Some teens live in a highly sexualized home with frequent, open sexual behavior between adults. Some boys report that they were viewing sexually explicit materials prior to their illegal behavior and that this material influenced their actions. Sex is used to sell almost everything, and ordinary media content is more highly sexualized than ever. Teenagers today have easy access to highly sexualized materials through movies, television, music, the Internet, and magazines. Exposure to Sexual Materials or Behaviors They may be isolated and feel left out of normal teen activities and turn to children as substitutes for age-appropriate relationships. Some boys who commit illegal sexual acts have serious psychological problems, such as depression, autism or disorders on the autism spectrum or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. The mental illness itself does not “cause” the illegal sexual behavior but it may affect their feelings, judgments, and choices. Their illegal sexual behavior is one more delinquent act in a pattern of highly problematic behaviors. Some teens have a history of consistently breaking rules of behavior at home, at school, or in the community as they repeatedly engage in delinquent behaviors. Other youth may have significant developmental delays that affect their knowledge about appropriate sexual behavior and decision making ability. They may tend to spend time with younger children as they are more comfortable with this age group. Some teens have not matured socially and do not fit in with their age group. (It is important to note that most youth with ADHD do not have problematic sexual behavior.) Youth with impulsive behavior and poor decision-making skills are more likely to break rules (including rules about sexual behaviors) in risky situations. The ADHD does not directly “cause” problematic sexual behavior, but contributes. Some may be diagnosed with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and have poor judgment about relationships and actions. But some teenagers are more immature and more impulsive than others. Research tells us that all teenagers are immature and impulsive to some degree. They also may not know that there are additional legal and other consequences for such behaviors can be devastating to them, the person they offended, as well as their families and friends. The police may charge them, and even arrest them, perhaps at school, and take them into custody and that they may be held in detention and charged as a delinquent, or in some cases, with an adult crime. What they usually don’t know is that the behavior is a very serious crime. They know they’ll get in trouble if they get caught. Some of them will take advantage of an opportunity to find out more-with younger children. More often such behavior is the result of many factors. There is almost never a single reason why a teen engages in illegal sexual behavior. Why did their teen sexually harm someone else? But it’s often difficult, if not impossible, to determine exactly why. Most parents want to know why this happened. UNDERSTANDING ADOLESCENTS WITH ILLEGAL SEXUAL BEHAVIOR Why Did This Happen?
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