Its Certainly Not Romantic, Its Often X-Rated Sometimes Its Abusive All Kinds of Kids are Doing it and Theres Almost No Way For Parents To Find Out Whats Going On

Sexting has been a buzzword throughout 2013, but few parents understand how pervasive it is. For a country that sometimes claims to hold seemingly puritanical ideas about sex, our culture is obsessed with sexuality. News about Anthony Weiner, another in a long line of idiotic politicians who, to mix a metaphor, got caught with his pants down while flying too close to the sun, Miley Cyrus, Snapchat and other sordid, trashy news stories often dominate the popular consciousness. It's no wonder that many of our children are forming unhealthy attitudes about sex.

Sexting specifically refers to sexually explicit or provocative text or picture messages sent from one phone to another. The term encompasses a wider array of behaviors, however, including interactions on social media sites like Facebook and the use of so called 'ephemeral messaging' apps such as Snapchat. Snapchat is a phone app that allows users to send short videos or pictures, which are then deleted a few seconds after receiving them.

I'm going to give you the clean version of what an opening line might look like when a young boy gets the phone number of a young girl:

Boy: Yo you wanna hook up? lol
Girl: I don't know. lmao
Boy: Come on. Don't be a prude.
Girl: OK

Gone are the days of flowers or going on dates. The trouble is, that neither the boy nor the girl in this scenario realizes that they're going about things the wrong way. Attitudes have shifted. What's normal now is different from what used to be normal.

Sexting could be indicative of a serious problem. Compulsive sexting could easily lead to very troubling behavior. If you have a son or know a young boy who is engaged in this type of behavior, professional counseling in a safe, non-judgemental environment such as Therapy Insider offers might be just the ticket to wellness.

Yo, Wanna Hook Up? LOL

Catherine Steiner-Adair is a clinical psychologist, researcher and author, whose recent book, The Big Disconnect: Protecting Childhood and Family Relationships in the Digital Age, is making big waves among her peers and some parenting groups. Steiner-Adair's research shows that there is a growing problem in our country that is affecting both boys and girls in deeply negative ways. Essentially, the ease with which children have access to inappropriate subject matter such as pornography, though also even more conventional media such as music videos, combined with the private nature of mobile devices and internet access, are leading to a generational attitude and value shift.

The influence of online porn in forming sexual attitudes is having a scary effect on many of our nation's teens. Porn has always held an insidious influence over teens, but its easy attainability now holds sway over an unprecedented number of developing minds. To put it simply, there is some pretty sick stuff out there, and your kids may be finding it. That material is teaching them how to feel about what sex should be like, and how relationships between men and women are.

This brings up an important point. How much privacy should teens have? There are ways that parents can try to track their teens' use of technology, but to be totally honest, most teens know ways around all of these methods, from clearing browser history, changing passwords regularly to deleting incriminating content. Most of this behavior can be kept 100% secret.

So what should parents do?

Well, a good first step would be to reconsider the talk we all should be having with our kids. The birds and the bees conversation. It's important to realize that this is a conversation about sexual health. It's about how babies get made and how relationships work, but now, it's about more than that as well. Parents should have a series of evolving conversations on the topic. And consider that pornography should be discussed as well.

A recent study showed that 17% of teens turned to the web to learn about sexual health. I believe that number has risen substantially in the intervening years, and if you add in general exploration of the web to learn more about sex through pornography and other sites, and you lower the age number, you're looking at many more kids who are looking to the internet to learn information they should be discussing with their parents.

Teens often do not realize that they're learning. That is why it is possible that when a young boy sends a provocative text to a young girl he doesn't realize that he's doing anything wrong. His attitudes have been formed by watching sex between men and women that is utterly different from the type of sex parents or teachers may have talked to him about. When talking about pornography with teens, it's important to note that porn is a business. Relationships do not conform to the model of pornography. This is sex for sale, not sex between two people who are interested in having a relationship.

This is significant because a recent report shows that a quarter of teens in relationships were abused or otherwise subjected to harassing behaviors via text message or through online interactions. If you widen the focus to include persons with whom that teen was not in a relationship, that number would skyrocket.

Boys and girls often learn cues about how they should behave at a very young age. There is almost no greater crime a kid can commit than to be different from his peers. Children are taught to assimilate, to behave like their friends. So when boys learn unhealthy attitudes about sex, and see their friends beginning to send inappropriate messages to girls, it's natural for them to imitate the behavior.

Too often, we dismiss this behavior as 'boys will be boys'. We need to recognize that we are devaluing the emotional consequences that behavior like this will have on young men later in life, when they must form strong, healthy relationships with someone else.

Girls are growing up with crude appraisals of themselves. They have confused attitudes about how boys value them. All of these factors will go on to contribute to future difficulties in forming relationships in the future.

Parents must teach by example, by showing how healthy relationships between men and women incorporate communication and mutual respect. They must show that love is a multi-dimensional process, not a one dimensional act. Conversations about sex don't have to be awkward. The world we live in is saturated with sex. Your kids may know more than you do about some aspects of sexuality, thanks to online porn and exposure to pop culture. What they probably do not have any wisdom about is relationships. You can teach your kids the customs that lead to understanding, mutually respectful relationships to help them navigate the confusing world of impressions they will inevitably encounter as they mature into adulthood.