Mother turns over sexting 13-year-old daughter to police for ‘harsh’ punishment

[Douglas Carpenter]

By Scott Kaufman
Sunday, August 24, 2014 11:48 EDT

A Virginia mother turned her 13-year-old daughter over to police after she found nude images of the teen on her phone and tablet, CBS 6 News reports.

The Dinwiddie, Virginia mother — whose name will not be revealed, to protect her daughter’s identity — said that she discovered the images after she found her daughter using her phone and tablet at 4 a.m. last week. She confiscated the eighth grader’s electronics and began to look through the recent activity, where she found photographs both of her daughter and her peers.

“Looking through the phone and the tablet we did find sexual pictures, conversations that were very inappropriate for her age,” she told CBS 6 News.

She then took the drastic step of turning her daughter in to sheriff’s department. “We did this now to protect her for now and in the future, because this could get worse. She could be taken,” the teen’s mother said. “What she’s facing may be harsh, but we feel it’s for her own protection.”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/08/24/mother-turns-over-sexting-13-year-old-daughter-to-police-for-harsh-punishment/

[damnedifIknow]

1. Harsh punishment ay

Well, she took her to the right place.

[Arkansas Granny]

2. I would think that getting some counseling would be a better option.

Will she now have a police record?

[Bigmack]

4. Maybe labeled a sex offender...? Mom is FUBAR.... nt

[magical thyme]

24. apparently she'll likely be "diverted" into a 12 week counseling program, along with parents

per the article at the link.

[FarPoint]

34. Agreed.

Shaming, creating emotional trauma over sexual exploring during pubesence is not parenting.

[HipChick]

3. Why does this mother have poor parenting skills?

Moreover why is she turning over her parenting responsibiity to the police?

[Louisiana1976]

26. Yeah--mother obviously doesn't know what she's doing. Her daughter will end up with a police

record.

[lunatica]

5. Unless an adult is soliciting or taking such photos I doubt any law has been broken her

Not by the girl or her peers.

And it's outrageous that the mother would turn her daughter over to the the police to be humiliated publicly. There are far better ways of dealing with this kind of behavior, which by the way, is based on very normal activity in teens.

What the hell does the mother want the police to do? Arrest her and conduct a body search and throw her in jail?! Post her arrest photo online for everyone to see? Register her as a sex offender?

I think the mother should be arrested for endangering a minor and for permanently saddling her daughter with a police record.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

8. Not sure about that.

I think I've seen stories of kids charged with producing child porn for 'sexting'.

[lunatica]

10. I sure hope you're wrong

I hope there are no laws aimed at minors for sexting or porn. What next? Charge children for being in photos of child porn taken by Pedophiles? This mother would probably be all for it. This is disgusting.

[RedRocco]

12. googling "sexting leads to child porn charges" gives a crap-ton of links

[LisaL]

15. You are wrong.

Children themselves can be charged with distributing child porn.

[lunatica]

16. Well that means the girl's life has been pretty much ruined

But it shouldn't surprise me when people treat small children crossing our borders like terrorists spreading disease.

[Louisiana1976]

27. That's right.

[drray23]

6. idiotic

She just ruined her daughter's life. She might get a record and have to register as a sex offender forever. Never never ever call the police on a family member to teach them a lesson. It will backfire. Not long ago a young man got killed by the police this way. He stormed out of the family hone taking the car after an argument. His father reported it as a car theft. He was shot dead by police.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

7. Yeah, she could get 'taken'...by police or child services.

Gotta be a child of privilege to trust that your kid isn't going to wind up worse off if you turn them in to the cops.

Around here, we had a guy call the cops on his mentally ill kid that threatened him with a steak knife, i think it was. The kid is, of course, now dead, because the cops shot him down. At least the Dad had the good grace to regret having called in police, rather than calming him down and getting him back on his meds. Not that that brought the kid back from the dead, of course.

