the bottom line is they are resposible for her actions. She was their child. It was their responisibilty to foster her self-esteem and give her the moral courage to know that such actions have grave consequences. Schools can not be held responsible for raising and monitoring our kids 24/7. That is our job as parents.

Funny, I read an article a couple of weeks ago about how parents shouldn’t “snoop” in kids text logs, e-mails, diaries, etc… Whatever.
Both of my girls have Facebook and both of them are part of my network and vice versa. While we do have some different friends, they approve no one without my permission and they know that any given minute, I may log onto their page and have a look around. Same with e-mail. They know what I might find will be held in confidence unless someone is going to be harmed from it and we have a very open relationship. And…even though they struggle with the same types of issues as other kids, their self-esteem is pretty good, despite the horrible job the school does of affirming them. My husband and I affirm them as does our church and our sphere of influence.

there’s also the problem that existing laws dealing with this generally fall in the “child pornography” area. So if a 15-year-old girl sends a nude picture of herself to her 17-year-old boyfriend, he is now a possessor of child porn, and subject to all those penalties, including lifetime social banishment (can’t live near a school, etc.). As a result, I believe people (parents, teachers, police) are reluctant to bring any charges at all, because it doesn’t really fit the description of “kiddie porn.”

I think there should be some other category of law which would still treat this as a crime, but not on the child porn level. That might encourage it to be dealt with more consistently.

My prayers are with the fmaily. Terrible loss. However, a law on texting won’t stop the behavior. All they have to do is use a digital camera and send the JPG file as an attachment in email or printing it our on film. The law accomplishes little. C17wife has it right. The parents should foster self-esteem and moral courage.

on so many points.

Parents need to teach their kids from an early age that actions have lasting consequences.

Remember the guy in AZ a couple of years ago, college honor student that shows up on a Girls Gone Wild-like DVD? Booted from university, all of it down the tubes over one stupid night. Girls getting pregnant at 14, setting off a cycle of welfare dependency that could last generations.

Communicate your values to your kids. Not just the what, but the why. What are the guiding principles that help you determine where the lines are drawn? Otherwise, the lines will change based on how you feel at the time.

If your kid really has to have a cell phone, get one without a camera.

At some point in time YOU failed as parents.
And YOU know it.
Placing all the blame on the “Cyber bully” boyfriend is projecting, plain and simple.
Was the boyfriend wrong?
Of course he was.As would be anyone who did the same kind of thing.
But the ‘original sin’ was clearly the taking and sending into the great ether world the photo of/by the young lady.
Without =>that<= act, all the rest could NOT have followed.
And some where along the line, the parents FAILED to teach their daughter that putting herself into a potentially dangerous situation is well…..dangerous.
Also, does anyone believe that this young lady never did anything else that might lead to some of the ‘names’ she was called?
Not saying she was the school pass around girl, but if in only two months of a relationship, she felt it was OK to send a nude photo of herself to her boyfriend, then I (Father of three girls) find it difficult to believe she was pure and virginal otherwise. Maybe she was, and this was truly a one time, first time error in judgment.
And, if so, a tragic and sad thing.
But NOT a reason, not EVER a reason, to write law that affects everyone.
High emotion results, every time, in bad law.
Case in point?
This story and the AIG 90% tax on contractually obligated compensation.

but I’ve seen way too many caring, responsible parents lose the battle with their kids. I suppose you can limit the societal influences if you home school, don’t have a TV or other access to pop culture, and confine their socialization to chosen neighbors and fellow church members – for awhile. On the other hand, from the first time a TV comes on in their life and, especially, from the first time they set foot in a public school, parents and parental control are under assault. In the guise of education about avoiding or reporting abuse, children are indoctrinated to expect violence from their parents and to trust the school and the state more than their parents. Sex education is at best value neutral but in reality I believe encourages children to experiment – a certain amount of ignorance and the fear that usually accompanies ignorance is often a good thing.

We can be critical of those parents and I agree with you that they are seeking the wrong remedy, but by the mid-teens there are real limits on what control you have over a kid’s actions and if you push that control too far, they simply run away and there’s little you can do to get them back, especially if they’re 16 or older. In many states, they can run away, refuse to go home, go on welfare, and the state hits you up for child support while your daughter gets passed around or your son lays around in a drugged haze.

This tragedy just shows how fast technology is changing and how we are not keeping up with it. This is sad. But, as kids, we have Polaroid cameras and were tempted. The dumb one fell for it and could have been embarrassed. This is just larger and more dangerous.

We, as parents, need to be vigilant and teach our kids values, so they don’t make stupid mistakes likes this. The cell phone, the company, or schools did not take the picture and disseminate all over the Internet. The kids did. This is all about personal responsibility of the parents and the kids.

http://franklinslocke.blogspot.com/

First, God Bless them and their daughter. Such pain is unimaginable.

