Middle school forum reveals how young 'sexting' has become

There's a group for girls at Pierce Middle School who want to learn about etiquette, manners, modeling and attitude.

But when a 13-year-old Riverview girl killed herself recently, after enduring months of teasing for sending a boy a partially nude cell phone image of herself, the EMMA Club evolved into a forum for cell phone safety.

The discussion, which began about two weeks ago, shocked teachers, staff and parents.

Almost every member of EMMA, girls from sixth to eighth grade, admitted their friends had sent them cell phone images showing nudity or partial nudity. Their stories on the practice of "sexting" were rapid-fire.

Girls are sending nude pictures of themselves to friends as jokes, they said. Boys are trying to impress them with photos of bare chests.

Fifteen-year-old Sara Machado said she had to delete a picture of a shirtless boy from her 11-year-old sister's phone.

"I called him and told him, 'Don't do it again.' "

There are even modern-day chain letters, where students receive a sexting image and are instructed to forward it to at least 10 friends or risk some misfortune.

"I didn't realize that the girls would relate to it as much as they did," said Ingrid Peavy, a teacher for students with special needs who started the EMMA club at Pierce in Town 'N' Country.

They even allowed boys to get in on the conversation.

"I look at it and delete," said 15-year-old Jerry Rodriguez. "You shouldn't really keep it."

He added, "I think it's wrong to show other people your business."

Dagoberto Cuevas, also 15, said he felt sorry for the kids who do it.

"I think it's kind of sad and stupid," said Cuevas, who has received pictures from girls. "I've stopped talking to them and just erase it."

The stories delivered a clear message to student intervention specialist Regina Hollinger: Sexting among students in their pre-teens and younger is probably more prevalent than school officials or parents have begun to realize.

"It's almost as important as bullying," Hollinger said.

And the two may go hand-in-hand.

"Once they get out in the population, then the bullying starts."

A national study by the Associated Press and MTV found that 30 percent of 14- to 24-year-olds polled said they had sent or received nude photos on their cell phones or online.

Only 10 percent said they actually had sent such messages. Girls were more likely than boys to share nude images of themselves, and youths who were sexually active were more than twice as likely to do so, the study found.

Such findings show it's necessary to address sexting the same way Florida and local school districts now tackle bullying, Hollinger said, with a law that clearly defines the act and makes schools provide prevention programs.

"I am really worried about it," she said. "We're going to see a lot more of this."

The long-lasting effects include children so humiliated they kill themselves and others facing possible criminal charges, such as child pornography.

"If someone finds you guilty of this, there can be ramifications for the rest of your life," seventh-grade teacher Desiree' Jackson told the EMMA Club. "You'll be listed as a child perpetrator."

Parents can also be held liable for their child's actions, said Jackson, a former attorney.

"It saddens me," she said later, speaking of the way technology affects children. "It seems that more and more, some of the innocence is taken away."

Hope Witsell was a seventh-grader at Beth Shields Middle School last spring when she sent a picture of her breasts to the cell phone of a boy she liked. Someone got hold of the boy's phone and sent the picture to others.

Hope was horrified and humiliated, her mother, Donna Witsell, told the Today show last week. The teasing continued into eighth-grade. On Sept. 12, Hope's mother found her daughter in her bedroom.

"Her head was hanging down and I said, "Hope, what are you doing?" Donna Witsell said. "And then I realized there was a scarf wrapped around her neck."

Hope is the second teen in the nation to commit suicide following a sexting incident.

"Girls this age shouldn't be doing this," 11-year-old Azaleah Worthen thought to herself after her dad made her read a newspaper story about Hope.

It made her stomach hurt.

"I just wanted her to see what can happen," said Nathan Worthen, the Carrollwood father of Azaleah and five other children. "They want to go online all the time."

But because they're innocent, children don't understand how dangerous computers and cell phones can be, he said.

Azaleah's cell phone is "just for emergencies," said her mother, LaGretta Worthen.

"Not to text or talk to her friends," added her dad. "I'm putting every block possible on it."

Maria Garcia, a seventh-grader at Pierce Middle, is allowed to text on her cell phone but said her mother checks the messages every two weeks or so.

Sexting is common among her classmates, said Maria, 12. They send chain letters.

"It's make-out week or grab-butt week and they'll send a picture and tell you to send it to 10 other people or something bad will happen to you," she said.

Her mother, Varian Garcia, was shocked the first time she saw such text messages on her daughter's phone. Maria was 11. The phone was a way for the pair to stay in touch when she walked to the bus stop.

The result was swift.

"We are talking more than we used to talk," said her mother, a 32-year-old housekeeper.

They talk about texting, sexting and sex, a lot earlier than she had planned.

"But these times, we have to talk to our kids."