So, not that I want to talk about this or ask about this, but I am looking for comments from other parents about how you would deal with this.
My daughter is 12. A wonderful, bright, and very intelligent girl who obviously gets her wonderful mind from her dad instead of me (not complaining).
Summer of 18 and I noticed her taking tons of selfies and posting them on facebook. I also noticed her taking selfies of her in her bikini, sometimes with sexual poses, but nothing I would consider terrible. Some of the photos were also with her friend who is also 12, and those photos were also a little on the sexual side but nothing terrible. My mom eventually called me and told me that she shouldn't be posting bikini photos on facebook, and I somewhat agreed, but I never told my daughter that she should take the photos down.
Last month I found out that a teenage boy in an area high school had nude photos of seven girls from his school. It sounds like all the girls were trading nudes with him and for some reason the boy ended up trading those photos with other students. He obviously got caught and currently law enforcement is involved. My guess is that law enforcement will be dealing with more than just the one boy.
So, last week my daughter was busy with practicing for a school musical, and in the process I ended up holding her phone for her. Part of me wanted to look at her phone and just "check" but at the same time I was not interested in invading her privacy.
Long story short is that I found some nudes of her. I also found some of her friend and I found some of a few boys. As for my daughter none of the pics were explicit, and none of the pics looked forced in any way. It looks like her friend ended up sending selfies first, and my daughter simply copied the poses in return. Obviously the pics never should have been taken, but at the same time I am sorta grateful that none of the pics were extreme (I hope that makes sense).
I found out a few months ago that porn is now the new addiction for teenagers, and not only that but sexting is becoming normal and routine. I obviously can't control what my daughter does in her private life, but at the same time I can't just sit around and not do anything. Of course if I tell her NO she will no doubt do it simply because I said she couldn't. And the other problem is that if I say anything about this she will no doubt know that I looked at her phone, and this will create a problem in itself.
With that said I feel that if I don't say anything about this my daughter will keep on taking nude selfies of herself, and they will get more explicit with time, and eventually other people will find them.
What do I do???? What are doing about this??? This is the new normal, it is nothing that I can stop, but I sure wish I could somehow do something about it.