The Biggest new DON'T for kids ?

 

What is the biggest "Dont" we told our kids in the past?  Dont accept rides from strangers. 

I am not sure if that is still true today.  Or maybe it shouldn't be.  Maybe the biggest NEW DON'T should be: DON'T take any pictures or videos on your phone camera of you or friends or siblings in anything but their clothes doing normal things.  (That is a bit long.  We need a short slogan.  Maybe, "Normal pictures only".  I don't know if that would get the idea across).  Anyway, I am sure you know what I am getting at.  

Why I bring this up now is because I had a little incident in January and it sent me reeling and I had to think about it and now I have to write about it.  

As I understood it from hearing both sides of the story, one sister had to send a picture of another member of the family to a school class of hers.  Now while that may sound innocent enough, of course the person sending the picture had to get the ok to send it from the other person.  So she said she had to send it secretly because no one in the family would want her to send a picture of them.  So she took a picture of her younger sister, in a normal setting, and sent it.  She did not ask her sister's permission, and that is where the trouble came in. Note, my daughter did not ask me for a picture.  She said that I wouldnt have let her send it, but I think I would have.  

Normal picture of kids 

So then what happened was the younger sister in retaliation started taking a video of her older sister who was still in bed in her pajamas.  Nothing dangerous, but of course the older sister did not like that and was trying to hide.  

This part was what made me angry and talk directly and strongly to them. I said, "No no no, no videos or pictures of the other person in bed, or in pajamas or anything besides in clothes and only if they are allowed to."  I said, erase that video right now. I dont even want it on your phone.  Get rid of it now.  

That was when she told me that her sister had taken a picture of her and according to her, sent it to some boy already in her class.  I went to the other sister to get the story straight and she told me the story of just needing the picture of a family member for school.  

(You see, it is difficult to even get the truth on the whole situation)

The stories were not accurate and there were misunderstandings, but the end result was I said  that no videos or pictures of the other person on phones or any gadgets in less than regular clothes and even those only with permission.  I said this to both girls and with equal strength no matter who took the video or picture. In the end the one sister deleted the picture and the younger sister deleted the video and she showed me she had deleted it.  

Really, the problem is, even these seemingly harmless pictures can wind up in the wrong hands and ruin a person.  It can be the start of other people making fun of them. Then it can grow to completely demoralizing them in school.  

You may have heard of the big scam recently of the Pornhub pornography portal getting in a lot of trouble because there is said to be a lot of underaged images there and films with people who did not give their consent to the film let alone wanting it on the internet.  The sad thing is to hear how it has ruined people to the point of suicide, for years. Even decades later they still can come across unwanted results from the pictures or the film.  These are not consensual remember.  

The underage part and non consensual really gets me.  This just results in the destruction of the human spirit, the destruction of the person and the utter lack of knowledge of how to escape the consequences. 

That is very sad for me.  Very sad.  And I really dont see how we will come to any positive conclusion on this.  In other words this is going to reoccur and reoccur for many years to come and destroy more people.  

Thus I had to get this across to my daughters NOW and in a strict, I mean business, tone.  Of course they know about this. They know more about electronics and how to use them than I do.  What they do lack has nothing to do with electronics and how they work, but just with how their brains work.  Their brains are of course not yet developed and chaotic and dont have the full reasoning capabilities.  Thus even if they know about this danger, I really dont think they understand who is "out there" that could take advantage of them and hurt them.  They dont understand how it could spread beyond their control. 

I am afraid of the talk I will have to have with them one on one later as they are a bit older about NOT sending "pictures" to their boyfriends, or any friends for that matter.  I am not looking forward to that. Many of the pictures which destroyed girls were just sent to boyfriends who pleaded for a "compromising" picture and the girls trusted the boys, they were their boyfriends after all, they wouldnt hurt them, would they?   But they did, it did, even to suicidal tendencies and extreme hopelessness. Changing schools to no avail.  Sleeping in cars to get away from a hometown.  It saddens me no end as to how their lives were destroyed rather easily.  

That is why I started now with this small flame up and I will have to re enforce the message later.  That is why now, I think the new biggest "DONT" for our kids should be: "DONT send, or even take, "pictures" (or videos) of yourself to ANYBODY".   

Thanks for reading.