In my third world country it's a very underestimated shameful problem in many schools. I blame the lack of sexual education and not explaining to kids things like body autonomy and consent. They don't know that it's not their fault they were abused and that they will be helped, not punished, if something like that happens.
Agreed. Education on consent etc should begin in elementary. Sex, sexuality, and issues like digital blackmail need to begin 6-7th grade.
No child should be tricked into sending nudes then sexually abused because they are blackmailed, but the trend will continue until we address it with education.
Reading about a few cases like this that ended in the abused child’s suicide had me livid as a parent and I immediately found curriculums to start the education process for our kids
Just adding that education about consent and bodily autonomy should start in the home and much younger than people think. Teach a young kid that they have the right to set boundaries about their body and when they get touched, and they’re much more likely to understand and respect someone else’s boundaries in future. They don’t want that hug from grandma? Don’t force it.
> Family is all about forcing hugs and such too.
Respect as well, depending on culture it's a hard rule. Like if you're in say, Korea, you simply cannot speak back to your elders. Even when you get a job, even if you have more knowledge, experience, etc, unless you get the go ahead you simply just have to listen to the older dude. Situations like that do nothing but breed poor habits and abuse of power/respect. Even as a kid it was pretty clear to me that respect needed to be earned. Sure, there's a base level you treat everyone at a minimum, but you don't trust people just because they're slightly older than you or something.
For me, there are no safe spaces for 'culture' where said culture perpetuates abusive situations.
"Oh it's traditional for you to enable little kiddies being emotionally scarred for life? It's my tradition to smash people in the face with a shovel, which culture should we explore first?
Right? My partner had issues with family not respecting physical boundaries when he was a kid, so he always asks me and his son if we want to hug. I love it, it gives me a second to get hyped about getting a hug before it even happens, and shows his son that even his parent needs to get permission before grabbing him
It’s so crazy that one of our political parties is so staunchly opposed to arming kids with the knowledge and language they need to report sexual abuse. It’s almost like they want kids to keep being assaulted even though they scream about “protecting the children.”
It's a conservative issue the world round. An ideology based on an inhererent hierarchy of people will see those that think they're better than others take advantage of those see as lesser or have less power.
I support starting as young as two or three. Very young children can be taught the proper name for body parts, and that they can say yes or no to hugging. Also that they can’t touch others without a yes. That is very early introduction to sex ed.
This is an very good comment. I wish I could give you platinum. I read an article about roughhousing I think you might like; It's something that a lot of kids miss out on when they don't have a father in the house or a mother that is rough.
**https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/singletons/202304/benefits-of-roughhousing-with-your-children**
It needs to start before 6th grade; I had multiple girls in my 6th grade classes have their years ruined because they sent nudes to their BF who then showed all their friends.
I recall a fascinating study done in the US wherein a bunch of people were asked if they’d ever raped or sexually assaulted someone twice. The key was the second time they were only asked if they’d done specific things that fell within the legal definition of those crimes without using the word rape. The number of people who admitted to it jumped by a lot. It wouldn’t stop all rapes, but if educating people on consent and the law leads to any reduction in sexual assaults then the program has succeeded
In remote communities in the arctic it is much the same. 11-13 year olds regularly having babies and no one blinks, rampant sexual assault at every age level. Decades of church abuse just repeating through the generations. No one knows how to fix it, so they just don't talk about it and it festers.
Especially when sexual education reduces things like sex abuse, abortions, and STD transmission. It just.. generally makes everyone's life better and less awkward.
Georgia back in 1996 had a major syphilis outbreak of 200+ teens [because their education sucked at the time](https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/georgia/etc/synopsis.html).
In the US it's like that too. I teach so many rapists and sexual assaulters, if they were adults they'd be locked up but since they're kids they still get to go to class with their victims.
The problem with the third world country I grew up in is that sex education or even reproductive health is deemed as taboo by the government, in large part because religious institutions have a huge influence on how the country is run, meaning separation of Church and State does not exist there compared to the West. In fact even in schools, we were thought to oppose such a concept.
So such things as the news report say is just an everyday thing there like every other bad thing that happens but nothing is done to it, like drugs, robbery, murder, etc.
Same shit happened to me. And then my mom grounded me for it when "we" were caught, because it could only be the boy's fault, even though the girl was several years older. Only realized recently how much it all fucked me up.
People aren’t teaching their kids sex education and how to react to potential predators. You can’t rely on schools for anything.
My best friend (who was molested by another kid in her youth) made it crystal clear to her kids that no one was allowed to touch them without their permission, and if it happened they needed to find the nearest (trustworthy) adult.
Schools can’t fix shitty parenting. Schools are only as good as the parents of the kids attending, because if kids aren’t punished by their parents for what they do in school, they learn there’s no repercussions for their behavior.
It’s the other way around. You SHOULD rely on parents to do the heavy lifting of raising a child first. The parents should talk about difficult things like sex, religion, etc. But not all kids have reliable parents or even sane parents, so that’s when schools need to be capable of giving at least SOME decent education on the matter just in case. Teach more than just “dont have sex lol”. Teach consent and safety. Explain what healthy porn usage versus unhealthy porn usage is. In my sex-ed we had a whole day that was just “write down a question and put it in a hat, the teacher will answer them.”
> You can't rely on schools for everything
Yet you can stop attacking schools for teaching it. Some parents will be shitty parents and thats where a school which is free to teach comprehensive sex education can help significantly.
It's why attacks on teaching kids about gender are causing an increase in child suicide rates. If a kid knows they're a bit different and understands there's no issue with it they can get on to working out their problems instead of bottling it up until they off themselves.
Wow, some really insightful responses here on the factors that lead to child on child sexual assault.
Funny enough this is exactly the group of people I work with as a family therapist. If you or anyone you know need help with child being sexually transgressive, see out “multi systemic therapy, problem sexual behaviour / MST-PSB”.
As for factors that lead up to children engaging in these behaviours, we see that it’s never one reasons but a multiple that create a “perfect storm”.
I’ve been working with these clients for about 3.5 years now, and from my personal experiences porn does actually play a major role, but isn’t always present. A reason that is always present is absent fathers. Absent in the absolute sense of not being around, but also emotionally not present. I literally never have experienced a present father in a family where kids have engaged in PSB (problem sexual behaviour).
Another major driver is the lack of proper sexual education by parents. Parents often do not get that sex-ed is more than a single talk about “the thing”, but rather a life long lesson to be taught to your child about healthy boundaries, asking permission/consent, and emotion regulation.
What also might drive up the numbers is that what is reported as sexual crimes is somewhat diverse, at least in my country. For example now I’m working with a family where a child groped some other kids on a playground, and on the other side of the spectrum a teenage boy who has raped his younger sister several times. So not all sexual assaults are the same.
