Give this some thought. My grandson is 12 and is in junior high school. His friend recently freaked all of us out. A sheriff's deputy showed up and took the 12 year old buddy off in handcuffs. This is a kid that is quiet, polite, and friendly and as one parent responded, was showing no signs of being on drugs or showing no other reason to question him. As every one of us did at that age, he became interested in girls. I was in junior high in the late '60s and remember all of us having done something very similar to what this kid had done, only we didn't have instant gratification as brought about by phones with cameras and video cams. We used to see photos that came from those photo booths that spit out 4 black and white pictures for a quarter. Every now and then we would get a hold of one of these pictures with a faceless girl showing her boobies, or what would one day become her boobies. This friend of my grandson had texted a girl that said, "If you text me a pic of your junk, I'll text you a pic of mine.", and his life is now ruined. The girl got mad at him a couple days later, showed her dad the photos the kid had sent, and now he faces 3 felony charges of indecency with a minor, exposing of genitals to a minor, and one other ridiculous charge. This 12 year old kid will now have to register as a sexual offender every time he makes a move in his life. Even though this happened off campus, he was expelled from school for 3 days and will never be allowed to participate in school sports programs the rest of his young school life. Upon reaching adulthood he will be called a sexual predator and will not be likely to find too many jobs once this charge is revealed, regardless of how ridiculous it may seem now to treat a kid who showed a picture of his junk to a schoolmate on his cellphone.
Now you have to question whether your kids are showing any "signs" of doing anything. This was something that every junior high kid I know was involved in back in my school days, but now it has become the crime of the century and regardless of how innocent your kid may seem, his reaction to his hormones could cost him dearly. Think about that as you hand that cell phone over to your school aged kid, just because every other kid has one. When he takes that little pic of him or his buddy and thinking he is innocently goofing around by showing it to his friends, think about what will happen to him or her if just one kid who wasn't brought up the same way sees it. This friend of my grandson is ruined for life, and his parents who can't afford a lawyer can do nothing about it to save their kid. KID! He will be treated as a criminal for the rest of his life. This is how easily your kid can go from a "normal" happy kid to a "dangerous sexual predator" in the eyes of society, so don't take something like this lightly. If there is an app you can use to watch your kid, do it so your kid doesn't end up in the same bullshit trouble this 12 year old is in.
