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JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH
Such quality might result from lower parental control, trust and
intensity of mutual contact in families where poor or
complicated relationships dominate. Again, these findings are
widely supported by foreign researches. Worth to mention is a
Swedish research by L. S. Jonsson (2015) who detected the link
between at-risk online sexual behavior of adolescents and poor
relationships with parents. In fact, Jonsson states there is a
correlation between sending one’s own nude photo and
authoritative parenting style. M. Temple Smith – S. Moore – D.
Rosenthal (2015) also believe that individual parenting styles
have a major impact on the level of adolescents’ online sexual
behavior. They emphasize the importance of the quality of
relationships and the overall support of adolescents in this stage
of life.
5
Conclusions
There are multiple motives for the adolescent sexting. Young
people take it as the easier way of texting or chatting with people
they trust. At the moment of sending sexts, they do not realize
their inability to control what happens next with the message
content. Sent and supposedly forgotten messages can reappear
and impair one’s life even after several years. Sexting might not
at all end as an innocent activity should. As a matter of fact, it
can have severe and damaging consequences for the adolescents.
When defining the risks of sexting, the most frequent
phenomena are as follows: cyberbullying, emotional distress (the
adolescents who sexted start to realize these sexts might be
published or forwarded which leads to constant worries, tension
and subsequent impact on their mental health), blackmail (the
blackmailer who received sexts threatens their sender and asks
for money or other benefits in return for not publishing them) or
unwanted attention (as stated on various parents-dedicated
websites about sexting). Unfortunately, children and adolescents
do not have sufficient cognitive capacity to account for all
possible consequences of such abuse.
Many researches show that the tendency of sexting decreases if
parents have a sincere and loving relationship with their
children, apply desirable parenting methods and discuss the
intimacy in an open and adequate way. Such parental approach is
also required if a child has already sexted and finds it hard to
deal with the incurred problems. Parents should discreetly solve
the situation without being enraged or obviously disappointed in
their children. The adolescents now live in the digital world that
has a massive impact on their lives and experience things that are
much different from their parents’ childhood issues.
Parents should first find out who the recipients are (age and
number of people who were sent the intimate material). If
technically possible, the sext must be immediately deleted.
Otherwise, it is necessary to ask the social media providers to
remove it instead. Parents should also inform the school their
child attends and discuss the issue with teacher, headmaster or
guidance counselor. If required, the school might alert the police,
as well. If, however, parents believe their child became the
victim of a sexual predator and sexting is not an innocent
outcome of the adolescence phase, the police should be called at
once.
Such situations are more difficult to solve in case of children
who are raised in reconstructed or remarried families and joint
custody. Parents should therefore strengthen their empathy and
deepen the emotional connection with their children or
adolescents. Cooperation and mutual communication also need
to be enhanced. We recommend parents to set their priorities in
communication and activities that make children experience new
things and help them develop their physical and emotional
characteristics. Well-determined priorities might minimize the
chances of using the unsafe and dangerous self- or peer-sexting
to deal with emotional problems. In such cases, we need to
accentuate the cooperation between family and school. This
essential factor might prevent serious risks to be encountered by
the adolescents using electronic devices to receive and send the
information.
Teacher’s duty is to enhance students’ cooperation, e.g. by
engaging them in various group activities that would focus on
the development of pro-social and emotional aspects of their
personalities. The adolescents should also work on their sense of
empathy and responsibility to be able to use the modern online
communication media in the appropriate and rational way.
However, children’s welfare almost always depends on the
effective communication and cooperation between their parents
and school workers.
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Primary Paper Section: A
Secondary Paper Section: AM
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