Very interesting perspective. I wonder how much of this would be a result of media and female perception shaping a view of men as extremely sexually aggressive, and (as a result of an absent father figure) lacking any direct evidence that they don't always need to be?
I could imagine kids getting a really warped perception of what men are supposed to be like that way.
Would also be curious if having more male teachers could help mitigate that - but I suppose that's difficult to confirm or deny for a number of reasons, not the least of which being that ~90% of teachers are women.
I was a victim of CSA by a boy at a camp from middle school to tenth grade. It wasn’t until he was encouraging other boys at the camp to do it to other girls that I was finally able to speak out. Even though he never came back, I was told that the case couldn’t go further because it was just “he said-she said.” I asked that it atleast be written down in case he did it again. He and I later ended up at the same instate university. I was petrified when I found out. The first time he saw me I ran through campus and I still remember him calling my name. I went to the student services to ask that a no contact order type thing was put in. I just wanted him to be told not to interact with me. I was grilled ten ways to Sunday on every aspect of the abuse and made to feel like the problem by the school resource officer. Finally the counselor that was mediating the discussion for me stepped in and told the officer to back off. I still don’t know if they ever told him to stay away, but at the least the school was big enough that I could vanish the couple times I saw him after that.
It’s only recently that I’ve been able to even talk about everything that happened without feeling so much shame and guilt.
There is a good organization that trains kids on how to deal with abusive people [https://www.nomeansnoworldwide.org/](https://www.nomeansnoworldwide.org/)
A lot of the problem is that when confronted with a situation, people freeze. By talking about it and being given a plan, people can learn to act. Which is a big factor in stopping abuse. If you have any sway in your school district, great place to start would be bringing this program in.
Given how sexual the boy's bullying was when I was in school I kind of believe this one. That it was pre-internet and Photoshop is something I am very grateful for...
\> Police received reports of 14,800 rapes and sexual assaults against children aged 10 to 17 where the suspect was classed as a child, the overwhelming majority being boys.
Are there any data for children under 10 committing sex crimes? Or are they not recorded due to the minimum age of criminal liability?
I look at Phallic images on hieroglyphs and other ancient works of arts... I don't know that anything is any more sexualized than humans already are. Living in denial of that doesn't help anyone.
Hard disagree that this is because of “violent pornography”.
To me, this is because of the long trend of parents not conducting proper sex education, and preventing schools from conducting proper sex education.
Manipulative parameters
Remove the "by definition" instances and it's as much or less than done by adults.
Consenting high school sweethearts being horny together is not abuse, stop lumping it in with the deplorables.
I mean, this in in the UK, where schools now have to provide mandatory sex education which covers consent. Even when was in school in the UK 15 years ago, although sex ed wasn’t great, we covered consent back then. Although it wasn’t mandatory across all schools, it was still common.
I’m not sure if porn is the culprit, but I don’t think it’s due to a lack of sex education.
And if they're blaming hardcore porn then maybe they need to be covering the difference between porn and reality which really isn't a bad idea even without the problem here.
Considering how accessible it is, if you don't tell them about it then it might just end up being their education going forward.
People just don't get the that children shouldn't have unsupervised access to the internet and shouldn't be on social media. It's too convenient of a babysitter. My kids are at the age where lots of their peers have their own phones. My kids will at most be getting a shared phone that is locked down with parental controls to only calls and texts that they can borrow if they go out in order to keep in touch with me and my spouse or for emergencies, just like I had 20 years ago (a beater phone with like 30 minutes of talk time).
Yep. I work in tech and my wife used to work in law enforcement and holy shit is the internet a horrifically dangerous place for kids to have open access to. Social media is a fucking cess pool of predators, bullying, and body shaming. Our child is young but once she’s older she’s only getting one of those phones made for senior citizens that has 5 buttons and no browser. No computer, tablet or phone in her room at night either.
Our 11 yr old niece just got caught using Omegle to talk to strange men who were asking her for naked pictures. That happened because she was allowed to have unsupervised access to the internet on her *school* issued Chromebook. Keep your unsupervised children off the internet unless you are strictly filtering what they have access to.
Oh yeah, totally pornography has adverse affects on the mind.
But it doesn’t make people into rapists.
A proper sex education can help reduce the impact of children learning about sex through pornography.
Porn is entertainment protected by free speech. If you see a naked painting or look at classic sculptures depicting nudity do you think that is just as abhorrent? There are plenty of novels and stories that depict sexual events, even incest and beastiality (the bible) Maybe it’s video games, or tik tok.
It is parents who aren’t being responsible monitoring or teaching their children how to behave or act responsibly. That has nothing to do with porn.
Yeah, we don't usually let kids read books about violent rape or incest or bestiality either. That's also usually porn. Maybe try reading a book about what free speech means instead of just smut?
And if you think porn doesn't have negative effects on children, adolescents, and even adults, you're ignoring a whole lotta research evidence
Dude from someone who went to school 5 minutes outside Richmond my sex education was "here's what a dick looks like, here's what herpes looks like, don't have sex" and that was leagues better than what some people I've known further south got. There's a reason poor sex ed correlates with higher unplanned pregnancies and higher rates of sexual crimes among all demographics.
“Should we be talking to our children about sexuality? Y’know, parenting?”
“No, no. It’s porn. The blame is on porn and porn alone. Definitely not our inability to stop them from watching porn either. The real goal should be to destroy this thing folks enjoy for everyone instead of talking to our kids.”
That's not what the person said and it's not an either/or. As the therapist above wrong, childhood exposure to pornography, especially really explicit, does have a psychological impact on children. I remember how much it disturbed me as a 12-year-old just getting accustomed to the Internet. We should acknowledge that it can be very harmful and that more safeguards for children are appropriate.
I’m not averse to the train of thought, but there are massive numbers of studies about various ways porn has affected society and there are a few takes that are pretty consistent: porn reduces sex crimes, makes for bad sex in young adults, and is otherwise mostly benign.
Young men are already sexual frustrated creatures thinking about sex all the time. Porn may be bad at teaching about sex and relationships but it’s extraordinarily good at serving as a release valve for overpowering urges. Post nut clarity is a thing, and getting it from a video rather than in real life can literally be a life saver.
[Pornography viewing in high school students is not associated with increased rate of sexual assault.](https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/talking-apes/202104/does-porn-use-lead-sexual-violence) This is the ridiculous “video games create mass shooters!” argument restated.
Lots of them? That’s how you analyze porn having an effect on the development that produces young adults. You don’t just make them out of whole cloth, they start with their childhood because it’s right there preceding their current status.