[LisaL]

13. There recently was a state senator that got cut by his own mentally ill kid.

With a knife.
I am sorry, but suggesting that a parent is supposed to deal with their mentally ill armed offspring by themselves is ludicrous.
To say the least.

[LibertyLover]

19. It was a Virginia state senator

And the kid wound up dead. If I remember correctly, the kid was killed by police, although he may have committed suicide.

And while we are still in Virginia, a month or so ago prosecutors wanted to force a 16 year old boy to submit to a medical procedure that would have caused him to have an erection so,that it could be photographed and compared to photos sexted to a 13 year old girl. Her mother found the photos and turned the boy in. The whole case was messed up - but at least the judge refused to allow the medical procedure.

[LisaL]

21. The kid killed himself after cutting his father numerous times.

He was mentally ill.
Dealing with mentally ill relative doesn't always turn out well even if police isn't involved.

[Jackpine Radical]

29. The usual procedure is to call the police to take the dangerous mentally ill person

into custody & transfer them to an appropriate psychiatric facility. 2 or 3 decades ago, the cops were routinely able to do that without shooting anybody. They didn't have body armor or tanks, either. Just good sense & people-handling skills. I worked in a psych hospital in a rural setting, where just about everyone was armed with deer rifles, hunting knives & whatnot, & there was never one of these incidents we hear about so routinely now.

[LisaL]

32. Really?

There were never police shootings 2 or 3 decades ago?

[Jackpine Radical]

38. Not in any of the instances I was personally aware of or a party to.

We received involuntary detentions from 3 or 4 rural counties. I did it for 4 years. Some of the admissions had been engaged in pretty violent acts. One guy was brought in after ramming a bunch of other vehicles deliberately with his truck at a dealership. He had found out that his wife had been having an affair with the owner of the dealership. That guy still had a knife on him that the cops had missed on their pat-down. He pulled it out & chased a psychiatrist around the staffing table a couple of times with it before the (female) chief nurse took it away from him.

And then there was what I used to refer to as "Taylor County Pattern #2" because it was so common. Every so often a guy would grab a gun, announce his intention to kill himself, & head out into the woods (almost always at night). The cops would go out after him, talk him down & bring him back. Can you imagine the Fergustan cops doing that?

[RedRocco]

9. she will probably charged with producing and possession of child porn n/t

[lunatica]

11. No doubt much to the mother's delight

She can rest assured in her comfortable sanctimony that she sure showed her daughter!

[LeftyMom]

14. Why not just take her phone and tablet away if she's misusing them?

Yes, I do have a kid that age. He doesn't even have a phone. He does have a tablet but I take it away before bedtime or he stays up all night watching youtube videos of idiots playing video games.

Thirteen year olds are dumbasses, and being a parent means you have to limit their ability to hurt themselves with their dumbassery.

[Louisiana1976]

28. Good idea.

[riderinthestorm]

35. They just use their friends' equipment.

Unfortunately I know this from first hand experience.

You have to address the behavior. Taking the electronics away only stops it for as long as it takes them to find a friend.



This teen needs counseling pronto. Besides, the OP does state that the mom did confiscate the electronics fyi.

[all american girl]

45. I wondered that also

I've taken away my kids phones and computers because they weren't doing what they were suppose to...homework, generally. Yes, I had to listen to them act as if I was killing them, but I only did it once to my son and twice to my daughter. They do learn. Now all I have to say is that I will take away their stuff, and boy, do they move and get things done Sometimes parents have to be the bad guy...

[SammyWinstonJack]

17. Ugh.

[logosoco]

18. Wow. I guess that mom is not very close to her daughter if she thinks

that is good parenting.

It has been a good many years since I was a teen, and my kids are young adults now, but if my mother had done that, I would never trust her again.

[Cleita]

20. What is wrong with parents who turn their kids over to police

for discipline? I really don't get it. I had a friend whose mother turned her in for shoplifting lipstick. She was put in detention, had to go to court and essentially had her life ruined. Even the store would have accepted payment for the item and an apology.

