“My son is getting sexts from girls…will he get in trouble?”

Hi! Welcome to Tips on Teens. The question for today is involving teen sexting. What do you do
when your teenager is caught having inappropriate pictures on his or her phone? My name is Kent
Toussaint. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist. I'm the founder and clinical director
of Teen Therapy Center. I'm also the executive director and chairman of the board of the nonprofit
organization Child and Teen Counseling, both here in Woodland Hills, California. you. Let's
jump into today's Tips on Teens question, which I answer every Wednesday at noon. Your questions,
email to us at tipsonteens at teentherapycenter .com. Let's jump into it right now. Here we
go. Our son has received several inappropriate pictures from girls at school. We don't know
if he has shared them with friends, and frankly, we don't know what to do about this. After we
spoke with him, he is struggling with a lot of guilt. We don't want him to get in trouble, but we
also want to help protect these girls from doing

this again. What happens if we tell the school? If he told his therapist, is this something that
would have to be reported to the police? Great question. In short, it might be something the
therapist have to report to the police. As therapists and also administrators and teachers
at schools, by California law, we are all mandated reporters. So if there's ever any suspicion
that child is being abused or hurt in some way, It is not our job to investigate. Our job is to only
report that suspicion to either Child Protective Services or the police, depending on what's
going on, and it is by law. Nothing we can do about it. It has to be done. There's a lot of context
here. There's a lot of rabbit holes we can jump down and a lot of tangents, so I'm gonna try to keep
this kind of narrow on this question. For example, we don't want to go down the tangent of, well,
I took a picture of my three -year -old in the bathtub with bubbles all over her hair and then and
she was so cute and adorable and

we sent it to grandpa who just loves her to pieces. Is that trafficking child porn? Probably
not because there's context. Context is important. Let's talk about this situation. This
teenage boy, I'm assuming he's under 18. If he's older 18, over 18, there are probably more ramifications.
And by the way, I just want to point out, I am NOT an attorney. I'm not giving legal advice. I am
reporting to you the legal advice I have received and I also want to note that I've talked to other
therapists about this and they've gotten different legal advice. So the lawyer I talked to
is actually writing an article about this very topic says that the law is still trying to catch
up to this technology and what's going on. So the law is still trying to figure all this out. So
let's take this situation. You have this teenage boy who received an inappropriate, let's
say a nude pic from a teenage girl. Let's talk about how when it's not reportable. First, because
it's easier to identify. If this girl sends

this picture to this teenage boy unsolicited, he didn't ask for it, she just sent it to him, and
he does not feel traumatized, he does not feel victimized, then it is not reportable. That's
pretty much it. Any other scenario, it's probably reportable. For example, if this teenage
boy asked the girl for the picture and she sent it, it is reportable to the police as trafficking
child pornography. If he didn't ask for it, but she sent it anyway, and then he shared it with
anyone else, that is trafficking child pornography. Now, my understanding, law enforcement
is aware of this problem and understanding that kids will do rash, inappropriate things, and
they're trying to be understanding about it. But again, you probably want to talk to a lawyer
about this if your kid is in this kind of situation. The school, the school principal, the dean,
the teachers, they are mandated reporters too. If they find out, they have to report it. A therapist,
we have to report it. It is mandated by law. Our license

is tied to that. So one of the things you want to think about with this is you want to help these
girls. You want to protect these girls from doing this again, which is a wonderful notion. But
you may want to talk to an attorney to find out what your liability is or what your son's liability
is to make sure he's protected too. Because he probably got in over his head. And like you said,
he's feeling guilty. he's probably having a bunch of different emotions got into something
he didn't realize the the scale what he was getting into and I needs support he probably still
needs support from the therapist to deal with the guilt and whatever else is going on with him
with that this is not an easy thing it's not something you want to ignore because once those pictures
are out there they're out there if you share them with people it can be tracked back to him it may
be a good idea to talk to an attorney and get ahead of this before it jumps ahead of him. Again,
big topic, but I want to keep this

kind of narrow and focused on this particular topic. If you have more questions about this,
you can email us at tipsonteens at teentherapycenter .com. We love your questions. We're going
to answer another one next Wednesday at noon, so keep them coming. If you have, you can also direct
messages right here on Facebook at teen therapy center. We also have a group called Tips on Teens.
If you want to join that if you want to keep up to date on these videos, they're great great to have
you in here Just sign up and we'll happy to let you in Anyways, we'll see you next Wednesday again.
My name is Kent to Sant. Thanks for tuning in to tips on teens And we'll see you next week. Bye.
Bye