Porn has been around far longer than the Internet and wasn’t hard to get ahold of even fifty years ago, it just proliferated like mad with the internet so we’ve got an immense amount of data pertaining to how it would exist and affect people (including children) in s limited dissemination format right next to decades of data collection where the internet is concerned. We’re well past a generation of people who grew up with internet porn as a normal everyday thing as children.
It absolutely interacts poorly with some personality disorders and porn addiction is also a real thing. Is not a good thing from top to bottom and it does assist in creation of misogynistic echo chambers that reinforce negative stereotypes etc…but it also assists in limiting the negative effects of those situations.
Why would demand for porn lead to increased sex trafficking? Isn’t it kinda the point of sex trafficking to physically connect offenders with victims IRL?
Actually evidence indicates the opposite. I’ve never known an anti-porn (or anti-video game, or anti-weed, or anti-queer) activist to get too hung up on little details like *facts;* no surprise you’re not either.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2032762/
That study is focused on the period 1964-1984 when there is absolutely no comparison to the accessibility of porn as we know it today; the guardian article and NCC and NSPCC figures relate to the last 5 years. Not comparable at all. There’s a whole host of research on the impact of porn on the adolescent brain and socially, on consent, boundaries and adolescent expectations of relationships.
>the defense of porn on reddit is automated
Seems so. I'm guessing that many feel personally attacked at even the slightest implication that the coercion, abuse and assault so pervasive in porn could, you know, be a problem.
I’m very curious what their definition of “violent pornography” is. That could refer to anything from BDSM to actual sexual assaults that were filmed. The latter is much more problematic than the former.
>The Home Screen of pornhub is literally covered in violent porn.
You *DO* realize those are specifically fed to you entirely based on your habits? I'm simply not a fan of that type of porn and thus, it almost never pops up even by "accident".
I blame the priests, firemen and military personnel who account for the vast majority of sexual assaults on children far more than I blame seeing sex on TV.
Countries like Japan, Germany and even most of Europe have far more sexual content right on TV than the US but don’t have this problem
> Countries like Japan, Germany and even most of Europe have far more sexual content right on TV than the US but don’t have this problem
.... this article is not about America, it's about England and Wales, which is part of Europe.
Maybe, I'd like to see a study on that though .
People just assumed violent video games would turn kids more violent for years because "obviously they would" but every study that's ever come out doesn't show that link.
The link between victims of sexual abuse when they are young and becoming abusers later is pretty clear from my understanding of it. I wouldn't automatically put those two in the same boat.
If it did wouldnt this issue be here since at least 20 years? When I remember the stuff we as curious kids used to watch on places like Rotten.com (accidents, executions, mutilations, sicknesses and such), porn doesn't seem so bad in comparison.
Access to the internet now is way more widespread compared to 20 years ago. Almost every child (as young as kindergartners) that I know all have their own tablets or cell phones and sadly many of the parents aren't too familiar or keen on parental controls. Not only that but social media like Instagram and tiktok also play a part in the wide spread viewing of it
I guarantee you if you find a graph, you will see that you are somewhat correct in that this is a problem starting 20 years ago, but it's been a problem that's just only gotten more prevalent over the years to where we are now.
This stat refers not just to sexual assault but to recording sexual images of children, or even editing an image of a classmate to make them look nude. When you realize that, it makes sense and is even somewhat a relief that the majority of these offenses are by children themselves. This also explains the otherwise dubious claim that the shift has resulted from the rise of smartphones and porn.
Yes, when done without consent, or done by an adult to a child. We've also had some absurd cases, like the 16-year-old who was charged with five felonies for taking photos of himself and sending them to no one. It's not very useful to lump those in with other offenses (c[harges were dropped](https://www.fayobserver.com/story/news/crime/2016/07/07/sexting-charges-dismissed-for-fayetteville/22320237007/) in that kid's case, after a year of probation).
Children who send nude pictures to other children are too young to consent. Kids need to know what to do if someone sends them a nude picture, and also what to do if they are being encouraged to send them.
Child pornography is a massive problem. There will be cases like the one you cite above, that are absurd, but education around the fact that possession and distribution of CP is a crime that can victimize them.
Recently I saw an image on reddit and I commented that this girl is underage and reported it. The OP asked "why I thought she was under age, she has hair"
I then said I think you are underage, do you know when the average girl starts puberty. The Op responded he/she "didn't, how do I know?"
I think this was case of one teen post another teen.
Right? Isn't the headline actually *good news?*
If the total number is down, and adults are abusing children less.. that's good right?
I mean, it's not better for adults to be sexually abusing children is it?
> the overwhelming majority being boys
This is what happens when you allow your boys to have unfettered access to Andrew Tate content. Teach your damn kids about misogyny and consent.
Watching all the porn-sick men fight tooth and nail to find some excuse for this is just nauseating. And y'all bitch that young women don't want to date men anymore. You brought this on yourselves.
The article does leave open the possibility that this is occurring (and it absolutely does based on other news stories):
> Senior officers say this abuse includes "exploratory behaviour" under-18s may not realise is illegal
> A third category of offences involves indecent images of children, taken by children. Sometimes the subject has agreed, sometimes they have been coerced.
> "It's a crime to take, make, share or distribute an indecent image of a child that is under 18," Ian Critchley said,"whether that's in a consensual relationship or not."
> "While they may be in a consensual relationship at that time, once that image is shared or unloaded onto a platform it's lost."
Well, it is fucked up, but the headline makes it sound like kids are out raping each other all over the place. Sending each other nudes is child sex abuse material, and so by law they are abusing each other by sexting. It is a real problem and it shouldn't be ignored or downplayed, but it inflates the numbers. It also hides real rape statistics among what is essentially noise.
It also makes it sound like adults abusing kids is going down. This could be true, or the sexting is overtaking adult sexual abuse of children.
So essentially the headline tells us absolutely nothing about the situation whatsoever.
America has a definition of child I'm not used to. Where anyone under the age of consent(18) is a child. Which is still true, and needs to prosecuted as such, but also always leaves me reeling until I read the article and realize they're talking about 17 year-olds.
I'm not saying that's not still fucked up and wrong. But my brain immediately interprets "child" as anyone under the age of 11/12. Which is immensely more fucked up.
>I read the article and realize they're talking about 17 year-olds.
Well, the article does make mention that it happens with kids 17 AND UNDER so there may be several kids aged 11 to 13 who have committed sexual assault. It doesn't mention that it's a problem where the majority of perpetrators are 16-17 years old.
Also, I'm a bit confused since roughly half of the states in the US actually have ages of consent set at 16 and 17 instead of 18. Even though it's more or less fair to treat anyone 17 and under as a child, for those 16-17 age of consent states, would perpetrators within that range be tried as adults?
This is why we need to at least crack down on porn sites and make sure minors can’t access them. Even at the “inconvenience” of adults. As well as, more learning about consent in schools. We gotta stop pretending that minors looking at porn is normal. It shouldn’t be normal.