Although the Logan’s efforts are well intentioned, this tact will unfortunately do very little to address the more holistic problems. In fact, the overall affect will be to delay the rebuilding of our families and society that has been badly damaged by liberal religious attacks and statist tendencies.

I know absolutely zero about the Logan’s relationship with their daughter. However, the seemingly ubiquitous issue in my community is that parents are often ill informed or not very conversant in their childrens activities.

We all know that many kids are very good at covering up their “secrets’. However, when you can speak with them as parents and confidants the chances of producing a more responsible adolescent vastly improve.There should be nothing “off the table for conversation”- nothing. Childen want and need consistent boundaries and moal guidance.And while they may not always take it, there should also be consequences for any digressions.

Providing this guidance is part of being a parent. Kids don’t need another “friend”- that’s not a parent’s role. They also don’t need another nanny in the community, government or school. If they receive your love, guidance, care and discpline it will become more apparent those watchdogs are superfluous and uneccessary.

To seek in the law what is best provided by yourself as a parent only continues the misguided quest to find self-absolution. It steals our collective liberty and replaces it with communal moral standards and social mores grounded in ideals that have nothing to do with your personal ethics. This disconnect effectively make your children wards of the state and reliant on a system which is destined to fail because it does not have familial connection. In the end one loses control over their children because they have effectively ceded it to the state.

Love is a process of learning and understanding.It is not always realized that the actions of a parent are performed out of devotion.It is also not always mentioned- even as they grow to adults. But the solemn pride of a parent is your and yours alone, when in the future they grow into healthy, productive, self-reliant adults. This should be the cause we champion.

I am responsible for my kids, first and foremost.
And don’t call me Hillary. I look to no one to do the job of raising my kids. That is for me and my husband. I do make sure that our sphere of influence is one that affirms our beliefs and moral values, but we as parents are ultimately responsible.

FTR-It is not giving me the RTT button no matter how many times I try to “login”. Ack!

Sometimes you can point to a specific sign and say “The parents missed this and should have known their child was suffering.” But chances are, in the same position you would have missed the same signs.

In other cases, to all outward appearance, the child appears normal with no issues. I had some friends who lost a daughter that way. A messy suicide after an argument with a boyfriend at school. The girl was bright and seemed happy. When the parents came home they found her in their room after she used a shotgun to end her life. Her parents have dealt with her death a number of ways including starting a foundation to educate to teens about suicide and give them options for help. They have an annual “walk” to raise money.
http://www.whitneyswalk.com/why.php

That said, there’s an old saying that tragic events lead to bad laws. The Logans seem to be projecting the blame for the loss of their child on the schools. I think we place too much on the schools now. We should let the schools teach our kids to read, write and do math and push the social development back to the parents. The more we push the responsibility to the schools, the worse the outcomes will be.

(liberal poster)

I think technology gets too much of the blame. It’s easy to scapegoat “sexting,” but when I was in high school a girl committed suicide because her boyfriend broke up with her.

This stuff has been happening long before technology emerged on school campuses, although it does seem to have accelerated the process of growing up fast — and that’s not a good thing./

As a father of two girls, I’m very concerned about the environment they’re entering as they progress toward becoming young women. High school is several years away, but the thought of it is very frightening.

All any of us can do as parents is try to keep an open dialogue and hope our kids have the perspective to endure the inevitable embarrassments that accompany growing up.

I’m saddened by this young woman’s suicide, but creating new laws won’t address the issue, IMO.

Hear me out.

A village of committed parents who teach their kids right from wrong. A village of parents who are not so concerned with being “cool” and their kids’ best friend, they forget to parent. A village of parents who care about basic values. A village of parents who do not abdicate their responsibility to others. When I was a kid, if I misbehaved at a friend’s house, the parent there disciplined me, then I got it at home too.

Here, there are two sets of parents. Should the girl have not sent the nude picture? Yes. Should the parents of the boy it was sent to, have taught the boy to respect his girlfriend? Yes. Face it, if he had been taught to treat people with respect, he never would have shown the picture around.

Technology has nothing to do with it. She could have painted a nude picture of herself, used a non-digital camera, etc. There were so many ways this still could have occurred that new laws against certain forms of technology are NOT the answer. Being a parent, first, foremost and always, is.

In condemning the girl. Asserting that “The better lesson is to focus equally on both the sender and the bullies, not just the bullies” sounds a lot like “A woman who’s raped was asking for by dressin’ so slutty and acting like she wanted it.” Anyone would expect private photos to remain private. The boyfriend breached her trust then the kids were way too immature in their reaction it.

You’re right as far as the law is concerned. It’s a bad idea.

I think this is a normal response of anyone that is experiencing a trauma like this, they just want something to be done.
I don’t agree with what they are doing but I think we should call it what it is, traumatized people trying to get some type of action taken, they are going through a mental hell 24/7 dealing with this. Maybe someone could help do something else like joining the volunteers at a psych hosptial or doing an out reach for the signs of severe depression in teens or some cause their daughter loved if it was animals or something.