My daughter is about to turn 12, and she will not be getting a phone soon. Yet she is one of a handful of kids in her sixth-grade class not to have one.
One factor contributing to my hesitance is an incident I recently learned of at a local elementary school. A sixth-grade girl sent an inappropriate selfie to a boy, and he shared it in a group chat. I don’t know the details, but I’m guessing that, as in most cases of group-shared sexting images online, this boy likely didn’t have permission from the girl to share her image.
The prevalence of sexting and nonconsensual image sharing
Changing the culture for our kids
When I do finally give my daughter a phone, I’ll be handing her a powerful communication tool. But I’ll also be setting her loose in a culture that continues to practice these ugly and damaging patterns of victim-blaming.
Yes, we should teach our girls the importance of protecting their bodies and images online, but more importantly, we should teach all genders the importance of consent, including online. It’s never OK to pressure another kid to engage in sexting, nor is it ever OK to share images with others — not only is it wrong morally but there can also be dire legal consequences.
Organizations like Love Is Respect, a project of the National Domestic Violence Hotline, have created educational materials for youth and parents to talk about setting healthy boundaries in relationships both IRL and online. I’m hopeful that schools will work closely with these organizations to spread awareness and combat teen dating violence, including cyber abuse.
Before we give our kids smartphones, we as parents also need to have these conversations around consensual communication. And, please, let’s not just set girls up to be the “gatekeepers” again.