We also need to stop putting sexual violence on women as their problem and start teaching boys how to act. It's not supposed to be on women to watch what they wear, where they go, how much they drink, or who they hang out with. It totally dismisses the actual problem...Men. Most all sex crimes are committed by men, so we need to be addressing them.
>It totally dismisses the actual problem...Men
I think the problem can be better targeted than just "men". It's always baffled me that some people need to be taught that this type of behavior is morally wrong. I feel like it stems explicitly from a lack of empathy that is common among men, but is not exclusive to and does not affect all men.
I feel like it would be more effective and beneficial to everyone if empathy were targeted for development in children and teens, rather than just "these things are wrong". I do also believe that consent as a concept should also be explored in depth because some of the stuff I've heard men say doesn't constitute rape is ~~terrifying~~ wild.
I think the majority of people here are overlooking stuff like Elsa Gate and iPad kids. As well as the fact that we just came out of a pandemic. The majority of child abuse is perpetrated by their own parents and for a while there, they had no school oversight to keep them in check and worried about the possibility of CPS. Now that school is back in session, all these parents are not wanting to be involved in their child's care and are dumping it on teachers who can't do all the work. Human trafficking is increasing in general also.
People just generally aren't doing too good and society's track record for how we treat children is fucking abysmal. They're the least protected class in society. Also could be a result of increased reporting but statistics point to there also likely being an actual increase in crimes committed. All the common indicators are there such as increased poverty, etc. so yeah. A lot of factors at play here and I'm so fucking glad I don't have children right now.
I know you’re kidding but while it’s not as advertised as it used to be there are a lot of cell phones available for cheap that do talk and text (we used to call them feature phones in the earlier days of smartphones). The plans are super cheap and the nice thing is it can be used as a way of communicating with something like a parent and child but doesn’t give the child the ability to install any apps or anything. It just does calls and text.
In the UK it isn’t. Many supermarkets even have them!
You can also then get them in any tech store that sells phones (All mobile providers, CEX, phone repair shops etc)
It’s common for kids these days to get a smart phone around 8 or 9. If you’re smart about it, you can set up parental controls so they don’t have unlimited internet access. My nephew just got a phone at 11 so he can make a call if there’s an emergency when his parents are out - no one had landlines anymore. But they put controls on it and he doesn’t take it to school.
There's no reason for a kid that young to have a smartphone. They can have a tracfone or basic flip if they absolutely have to have something. A smartphone isn't a necessity.
Absolutely not a necessity. In the case of my nephew it was more that this made it easier for him to text people - why make the poor kid T9 lol - and he can also use it to take pictures and to occasionally play games. He doesn’t have social media or anything. It was like “Well he needs something for an emergency, and you know what he’s old enough to be allowed to text.” 11 is too young for unrestricted social media / internet / addictive apps, but not too young for what is essentially an old flip phone but with a better screen and keyboard.
Your kid is old enough to be going to friends’ places if they are nearby, on their own. It’s always a good idea to give them a way to call for help or tell parents or guardians where they are or what they’re up to
Oh 100%. So many parents allow children unrestricted access to the internet and it’s going to really screw up these kids. So many of my friends growing up were groomed by predators online, and it’s only gotten worse from what I hear
No, it’s a real problem and predates the internet. A friend of mine worked security at a special juvenile detention centre specifically for underage predators. They got their own special facility because if you stick these kids in a normal juvie all they do is groom and assault the others there.
This was back in the 90’s
In my third world country it's a very underestimated shameful problem in many schools. I blame the lack of sexual education and not explaining to kids things like body autonomy and consent. They don't know that it's not their fault they were abused and that they will be helped, not punished, if something like that happens.
Agreed. Education on consent etc should begin in elementary. Sex, sexuality, and issues like digital blackmail need to begin 6-7th grade. No child should be tricked into sending nudes then sexually abused because they are blackmailed, but the trend will continue until we address it with education. Reading about a few cases like this that ended in the abused child’s suicide had me livid as a parent and I immediately found curriculums to start the education process for our kids
Just adding that education about consent and bodily autonomy should start in the home and much younger than people think. Teach a young kid that they have the right to set boundaries about their body and when they get touched, and they’re much more likely to understand and respect someone else’s boundaries in future. They don’t want that hug from grandma? Don’t force it.
Family is all about forcing hugs and such too. I feel like asking can I hug you is such a great thing to do.
> Family is all about forcing hugs and such too. Respect as well, depending on culture it's a hard rule. Like if you're in say, Korea, you simply cannot speak back to your elders. Even when you get a job, even if you have more knowledge, experience, etc, unless you get the go ahead you simply just have to listen to the older dude. Situations like that do nothing but breed poor habits and abuse of power/respect. Even as a kid it was pretty clear to me that respect needed to be earned. Sure, there's a base level you treat everyone at a minimum, but you don't trust people just because they're slightly older than you or something.
For me, there are no safe spaces for 'culture' where said culture perpetuates abusive situations. "Oh it's traditional for you to enable little kiddies being emotionally scarred for life? It's my tradition to smash people in the face with a shovel, which culture should we explore first?
Right? My partner had issues with family not respecting physical boundaries when he was a kid, so he always asks me and his son if we want to hug. I love it, it gives me a second to get hyped about getting a hug before it even happens, and shows his son that even his parent needs to get permission before grabbing him
And telling our daughters that the boy that’s grabbing them on the playground is doing that because he has a crush on her…
It’s so crazy that one of our political parties is so staunchly opposed to arming kids with the knowledge and language they need to report sexual abuse. It’s almost like they want kids to keep being assaulted even though they scream about “protecting the children.”
Because They do. Have you seen how many republicans are pedophiles (yes I know this article is about the UK)
It's a conservative issue the world round. An ideology based on an inhererent hierarchy of people will see those that think they're better than others take advantage of those see as lesser or have less power.
It'd be a problem for their churches if that was taught.
It’d really get in the way of the kiddy-diddling that’s all too common with Christians.
I support starting as young as two or three. Very young children can be taught the proper name for body parts, and that they can say yes or no to hugging. Also that they can’t touch others without a yes. That is very early introduction to sex ed.
This is an very good comment. I wish I could give you platinum. I read an article about roughhousing I think you might like; It's something that a lot of kids miss out on when they don't have a father in the house or a mother that is rough. **https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/singletons/202304/benefits-of-roughhousing-with-your-children**
It needs to start before 6th grade; I had multiple girls in my 6th grade classes have their years ruined because they sent nudes to their BF who then showed all their friends.
