Receiving sexually explicit messages or online sexual solicitations is a relatively common experience among adolescents (Daniels et al., 2024) that can lead to feelings of humiliation, anxiety, or depression, and may expose adolescents to (cyber)bullying or social shaming (Doyle et al., 2021; Van Ouytsel et al., 2019). To cope with these negative outcomes, adolescents can rely on various strategies, with seeking social support being among the most effective (Kaiser et al., 2020; Machackova et al., 2013).
Despite this, children and adolescents rarely confide in their parents about non-consensual sexually explicit online interactions. To better understand why, we adopted a mixed-method approach that explores both their experiences with online sexual solicitations and their reasons for not disclosing these experiences to parents.
Experience With Online Sexual Solicitations
More than half of 1500 adolescents in our sample (ages 13-18) reported receiving online sexual solicitations (57.7.%). In line with prior research, older adolescents reported such experiences more often and the same was true for girls. Girls were more likely than boys to receive online sexual solicitations, supporting evidence of the gendered nature of sexual victimization. Most adolescents found these experiences upsetting, with girls reporting higher distress than boys. We did not find age differences in emotional responses, indicating that unwanted sexual solicitations are generally perceived as distressing across adolescence and underscoring the central role of consent in adolescents’ sexual interactions.
Reasons Not to Tell Parents
Less than half of adolescents (43.6%) who received online sexual solicitations told their parents about it. To better understand this, we asked all adolescents what were (or would be) their reasons for not confiding in parents. These barriers related to several interconnected domains:
- Adolescents’ perceptions of their parents (e.g., perceived quality of their relationship as not that close to discuss such topics; perceived lack of parental understanding; parents’ limited digital skills, especially regarding experiences on social media; avoidance of intimate topics in parent-child conversations; or concerns about burdening parents when they have other things to worry about).
- Fear of negative consequences that would follow the disclosure of the experience, such as parental anger aimed toward the adolescent and making the situation their fault; restrictions (in particular those related to using digital media – restrictions of internet or phone/laptop); or parental overreactions in being overly dramatic or monitoring their whereabouts too much.
- Adolescents’ own feelings and attitudes that surround the idea of disclosing the experience, including shame, awkwardness or humiliation (in particular due to sexual nature of the interaction); indifference or resignation to the situation in a sense that addressing it would not make a difference; or a desire for adolescents’ own privacy and wish to keep it for themselves.
- Alternative coping strategies that were considered sufficient, without requiring parental intervention, such as blocking or ignoring the sender (i.e., using what solution technology itself provides) or seeking support from peers who they often viewed as more understanding of the internet space and the situation; even making fun of the initiator in form of trolling served as coping strategy.
- Nature of the messages themselves, which were sometimes perceived as not serious or damaging as the situation did not cause any harm to them; messages were excessively vulgar and containing uncomfortable content; considered spam and/or bot messages, some felt that these interactions are inevitable in online environments so overall there is no need to tell parents.
- Characteristics of the initiator, including blackmail to not to tell parents; the initiator had personal connections to parents, or adolescents wished to protect the initiator and not to cause trouble.
What Can Be Done? Practical Implications
The findings point to several important practical implications. For parents, we recommend recognizing that socializing online is often important for their adolescent children. Parents should focus on fostering open and respectful family communication, and avoid overly restrictive or punitive restrictions, which can make adolescents more secretive about what they encounter online. Demonstrating non-judgmental interest in adolescents’ online activities and engaging in ongoing conversations about them may help reduce adolescents’ feelings that the parent will not understand their situation, which can be a key barrier to sharing online problems.
Adolescents should be reminded that unwanted online interactions are never their fault and they should not accept it as a normal part of being online, as such normalization may hinder help-seeking and reduce sensitivity to boundary violations. Similarly, perceiving such a behavior as normal could increase some adolescents’ own tendency to act in similar ways toward others, or to not stand up when witnessing similar incidents as bystanders.
Our study also showed that adolescents are more likely to disclose online sexual solicitation experiences to peers than to parents. Thus, prevention efforts should also focus on strengthening peer-support and referral skills, teaching students how to respond non-judgmentally when a friend confides in them and how to encourage disclosure to a trusted adult, such as a parent or school psychologist.
References
- Daniels, E. A., Dajches, L., Terán, L., Gahler, H., Choi, H. J., Speno, A., & Stevens Aubrey, J. (2024). The sexual landscape of youth: How adolescents from the U.S. make sense of sexting. Journal of Adolescent Research, 07435584241231448. https://doi.org/10.1177/07435584241231448
- Doyle, C., Douglas, E., & O’Reilly, G. (2021). The outcomes of sexting for children and adolescents: A systematic review of the literature. Journal of Adolescence, 92(1), 86–113. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2021.08.009
- Kaiser, S., Kyrrestad, H., & Fossum, S. (2020). Help-seeking behavior in Norwegian adolescents: The role of bullying and cyberbullying victimization in a cross-sectional study. Scandinavian Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychology, 8(1), 81–90. https://doi.org/10.21307/sjcapp-2020-008
- Madigan, S., Ly, A., Rash, C. L., Van Ouytsel, J., & Temple, J. R. (2018). Prevalence of Multiple Forms of Sexting Behavior Among Youth: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. JAMA Pediatrics, 172(4), 327. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2017.5314
- Machackova, H., Cerna, A., Sevcikova, A., Dedkova, L., & Daneback, K. (2013). Effectiveness of coping strategies for victims of cyberbullying. Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace, 7(3). https://doi.org/10.5817/CP2013-3-5
- Schulz, A., Bergen, E., Schuhmann, P., Hoyer, J., & Santtila, P. (2016). Online sexual solicitation of minors: How often and between whom does it occur? Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 53(2), 165–188. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022427815599426
- Van Ouytsel, J., Lu, Y., Ponnet, K., Walrave, M., & Temple, J. R. (2019). Longitudinal associations between sexting, cyberbullying, and bullying among adolescents: Cross‐lagged panel analysis. Journal of Adolescence, 73(1), 36–41. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2019.03.008
