TODAY’S teens face dangers that parents and grandparents often struggle to understand.

Our children have grown up with phone and tablet technology and use it instead of face-to-face communication as naturally as breathing. They  express their immediate thoughts and feelings this way to friends and don’t appear to worry if these same intimate details are picked up by strangers.

This uncaring approach to the personal side of their lives is extended to posting naked and indecent pictures of themselves, quite often to their latest partner or would-be partner.

Teens are unself-conscious about this sexting but it can have dangerous repercussions, especially when relationships end badly. It’s actually illegal for under-18s to send provocative pictures full stop, but the potential damage can blight their lives totally.

Now, police are receiving a number of reports from local parents and teachers concerned that young people have taken or received indecent images and it really is a worrying trend.

It’s only a few weeks since naked pictures of celebrities including actress Jennifer Lawrence and singer Rihanna were published after seemingly being taken from Apple’s iCloud storage service.

On a far less starry level, naked pictures of youngsters can be used to exploit them for money or sex or simply to embarrass or humiliate them with other young people. And we all know how life-changing cyber bullying can be for them and the terrible resulting headlines about youngsters taking their own lives.

I’m not sure if identifying the potential dangers of sexting is something that all schools warn pupils about as part of a life skills’ or social lessons  but perhaps it should be. It should definitely be something parents need to monitor.

If police are contacted about this the youngster can be arrested and any phones examined in front of parents – humiliating enough in itself. Phones and computers may be destroyed and a conviction remains to haunt job prospects and personal life for many years to come.

Older generations may be stuck in a time-warp with worries about gropers and other types of sexual predators. But this is a modern spectre that needs addressing, probably with difficult conversations about what is and isn’t appropriate. You pay for the phone, ask to go through it together occasionally to check its use. The answer lies with parents.