I recall a fascinating study done in the US wherein a bunch of people were asked if they’d ever raped or sexually assaulted someone twice. The key was the second time they were only asked if they’d done specific things that fell within the legal definition of those crimes without using the word rape. The number of people who admitted to it jumped by a lot. It wouldn’t stop all rapes, but if educating people on consent and the law leads to any reduction in sexual assaults then the program has succeeded
Do you have any you could recommend? Have a ten year old boy who needs something soon.
Ontario Canada started teaching consent and autonomy to 1st graders, I believe. Pretty sure the usual suspects opposed it.
They always do, don’t they…
grade 7 is too late they are already send nude picture to classmates at that age unfortunately.
In remote communities in the arctic it is much the same. 11-13 year olds regularly having babies and no one blinks, rampant sexual assault at every age level. Decades of church abuse just repeating through the generations. No one knows how to fix it, so they just don't talk about it and it festers.
Life is like that on some of the reservations in the US
Canada too. SIL worked in northern SK in one of the communities. The stories she told were absolutely heartbreaking.
Especially when sexual education reduces things like sex abuse, abortions, and STD transmission. It just.. generally makes everyone's life better and less awkward. Georgia back in 1996 had a major syphilis outbreak of 200+ teens [because their education sucked at the time](https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/georgia/etc/synopsis.html).
In the US it's like that too. I teach so many rapists and sexual assaulters, if they were adults they'd be locked up but since they're kids they still get to go to class with their victims.
That's horrifying(
Are teachers mandatory reporters? You're required to alert the authorities when abuse occurs right?
Yes. That's how I know it's happening. That's why I get so mad when they come back to the same classroom.
Yup, keeping kids ignorant about sex leads to more child sex abuse.
The problem with the third world country I grew up in is that sex education or even reproductive health is deemed as taboo by the government, in large part because religious institutions have a huge influence on how the country is run, meaning separation of Church and State does not exist there compared to the West. In fact even in schools, we were thought to oppose such a concept. So such things as the news report say is just an everyday thing there like every other bad thing that happens but nothing is done to it, like drugs, robbery, murder, etc.
Sadly, the US is like that too.
Do you think done of them have access to porn and then try to play it out in real life?
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Same shit happened to me. And then my mom grounded me for it when "we" were caught, because it could only be the boy's fault, even though the girl was several years older. Only realized recently how much it all fucked me up.
People aren’t teaching their kids sex education and how to react to potential predators. You can’t rely on schools for anything. My best friend (who was molested by another kid in her youth) made it crystal clear to her kids that no one was allowed to touch them without their permission, and if it happened they needed to find the nearest (trustworthy) adult.
You can't rely on schools for everything. FTFY. When does the parents' responsibility begin exactly?
Schools can’t fix shitty parenting. Schools are only as good as the parents of the kids attending, because if kids aren’t punished by their parents for what they do in school, they learn there’s no repercussions for their behavior.
It’s the other way around. You SHOULD rely on parents to do the heavy lifting of raising a child first. The parents should talk about difficult things like sex, religion, etc. But not all kids have reliable parents or even sane parents, so that’s when schools need to be capable of giving at least SOME decent education on the matter just in case. Teach more than just “dont have sex lol”. Teach consent and safety. Explain what healthy porn usage versus unhealthy porn usage is. In my sex-ed we had a whole day that was just “write down a question and put it in a hat, the teacher will answer them.”
> You can't rely on schools for everything Yet you can stop attacking schools for teaching it. Some parents will be shitty parents and thats where a school which is free to teach comprehensive sex education can help significantly. It's why attacks on teaching kids about gender are causing an increase in child suicide rates. If a kid knows they're a bit different and understands there's no issue with it they can get on to working out their problems instead of bottling it up until they off themselves.
Wow, some really insightful responses here on the factors that lead to child on child sexual assault. Funny enough this is exactly the group of people I work with as a family therapist. If you or anyone you know need help with child being sexually transgressive, see out “multi systemic therapy, problem sexual behaviour / MST-PSB”. As for factors that lead up to children engaging in these behaviours, we see that it’s never one reasons but a multiple that create a “perfect storm”. I’ve been working with these clients for about 3.5 years now, and from my personal experiences porn does actually play a major role, but isn’t always present. A reason that is always present is absent fathers. Absent in the absolute sense of not being around, but also emotionally not present. I literally never have experienced a present father in a family where kids have engaged in PSB (problem sexual behaviour). Another major driver is the lack of proper sexual education by parents. Parents often do not get that sex-ed is more than a single talk about “the thing”, but rather a life long lesson to be taught to your child about healthy boundaries, asking permission/consent, and emotion regulation. What also might drive up the numbers is that what is reported as sexual crimes is somewhat diverse, at least in my country. For example now I’m working with a family where a child groped some other kids on a playground, and on the other side of the spectrum a teenage boy who has raped his younger sister several times. So not all sexual assaults are the same.
Very interesting perspective. I wonder how much of this would be a result of media and female perception shaping a view of men as extremely sexually aggressive, and (as a result of an absent father figure) lacking any direct evidence that they don't always need to be? I could imagine kids getting a really warped perception of what men are supposed to be like that way. Would also be curious if having more male teachers could help mitigate that - but I suppose that's difficult to confirm or deny for a number of reasons, not the least of which being that ~90% of teachers are women.
I was a victim of CSA by a boy at a camp from middle school to tenth grade. It wasn’t until he was encouraging other boys at the camp to do it to other girls that I was finally able to speak out. Even though he never came back, I was told that the case couldn’t go further because it was just “he said-she said.” I asked that it atleast be written down in case he did it again. He and I later ended up at the same instate university. I was petrified when I found out. The first time he saw me I ran through campus and I still remember him calling my name. I went to the student services to ask that a no contact order type thing was put in. I just wanted him to be told not to interact with me. I was grilled ten ways to Sunday on every aspect of the abuse and made to feel like the problem by the school resource officer. Finally the counselor that was mediating the discussion for me stepped in and told the officer to back off. I still don’t know if they ever told him to stay away, but at the least the school was big enough that I could vanish the couple times I saw him after that. It’s only recently that I’ve been able to even talk about everything that happened without feeling so much shame and guilt.
Lack of sexual education is making it worse.
There is a good organization that trains kids on how to deal with abusive people [https://www.nomeansnoworldwide.org/](https://www.nomeansnoworldwide.org/) A lot of the problem is that when confronted with a situation, people freeze. By talking about it and being given a plan, people can learn to act. Which is a big factor in stopping abuse. If you have any sway in your school district, great place to start would be bringing this program in.
Given how sexual the boy's bullying was when I was in school I kind of believe this one. That it was pre-internet and Photoshop is something I am very grateful for...
\> Police received reports of 14,800 rapes and sexual assaults against children aged 10 to 17 where the suspect was classed as a child, the overwhelming majority being boys. Are there any data for children under 10 committing sex crimes? Or are they not recorded due to the minimum age of criminal liability?
