The journal Pediatrics (from the American Academy of Pediatrics) has designed a website with recommendations for parents about their childrens’ use of social media and monitoring use. 

Because the issue of sexting has become a concern to parents, communities and legal authorities, we felt that a specific set of recommendations should be listed addressing this important issue. This blog report is from that AAP web site:

“Sexting” refers to sending a text message with pictures of children or teens that are inappropriate, naked or engaged in sex acts.

According to a recent survey, about 20 percent of teen boys and girls have sent such messages. The emotional pain it causes can be enormous for the child in the picture as well as the sender and receiver--often with legal implications.

A recent report from the journal Pediatrics discusses benefits and risks of youngsters using social media. This series of posts discuss those risks and benefits. This information comes directly from the report.

Cyberbullying is deliberately using digital media to communicate false, embarrassing, or hostile information about another person. It is the most common online risk for all teens and is a peer-to-peer risk.

Although “online harassment” is often used interchangeably with the term “cyberbullying,” it is actually a different entity. Current data suggest that online harassment is not as common as offline harassment, and participation in social networking sites does not put most children at risk of online harassment.