[Douglas Carpenter]

23. I actually had an argument with someone here on DU who insisted that if you found out your

18 year-old kid was at a drinking party they had a duty to report them to police and have the party busted and have the kids arrested. This person was belligerent about it too. It's amazing some attitudes coming from even some "liberals."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023918288#post18

[Cleita]

30. That's pretty ignorant and I don't think that

person is really a liberal.

[NuclearDem]

39. Shoplifting lipstick doesn't carry a lifetime registration as a sex offender

Or mandatory prison sentences.

Or residence restrictions.

Or extraordinary difficulties in getting into college.

Or career restrictions.

Or a risk of civil commitment.

[Cleita]

41. No but what it did was this.

It poisoned the relationship between parents and child. My friend dropped out of high school in time and ran away with her boyfriend, got pregnant and married in that order, had two more kids, got divorced and became a single mother. In order to support her children she started working as a cocktail waitress and started running with a drinking crowd which led to a couple of more failed marriages, and dysfunctional kids. She always had to live hand to mouth because dropping out of school kept her at the bottom of the ladder.

The arrest was a tipping point IMHO. Yes, she started out as a bit of a wild child but her parents should have handled the original sin differently. Kids who shoplift need to be disciplined, by their parents not the police. I did my own transgressions too, one was stealing my parents car while they were sleeping, and going to another town to party with friends. It's something they might have called the police about but they didn't. My parents disciplined me, severely, but the only third person they would have called on, if they felt the need, would have been a psychologist.

There is a difference.

[NuclearDem]

42. Oh, apologies.

I entirely misread your post.

[LittleBlue]

22. The girl will be screwed up now

She's going to need a therapist later in life to repair the damage from the shame and public humiliation. After all, even though the media isn't revealing her name they clearly know it, and if they know her name that means all her classmates know and probably her extended family.

I read somewhere that it's psychologically harmful to associate shame and sexuality in a child's mind. The mother should have sat her daughter down and had a conversation instead.

[Louisiana1976]

31. Exactly. Mom and daughter should have had "the talk."

[magical thyme]

25. per aritcle, they have a 12 week counseling program for teens and parents

she'll probably be sent to that.

"The Virginia Commonwealth’s Attorney Lisa Caruso said that it’s not a foregone conclusion that the underage teens will be dealt with by the courts. There is “[w]hat’s called diversion in the juvenile justice system,” she said. “That’s a 12 week program and it would be group classes. The parents would get involved [and] there would be some counseling.”"

[Louisiana1976]

33. I hope she is--that's much better than getting a police record.

[Holly_Hobby]

36. My mother called police on me many times when I was a teen

because I was "incorrigible". But, my mother is a nutcase.

[Politicalboi]

37. Was this mother ever 13

“Looking through the phone and the tablet we did find sexual pictures, conversations that were very inappropriate for her age,” she told CBS 6 News.

She's in denial that "her" child can't be doing that. She may be thinking someone is making her do this, and an investigation will clear everything up.

[NuclearDem]

40. What the fuck?

[JI7]

43. the mother is an asshole , this is the type of controlling behavior which leads some teens to

do things they might not have done otherwise just to get at the parent .

and i'm not saying she shouldn't have done anything or no punishment. but wasting time calling the cops (unless there was some abuse involved).

[NaturalHigh]

44. This woman is an idiot.

Her daughter doesn't need a police record; she needs a better mother.

[KurtNYC]

46. a lady across the street from where I grew up adopted 2 boys

found a doobie in a dresser drawer and called the police on the 13 year-old. The police told her it was HER job to be a parent and that they could just as easily cite her for possession since it was HER house. Last I heard the kid wanted to become a cop.

[burkett.stjacques]

47. Sexting May be normal behaviour

Came across an article that i thought was interesting and related about sexting becoming the new normal which puts an interesting spin on the topic [link:http://tnyurl.nl/a/sextisnorm|