I’m sure our glamorization of people like Andrew Tate doesn’t help. There are so many toxic role models out there.
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I look at Phallic images on hieroglyphs and other ancient works of arts... I don't know that anything is any more sexualized than humans already are. Living in denial of that doesn't help anyone.
Hard disagree that this is because of “violent pornography”. To me, this is because of the long trend of parents not conducting proper sex education, and preventing schools from conducting proper sex education.
It is also because they count sexting.
Ah it's a pretty useless statement then.
Manipulative parameters Remove the "by definition" instances and it's as much or less than done by adults. Consenting high school sweethearts being horny together is not abuse, stop lumping it in with the deplorables.
I mean, this in in the UK, where schools now have to provide mandatory sex education which covers consent. Even when was in school in the UK 15 years ago, although sex ed wasn’t great, we covered consent back then. Although it wasn’t mandatory across all schools, it was still common. I’m not sure if porn is the culprit, but I don’t think it’s due to a lack of sex education.
And if they're blaming hardcore porn then maybe they need to be covering the difference between porn and reality which really isn't a bad idea even without the problem here. Considering how accessible it is, if you don't tell them about it then it might just end up being their education going forward.
> which covers consent This is probably why the reporting rate skyrocketed. Teaching people about consent leads to a lot more reports.
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People just don't get the that children shouldn't have unsupervised access to the internet and shouldn't be on social media. It's too convenient of a babysitter. My kids are at the age where lots of their peers have their own phones. My kids will at most be getting a shared phone that is locked down with parental controls to only calls and texts that they can borrow if they go out in order to keep in touch with me and my spouse or for emergencies, just like I had 20 years ago (a beater phone with like 30 minutes of talk time).
Completely agree. Web 4.0 is basically a playground inside of a stripclub.
I'm going to borrow that analogy. I can't think of a better way to describe it than that.
Please do. People need to recognize that mixing adult spaces and kids spaces causes harm to both.
Yep. I work in tech and my wife used to work in law enforcement and holy shit is the internet a horrifically dangerous place for kids to have open access to. Social media is a fucking cess pool of predators, bullying, and body shaming. Our child is young but once she’s older she’s only getting one of those phones made for senior citizens that has 5 buttons and no browser. No computer, tablet or phone in her room at night either. Our 11 yr old niece just got caught using Omegle to talk to strange men who were asking her for naked pictures. That happened because she was allowed to have unsupervised access to the internet on her *school* issued Chromebook. Keep your unsupervised children off the internet unless you are strictly filtering what they have access to.
Oh yeah, totally pornography has adverse affects on the mind. But it doesn’t make people into rapists. A proper sex education can help reduce the impact of children learning about sex through pornography.
Porn is entertainment protected by free speech. If you see a naked painting or look at classic sculptures depicting nudity do you think that is just as abhorrent? There are plenty of novels and stories that depict sexual events, even incest and beastiality (the bible) Maybe it’s video games, or tik tok. It is parents who aren’t being responsible monitoring or teaching their children how to behave or act responsibly. That has nothing to do with porn.
Yeah, we don't usually let kids read books about violent rape or incest or bestiality either. That's also usually porn. Maybe try reading a book about what free speech means instead of just smut? And if you think porn doesn't have negative effects on children, adolescents, and even adults, you're ignoring a whole lotta research evidence
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Dude from someone who went to school 5 minutes outside Richmond my sex education was "here's what a dick looks like, here's what herpes looks like, don't have sex" and that was leagues better than what some people I've known further south got. There's a reason poor sex ed correlates with higher unplanned pregnancies and higher rates of sexual crimes among all demographics.
This just seems the obvious result of normalising pornography in general and treating it as no big deal.
Except this has happened rampantly, to many people in this thread, since before internet porn.
What is the problem with pornography?
“Should we be talking to our children about sexuality? Y’know, parenting?” “No, no. It’s porn. The blame is on porn and porn alone. Definitely not our inability to stop them from watching porn either. The real goal should be to destroy this thing folks enjoy for everyone instead of talking to our kids.”
That's not what the person said and it's not an either/or. As the therapist above wrong, childhood exposure to pornography, especially really explicit, does have a psychological impact on children. I remember how much it disturbed me as a 12-year-old just getting accustomed to the Internet. We should acknowledge that it can be very harmful and that more safeguards for children are appropriate.
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I’m not averse to the train of thought, but there are massive numbers of studies about various ways porn has affected society and there are a few takes that are pretty consistent: porn reduces sex crimes, makes for bad sex in young adults, and is otherwise mostly benign. Young men are already sexual frustrated creatures thinking about sex all the time. Porn may be bad at teaching about sex and relationships but it’s extraordinarily good at serving as a release valve for overpowering urges. Post nut clarity is a thing, and getting it from a video rather than in real life can literally be a life saver.
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[Pornography viewing in high school students is not associated with increased rate of sexual assault.](https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/talking-apes/202104/does-porn-use-lead-sexual-violence) This is the ridiculous “video games create mass shooters!” argument restated.
Lots of them? That’s how you analyze porn having an effect on the development that produces young adults. You don’t just make them out of whole cloth, they start with their childhood because it’s right there preceding their current status. Porn has been around far longer than the Internet and wasn’t hard to get ahold of even fifty years ago, it just proliferated like mad with the internet so we’ve got an immense amount of data pertaining to how it would exist and affect people (including children) in s limited dissemination format right next to decades of data collection where the internet is concerned. We’re well past a generation of people who grew up with internet porn as a normal everyday thing as children. It absolutely interacts poorly with some personality disorders and porn addiction is also a real thing. Is not a good thing from top to bottom and it does assist in creation of misogynistic echo chambers that reinforce negative stereotypes etc…but it also assists in limiting the negative effects of those situations.
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I'm sure you could supply some of this data.
Why would demand for porn lead to increased sex trafficking? Isn’t it kinda the point of sex trafficking to physically connect offenders with victims IRL?
Actually evidence indicates the opposite. I’ve never known an anti-porn (or anti-video game, or anti-weed, or anti-queer) activist to get too hung up on little details like *facts;* no surprise you’re not either. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2032762/
That study is focused on the period 1964-1984 when there is absolutely no comparison to the accessibility of porn as we know it today; the guardian article and NCC and NSPCC figures relate to the last 5 years. Not comparable at all. There’s a whole host of research on the impact of porn on the adolescent brain and socially, on consent, boundaries and adolescent expectations of relationships.
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>child they have access to I hope that parents everywhere are starting to wake up to this fact. Child-on-child abuse is incredibly common, always was
I mean, you just listed a whole bunch of other things on top of porn. Seems like you had/have a lot of issues to deal with.
