What we're dancing around though, is that there are actual pedophiles on the Internet that would like nothing more than to have the 11-year send them underwear, or even fully-nude pics. That's what the 11-13 year old needs protection from.
And keep in mind, pediatricians now recommend starting to talk to your kids about sex and consent starting at age five.
https://mcpress.mayoclinic.org/parenting/when-to-start-talki...
Punishing that 11-year old, charging them as a sex-offender, when they were the one that took the picture, makes zero sense though.
> A child should be aware of their consent to being touched or handled — or their space being invaded — from age 5.
> sexual health education has traditionally been timed to coincide with puberty
It seems like an attempt to inject a pediatrician with a book on sex ed in aspect of kids health, where common sense would suffice.
I would strongly suspect 11 year olds behaving in a sexual manner likely did not receive good parental instruction. On the other hand, we have an epidemic of broken homes in this country, so it's unsurprising that this is also the case. I do not think that it necessarily indicates a situation anymore dangerous than the norm, which is that many kids are neglected because they don't have active engaged parents, and they may be exposed to things which are inappropriate for their age due to the circumstances of poverty.
I didn't grow up well-to-do, and I got to be exposed to some pretty gnarly things at 10-11 that thankfully my daughter has never been exposed to, because I was able to provide a better life for her. Unfortunately there are many 11 year olds that will be exposed to horrible things, and that will have an impact on their life. I don't want these things to happen, and I have taken every step I can to make sure my own daughter is not exposed to the same things I was exposed to seeing, much of which was a simple consequence of growing up in poverty in a bad part of town (such as seeing someone OD and die at a bus stop on my way home from school).
That's all we really can do in this situation, is be better parents, there's no meaningful way that society can step in for children with disengaged parents unless we want to criminalize it and institutionalize the children. As someone who also got to experience "the system" for children in this country, it's actually far worse than having an overworked single parent who lets you use the internet unsupervised and wander around on your own while they're at work.
At face value, the idea that this specific age group is sending more such photos than the older cohort is surprising enough I would reject it as bad data without further research into why it is happening. Selection bias seems a much more likely explanation.