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Thirteen Things to Talk to Your Teen About 13 Reasons Why: Episode 4-Teenage Sexuality & Sexting

In There's a Stranger in My House by Dr James Wellborn

[Note: It has recently come to light that the author of the book this video series was based on has been expelled from The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators for violation of their harassment policy as reported by Deadline.] Thirteen Reasons Why, a video series based on a best-selling teen novel, is the story of a 17 year old …

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Sexting Is In The News Again

In There's a Stranger in My House by Dr James Wellborn

Well, another story about teenagers sexting and trading pictures of their naughty bits hit the news recently.  According to the New York Times, it seems that a large number of guys and girls in a Colorado high school formed a kind of club that collected and traded naked pictures of their peers (themselves included, presumably).  From the advent of widely …

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Hiding Phone Apps In Plain Sight

In The Blog by Dr James Wellborn

Giving your teen their own smart phone is a privilege and responsibility.  It will include setting some limits on acceptable uses for the phone and any other devices that connect to the internet or wifi. Once again the speed of technological advances (driven by the availability of teen’s disposable income to buy relatively inexpensive apps for their phone) has complicated …

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Cyber Citizenship Part 2: Increasing Teens Cyber Awareness

In There's a Stranger in My House by Dr James Wellborn

If your kids are going to be good cyber citizens, they should be informed about the different areas that make up their cyber world.  This includes their personal information (i.e., identity), traces of their online presence (i.e., footprint), the various kinds of creative products that belongs to them and to other people (i.e., property) and the various ways to relate …

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Cyber citizenship Part 1: Helping Teenagers Be Good Netizens

In There's a Stranger in My House by Dr James Wellborn

When your kids plug into the internet or the cellular networks, they instantly become full-fledged members of a worldwide community.   They have instant access to every other person who is also wandering around in that world.  And, of course, someone coined a cute name for it:  Netizens.  (Well, I refuse to refer to them by that stupid name.)  But it …

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Sexting Part 5-What to Say If Your Kid Has Been Sexting (continued)

In There's a Stranger in My House by Dr James Wellborn

Talk about the risks.  Here’s the list. Sending pictures of yourself when you are younger than 18 is distributing pornography.  Having a picture of yourself stored on a phone, computer, etc. (or recoverable from the secret, undeleted areas of things you have deleted on your device) is possession of child pornography.  Having pictures of your sext buddy who is under …

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Sexting Part 3-Warning Signs

In There's a Stranger in My House by Dr James Wellborn

This article is the third in a series on how parents can address the issue of sexting with their teenage children.  The first part of this series emphasized the importance of educating yourself as a parent and talking to your kids about sexting as well as internet and social media issues.  Part 2 reviewed some of the ground rules to …