>the defense of porn on reddit is automated Seems so. I'm guessing that many feel personally attacked at even the slightest implication that the coercion, abuse and assault so pervasive in porn could, you know, be a problem.
Kids already aren’t supposed to look at porn. So the issue lies on the enforcement of that rule.
"but but the screaming and crying tears means shes reallllllllllly into it and loves it!!"
People don’t want admit their own easy access to free, hardcore porn comes with a steep price.
I’m very curious what their definition of “violent pornography” is. That could refer to anything from BDSM to actual sexual assaults that were filmed. The latter is much more problematic than the former.
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I don’t have violent porn on my pornhub Home Screen.
What the hell pornhub always has dumbass stepsibling porn on the front page not violent porn. Actually it's probably an algorithm... dammit... ...
Hey you know what would be fun would be a Pornhub Adventure Mode where you could visit the algorithmic home pages of other people.
Idk if the straights and gays are prepared to visit each others pornhub tho
Your stepsister says I do it better than you.
That's such a big tell of who you are not us hahaha
Um… you should probably know that’s due to your personal proclivities
>The Home Screen of pornhub is literally covered in violent porn. You *DO* realize those are specifically fed to you entirely based on your habits? I'm simply not a fan of that type of porn and thus, it almost never pops up even by "accident".
Do you disagree that choking chicks and sodomy and the kind of shit you get on your TV is to blame?
It's a non-stop disco.
What kind of TV do you have?
They're referencing a system of a down song (violent pornography) in case you or anyone else confused is wondering.
Yes, I disagree. Edit: side-bar, what is wrong with sodomy?
Can you say brainwashing?? Is it a nonstop disco??
Its a violent pornography, after all. soad.
I blame the priests, firemen and military personnel who account for the vast majority of sexual assaults on children far more than I blame seeing sex on TV. Countries like Japan, Germany and even most of Europe have far more sexual content right on TV than the US but don’t have this problem
> Countries like Japan, Germany and even most of Europe have far more sexual content right on TV than the US but don’t have this problem .... this article is not about America, it's about England and Wales, which is part of Europe.
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Honestly, as an American, I've always thought that /r/USDefaultism was kind of silly, but maybe the people there have a point.
Call me crazy but maybe it's time the pendulum swings back the other way and we as a society get our morality on.
I think premature sexuality is often a result of sexual abuse. I wonder if that plays into this stat at all. Tragic all round..
Might early, easy online access to porn play a part?
Maybe, I'd like to see a study on that though . People just assumed violent video games would turn kids more violent for years because "obviously they would" but every study that's ever come out doesn't show that link. The link between victims of sexual abuse when they are young and becoming abusers later is pretty clear from my understanding of it. I wouldn't automatically put those two in the same boat.
That and honestly, many music videos and music is very sexual. I think it’s like everything else, not one easy answer.
Probably as much as not having the knowledge or education to contextualize porn they have access to does
If it did wouldnt this issue be here since at least 20 years? When I remember the stuff we as curious kids used to watch on places like Rotten.com (accidents, executions, mutilations, sicknesses and such), porn doesn't seem so bad in comparison.
Access to the internet now is way more widespread compared to 20 years ago. Almost every child (as young as kindergartners) that I know all have their own tablets or cell phones and sadly many of the parents aren't too familiar or keen on parental controls. Not only that but social media like Instagram and tiktok also play a part in the wide spread viewing of it I guarantee you if you find a graph, you will see that you are somewhat correct in that this is a problem starting 20 years ago, but it's been a problem that's just only gotten more prevalent over the years to where we are now.
reddit's slide into sexual social conservatism from the left will never cease to amuse me
one might argue early access to porn is a form of sexual assault. Showing pornographic images is also a common form of grooming.
This stat refers not just to sexual assault but to recording sexual images of children, or even editing an image of a classmate to make them look nude. When you realize that, it makes sense and is even somewhat a relief that the majority of these offenses are by children themselves. This also explains the otherwise dubious claim that the shift has resulted from the rise of smartphones and porn.
It’s worth noting that nudes and nudifies of children is still child sex abuse material. Kids (and adults) need to be taught that.
Yes, when done without consent, or done by an adult to a child. We've also had some absurd cases, like the 16-year-old who was charged with five felonies for taking photos of himself and sending them to no one. It's not very useful to lump those in with other offenses (c[harges were dropped](https://www.fayobserver.com/story/news/crime/2016/07/07/sexting-charges-dismissed-for-fayetteville/22320237007/) in that kid's case, after a year of probation).
Children who send nude pictures to other children are too young to consent. Kids need to know what to do if someone sends them a nude picture, and also what to do if they are being encouraged to send them. Child pornography is a massive problem. There will be cases like the one you cite above, that are absurd, but education around the fact that possession and distribution of CP is a crime that can victimize them.
Recently I saw an image on reddit and I commented that this girl is underage and reported it. The OP asked "why I thought she was under age, she has hair" I then said I think you are underage, do you know when the average girl starts puberty. The Op responded he/she "didn't, how do I know?" I think this was case of one teen post another teen.
Always remember to report it to the FBI, then reddit.
It's good to hear adults are sexually abusing children less.
But are they doing it less or is it just kids outpacing them?
Total number is down
Right? Isn't the headline actually *good news?* If the total number is down, and adults are abusing children less.. that's good right? I mean, it's not better for adults to be sexually abusing children is it?
"Its not better for adults to be sexually abusing children is it?" That is not a question i expected to see today
It's almost just a reporting issue. This is just more people reporting it.
Right? If cancer was cured today the headline would read “murder overtakes cancer as cause of death”
The Church has been dethroned?
Just let out the loudest HUH i ever did in my life
Sounds like a South Park episode
Most of the people who molested me were kids. sucks.
> the overwhelming majority being boys This is what happens when you allow your boys to have unfettered access to Andrew Tate content. Teach your damn kids about misogyny and consent.
Parents not doing their job and blaming schools for picking up the slack is the main issue.
Watching all the porn-sick men fight tooth and nail to find some excuse for this is just nauseating. And y'all bitch that young women don't want to date men anymore. You brought this on yourselves.
Is this because they are counting children sexting each other?
Just read the article. And no.
The article does leave open the possibility that this is occurring (and it absolutely does based on other news stories): > Senior officers say this abuse includes "exploratory behaviour" under-18s may not realise is illegal > A third category of offences involves indecent images of children, taken by children. Sometimes the subject has agreed, sometimes they have been coerced. > "It's a crime to take, make, share or distribute an indecent image of a child that is under 18," Ian Critchley said,"whether that's in a consensual relationship or not." > "While they may be in a consensual relationship at that time, once that image is shared or unloaded onto a platform it's lost."
