Ah, wasn’t it much simpler when kids just spread outrageous lies about each other through bathroom graffiti?
Instead, four teens allegedly created a Facebook profile for Laura Cook’s son. The page, which featured the teen’s name, photo and cell phone number, claimed that the boy was having sex with other boys and made racist remarks, including one about President Barack Obama. The fake profile might have been nasty and crude, but it was popular, quickly collecting at least 580 online friends.
The page has since been taken down, but Cook, a Chicago-area mom, isn’t satisfied. She filed a lawsuit this week in a county circuit court, claiming that her son was defamed and his reputation damaged, theChicago Tribune reported.
The lawsuit lists the teen defendants only by their initials, R.C., A.G., K.Z., and M.S. Cook is asking for unspecified damages.
Thanks to her fast-texting fingers, an Atlanta-area teenager alerted her friends to rescue her from a sexual assault.
The 16-year-old girl was walking home when a stranger jumped out of a car, grabbed her and forced her into the woods, reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. While her head was being held down, the teen managed to text a friend for help, police said. As the girl’s buddies arrived, the suspect and two other men fled the scene.
On Tuesday, police arrested Jose Hernandez-Ruiz and charged him with kidnapping and sexual battery for the Aug. 20 attack.
Teens have been doing it, now it’s teachers’ turn.
A Detroit-area middle school teacher allegedly sent 10 sexually explicit text messages and a partially nude photo of herself to one of her 14-year-old students. Michelle Simsonson, 28, has been charged with enticing a minor for immoral purposes and distributing sexually explicit material to a minor.
Simsonson had been the boy’s teacher during the past school year, but has since resigned from Sashabaw Middle School, the Detroit Free Press reported. She was arraigned in court last week.
The boy told investigators that he and his teacher began texting each other in the fall, but then the content became more sexually explicit. He said he told her to stop and that there was never physical contact between the two.
If convicted, Simsonson faces up to four years in prison.
A New York social studies teacher pleaded guilty on Tuesday to having sex with a male student seven times in an empty second floor classroom after school.
Melissa Weber, 28, who taught at a public school in Queens, NY, has given up her teaching license and will enter sex-offender treatment, the New York Daily News reported. For the second-degree rape plea, she was sentenced to 10 years probation and is barred from all social networking sites frequented by minors.
The boy’s mom found out about the sex incidents when she looked at her son’s cell phone and saw messages and calls from Weber. The teacher’s lawyer says that Weber is remorseful and that her behavior was the result of a dysfunctional childhood.
When Weber was initially charged, she denied the allegations. She told police that the teen had been the aggressor and grabbed her butt.
Photo from Facebook
“An orgasm a day keeps the doctor away.” That’s the slogan in a British-government-sponsored health pamphlet targeting teens.
The leaflet, being given out to parents, teachers and youth workers to pass on to their kids, says, “Health promotion experts advocate five portions of fruit and veg a day and 30 minutes’ physical activity three times a week. What about sex or masturbation twice a week?”
Steve Slack, an official at the National Health Service in Sheffield, says that the unorthodox message is not advocating irresponsibility. “Far from promoting teenage sex, it is designed to encourage young people to delay losing their virginity until they are sure they will enjoy the experience,” he told reporters.
Alexa Longueira, 15, was getting ready to send a text message when she dropped into an open manhole in Staten Island on Wednesday. Workers had opened the manhole to flush a high-pressure sewer line, authorities said. Alexa happened to be walking with a friend, but it seems that friend didn’t warn her about the danger.
Alexa’s mom told the NY Daily News that the teen suffered scrapes on her back, arms and shoulders. It’s unclear whether Alexa managed to ever send that all-important message.
In happier days, Tyler Deccio, 18, received nude photos of his 15-year-old girlfriend. Once the Everett, Wash., couple broke up, Tyler allegedly posted the X-rated pics on MySpace, along with the girl’s name and crude comments.
After the girl went to the cops, Tyler was arrested on felony charges of suspicion of harassment and posting nude photos of a minor. Tyler appeared in court on Wednesday, where he told the judge that he thought his girlfriend was cheating on him, KING TV News reported.
Tyler is just the latest kid to be arrested on sexting charges. Read about other cases here.
If you think that teens take so many dumb risks because they believe they’re immortal, this study will make you think again.
University of Minnesota Medical School researcher Iris Browsky found that one in seven teens believes that they’ll die before age 35, and that such fatalism is strongly linked to greater risk taking behaviors, such as illicit drug use, suicide attempts, fighting and unsafe sexual activity.
“While conventional wisdom says that teens engage in risky behaviors because they feel invulnerable to harm, this study suggests that in some cases, teens take risks because they overestimate their vulnerability, specifically their risk of dying,” Borowsky said in a statement. “These youth may take risks because they feel hopeless and figure that not much is at stake.”
The study found that nearly 25 percent of youth living in households that receive public assistance believe that they will die young, as do more than 29 percent of American-Indian, 26 percent of African-American, 21 percent of Hispanic and 15 percent of Asian youth. Just 10 percent of their Caucasian peers have such a pessimistic outlook on the future.
Officials at an Arizona middle school thought they were justified in requiring a girl to take off her clothes as they searched for ibuprofen pills. But on Thursday, the Supreme Court said that such a search was so degrading, it wasn’t constitutional.
School authorities never did find the pills. The vice-principal at Safford Middle, near Tucson, had been told that Savana Redding had brought ibuprofen to school and planned to distribute them, an allegation that she denied. Under the school’s zero-tolerance policy, even over-the-counter pain relievers are considered contraband. Savanna, then 13, and her mother, never received an apology from the school. They sued, saying that the search violated the girl’s rights under the 4th Amendment, which bans unreasonable searches.
Justice David Souter said that the school officials lacked “an indication of danger to the students from the power of the drugs or their quantity, and any reason to suppose that Savana was carrying pills in her underwear.”
The only justice to disagree was Clarence Thomas, who said that judges shouldn’t second-guess how schools maintain discipline and safety.
Sleep could save your teen’s life. A new study claims that kids who go to bed by 10 p.m. are less prone to be depressed or have suicidal thoughts.
Researchers found that teens whose parents insisted on a set bedtime were 25 percent less likely to be depressed and 20 percent less likely to have suicidal thoughts. The findings were culled from a database of 15,000 teens who participated in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health.
“Teens who get less sleep may be more anxious and more likely to feel badly,” Dr. Jonathan Pletcher of Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh told HealthDay News. “But, I think this study’s findings also speak to a connection between the teen and their parents and their ability to work together.
Experts says that most teens should have at least eight to nine hours of sleep a night. Not getting enough can affect a child’s focus and learning and lead to obesity and type 2 diabetes. It can also affect moods and make a teenager more impulsive. All of which can lead to depression.
For tips on how to help your teen get a better night’s rest, click here.
Photo by Husin Sani