met some loser online and she ended up raped or worse, tell them to be SMART, to avoid this stuff, etc. and hope and pray they listen.
I have 7 kids, and 5 of them are really really net-smart. One of them is still learning (our youngest, she's 12) and one that doesn't listen to a word I say. She scares the life out of me - but she's an adult now (18) and there isn't much I can do. No matter how much information you give your kids (and no matter how scary the truth really is), eventually they make their own choices to either follow the advice, or not.