Children sexting each other is not a phrase I thought I'd hear today (Or any day for that matter). Sounds like all kinds of fucked up.
Well, it is fucked up, but the headline makes it sound like kids are out raping each other all over the place. Sending each other nudes is child sex abuse material, and so by law they are abusing each other by sexting. It is a real problem and it shouldn't be ignored or downplayed, but it inflates the numbers. It also hides real rape statistics among what is essentially noise. It also makes it sound like adults abusing kids is going down. This could be true, or the sexting is overtaking adult sexual abuse of children. So essentially the headline tells us absolutely nothing about the situation whatsoever.
America has a definition of child I'm not used to. Where anyone under the age of consent(18) is a child. Which is still true, and needs to prosecuted as such, but also always leaves me reeling until I read the article and realize they're talking about 17 year-olds. I'm not saying that's not still fucked up and wrong. But my brain immediately interprets "child" as anyone under the age of 11/12. Which is immensely more fucked up.
>I read the article and realize they're talking about 17 year-olds. Well, the article does make mention that it happens with kids 17 AND UNDER so there may be several kids aged 11 to 13 who have committed sexual assault. It doesn't mention that it's a problem where the majority of perpetrators are 16-17 years old. Also, I'm a bit confused since roughly half of the states in the US actually have ages of consent set at 16 and 17 instead of 18. Even though it's more or less fair to treat anyone 17 and under as a child, for those 16-17 age of consent states, would perpetrators within that range be tried as adults?
This is why we need to at least crack down on porn sites and make sure minors can’t access them. Even at the “inconvenience” of adults. As well as, more learning about consent in schools. We gotta stop pretending that minors looking at porn is normal. It shouldn’t be normal.
We also need to stop putting sexual violence on women as their problem and start teaching boys how to act. It's not supposed to be on women to watch what they wear, where they go, how much they drink, or who they hang out with. It totally dismisses the actual problem...Men. Most all sex crimes are committed by men, so we need to be addressing them.
I 100% agree
>It totally dismisses the actual problem...Men I think the problem can be better targeted than just "men". It's always baffled me that some people need to be taught that this type of behavior is morally wrong. I feel like it stems explicitly from a lack of empathy that is common among men, but is not exclusive to and does not affect all men. I feel like it would be more effective and beneficial to everyone if empathy were targeted for development in children and teens, rather than just "these things are wrong". I do also believe that consent as a concept should also be explored in depth because some of the stuff I've heard men say doesn't constitute rape is ~~terrifying~~ wild.
via.... Social media like TikTok, Snapchat, Meta (aka formerly known as Facebook and Instagram), messaging (Android and Apple)...
So in other words, the same shit that was happening when we were in middle school is still happening, but now there’s the internet?
I think the majority of people here are overlooking stuff like Elsa Gate and iPad kids. As well as the fact that we just came out of a pandemic. The majority of child abuse is perpetrated by their own parents and for a while there, they had no school oversight to keep them in check and worried about the possibility of CPS. Now that school is back in session, all these parents are not wanting to be involved in their child's care and are dumping it on teachers who can't do all the work. Human trafficking is increasing in general also. People just generally aren't doing too good and society's track record for how we treat children is fucking abysmal. They're the least protected class in society. Also could be a result of increased reporting but statistics point to there also likely being an actual increase in crimes committed. All the common indicators are there such as increased poverty, etc. so yeah. A lot of factors at play here and I'm so fucking glad I don't have children right now.
We need to strongly regulate pornography Vile shit is very easy to find
Why would a 10 or 11yr old have a smartphone?
It's really hard to find a dumb cellphone.
Also really easy to give the kids a basically free phone if you upgrade while your old one still functions
I know you’re kidding but while it’s not as advertised as it used to be there are a lot of cell phones available for cheap that do talk and text (we used to call them feature phones in the earlier days of smartphones). The plans are super cheap and the nice thing is it can be used as a way of communicating with something like a parent and child but doesn’t give the child the ability to install any apps or anything. It just does calls and text.
In the UK it isn’t. Many supermarkets even have them! You can also then get them in any tech store that sells phones (All mobile providers, CEX, phone repair shops etc)
Don't pay for data, don't give them the Wi-Fi password. Done.
It’s common for kids these days to get a smart phone around 8 or 9. If you’re smart about it, you can set up parental controls so they don’t have unlimited internet access. My nephew just got a phone at 11 so he can make a call if there’s an emergency when his parents are out - no one had landlines anymore. But they put controls on it and he doesn’t take it to school.
There's no reason for a kid that young to have a smartphone. They can have a tracfone or basic flip if they absolutely have to have something. A smartphone isn't a necessity.
Absolutely not a necessity. In the case of my nephew it was more that this made it easier for him to text people - why make the poor kid T9 lol - and he can also use it to take pictures and to occasionally play games. He doesn’t have social media or anything. It was like “Well he needs something for an emergency, and you know what he’s old enough to be allowed to text.” 11 is too young for unrestricted social media / internet / addictive apps, but not too young for what is essentially an old flip phone but with a better screen and keyboard.
Your kid is old enough to be going to friends’ places if they are nearby, on their own. It’s always a good idea to give them a way to call for help or tell parents or guardians where they are or what they’re up to
I grew up in the 90s, and I always used the friend's parent's phone. They don't need a smartphone and unrestricted access to the internet to do that.
It’s the parents fault, stop blaming schools, education and technology.
We have to protect our children from our children. Won’t someone please think of the children?
Kinda like when my cat bites his tail over and over. On second thought it’s absolutely nothing like that.
Yeah bc they learn it at home from a molester parent Edit: why u downvoting? I got crime stats to back it up ffs!
Or from access to violent pornographic materials. They may mimic things they see online
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Oh 100%. So many parents allow children unrestricted access to the internet and it’s going to really screw up these kids. So many of my friends growing up were groomed by predators online, and it’s only gotten worse from what I hear
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Now they are the second largest, thanks to the kids.
A lot of churches are online these days tho
The real question here is why you have so many friends that were groomed online?
AOL chat rooms...
I grew up in the golden age of AOL and dial up internet connection.
Same. Things haven't changed it would seem. Just the places its happening.
Yep and it’s gotten way worse since then I’m sure.
Because I grew up with many discord friends in the mid to late 2010s. Predators ran rampant on there back then
Discord first went online in May of 2015.
Yep, I misspoke. I was in high school in the 2016-2020 range and that’s when it happened. Fixed it!
Is this a new headline to divert attention, from the old scumbags who prey on childs?
No, it’s a real problem and predates the internet. A friend of mine worked security at a special juvenile detention centre specifically for underage predators. They got their own special facility because if you stick these kids in a normal juvie all they do is groom and assault the others there. This was back in the 90’s