According to a recent study, about one in five teenagers have electronically distributed provocative pictures of themselves that could land them in jail. A joint survey by Cosmogirl.com and The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy found that 19% of teenagers answered “yes” when asked if they had ever “sent a nude or semi-nude picture/video” of themselves to someone via email, cell phone, etc.

And according to CBS legal analyst, attorney Lisa Bloom, “There are local prosecutors who will arrest you, lock you up, and treat you like a child pornographer.” And being under-age doesn’t protect them. “It is still child pornography,” explained Bloom. “You don’t have to be 18 to possess or distribute child pornography.”

“Sexting” describes the growing trend of sending sexually explicit messages (text, pictures, or video) electronically, mostly via cell phones. The most common reason teenagers give for sending sexy content is to be “fun or flirtatious,” what Bloom described to me as “the digital equivalent of what our generation did - mooning and flashing each other.” Unfortunately, many don’t understand the possible consequences. We live at a time when a moment’s poor judgment can go viral. In Pennsylvania, six teens were charged with child pornography after three girls sent pictures of themselves to three male classmates. Similar events have unfolded in Ohio and elsewhere.

And sometimes flirtation is not the motive. In Florida, an 18-year-old male sent naked pictures of his 16-year-old girlfriend to dozens of her friends and family after an argument; he was arrested, charged with child pornography, sentenced to five years probation, and required to register as a sex offender.

Last year, the ex-boyfriend of an 18-year-old girl in Ohio forwarded nude pictures of her to hundreds of her high school classmates. She was humiliated and ended up hanging herself.

As the father of 13 and 17-year-old sons, I find myself wondering about the increasing blurring of private and public. Some kids have the misconception that electronic communication is always private. Others don’t care; they’ve grown up in a voyeuristic world and think it’s no big deal if others know intimate details of their lives. In fact, that may even be a goal. You can become famous if you’re willing to let the cameras roll. Contestants of the reality show Big Brother allow viewers to watch them online 24-7 - everywhere except (for now) the bathrooms.

The answer is not to blame kids, thinking “Why can’t they be like we were, perfect in every way?” Children (and I was no exception) have always been impulsive and had poor judgment. That’s where parents come in. My job is to keep my eyes open, communicate with my sons (that means listen as well as talk), and - in a nonthreatening and loving way - try to set them straight when they aren’t thinking right. When I discussed sexting with Bill Alpert, Chief Program Office of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, he told me, “I don’t think that parents need to overreact. They just need to realize this is going on.”

Alpert said decades of social science research have shown that parents underestimate their own importance in their children’s lives. He noted that when asked about the key influences on their kids, parents usually say “number one is friends, number two is media, and they are number three; but teenagers themselves - in every single survey we’ve done over the past 10 years - have put parents number one.”

So it’s the same old lesson learned by the scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz, who never did need that diploma to be smart. We parents have the power to help our children safely navigate a world that is increasingly treacherous. We just need to use it.

For this week’s CBS Doc Dot Com, I discuss sexting with psychologist Susan Lipkins, Ph.D.  Watch the video by clicking on the link below.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=5447573n&tag=api

Here are tips about sexting from The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy:

Parents: click here.

Teens: click here.

This article can be found at:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-jon-lapook/sexting——your-kids-may_b_339149.html

After a period of improvement, trends in the sexual and reproductive health of U.S. teens and young adults have flattened, or in some instances may be worsening, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

CDC analyzed data from 2002-2007 from the National Vital Statistics System and numerous CDC reports and surveys including the Youth Risk Behavior Survey of high school students, the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), the National Survey of Family Growth, the HIV/AIDS Reporting System, and the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System.

The data are reported in a Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report Surveillance Summary, “Sexual and Reproductive Health of Persons Aged 10-24 Years – United States, 2002-2007.” All the data are not new, but the goal of this report is to present data from multiple sources in order to summarize trends in the sexual and reproductive health of America′s young people.

Findings include:

• There were approximately 745,000 pregnancies among U.S. females under age 20 in 2004.
• In 2006, the majority of new diagnoses of HIV infection among adolescents and young adults between the ages of 10 and 24 occurred among those aged 20-24 years and among males.
• About 1 million adolescents and young adults aged 10-24 years were reported to have chlamydia, gonorrhea, or syphilis in 2006. Nearly a quarter of females aged 15-19 years, and 45 percent of those aged 20-24 years, had a human papillomavirus (HPV) infection during 2003-2004.
• Approximately 100,000 females aged 10-24 years visited a hospital emergency department for a nonfatal sexual assault injury during 2004-2006.

Although the sexual risk behaviors and negative health outcomes tended to increase with age, the youngest age group – youth 10-14 years of age – were also affected:

• An estimated 16,000 pregnancies were reported among females in this age group in 2004.
• Approximately 17,000 young people in this age group were reported to have a sexually transmitted infection in 2006.
• During 2004-2006, 30,000 females in this age group visited a hospital emergency department because of a nonfatal sexual assault injury.
• Approximately one third of adolescents had not received instruction on methods of birth control before age 18.

“This report identifies a number of concerns regarding the sexual and reproductive health of our nation′s young people. It is disheartening that after years of improvement with respect to teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, we now see signs that progress is stalling and many of these trends are going in the wrong direction,” said Janet Collins, Ph.D., director of CDC′s National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.

Among the signs that progress has halted in some areas:

• Teen birth rates increased in 2006 and 2007, following large declines from 1991-2005.
• Rates of AIDS cases among males aged 15-24 years increased during 1997-2006 (AIDS data reflects people with HIV who have already progressed to AIDS.)
• Syphilis cases among teens and young adults aged 15-19 and 20-24 years have increased in both males and females in recent years.

The report also identifies a number of racial/ethnic disparities. Hispanic teens aged 15-19 are much more likely to become pregnant (132.8 births per 1,000 females) compared to their non-Hispanic black (128 per 1,000) and non-Hispanic white (45.2 per 1,000) peers. Additionally, rates of new HIV and AIDS diagnoses among young adults were highest among non-Hispanic black youth across all age groups.

“This report serves as a reminder that adolescents and young adults in this country continue to be impacted by STDs, including HIV,” said Kevin Fenton, M.D., director of CDC′s National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention. “It is imperative that all of us at the national and community level work together to ensure STD and HIV prevention programs are reaching young people, particularly in communities with the greatest burden of disease.”

The full report is available at www.cdc.gov/mmwr