PSYCH101: How Well The Psychological Account Helped You

Determinants of Risk Taking by Children
Name
Institution
The Event
‘Sexting among under-16s skyrocketing’ is a BBC headline on a news article published on 11th July, 2017. According to the news article, police in United Kingdom have established that thousands of children have engaged in sexting over time. Approximately four hundred children have been probed by police over the same case. CITATION BBC17 \l 2057 (BBC, 2017) These children are aged between five years and twelve years. These cases have been reported in England and Wales. In one shocking case, a five year boy was found to have shared explicit pictures with others.
BBC obtained figures show that there are over 400 children who have engaged in sexting where they have shared pictures with others in the last three years. Majority of these children are aged twelve years and below. It is believed that there could be more cases of the same illegality but have not been captured.
The five year old boy from county Durham is the youngest boy who has ever been probed by police over the immorality and the risk behaviour of texting CITATION BBC17 \l 2057 (BBC, 2017). Nevertheless, the police say that the investigations on the skyrocketing sexting cases by children have been initiated so as to shift focus on safeguarding children.
Texting constitutes sexual immorality among the children. It is a risk behaviour that could lead to contraction of sexually transmitted diseases among the children when they take on to experiment. Sexting is the foundation of immorality.
Psychological Analysis of Risk Behaviours among Children
Many young children make risk taking decisions that lead to involvement in risk behaviours such as taking alcohol, engaging in sexual immoralities and much other dangerous behaviour. However, the tendency o this risk taking behaviour has been discovered by psychologists as dependent on certain factors. One of such factors is age. It has been shown that older children engage in more risk behaviours than younger children. However, more injuries occur to younger children than the elder ones. Similarly, elderly children tend to accept responsibility for the injuries resulting from these risk behaviours (Morrongiello & Lasenby, 2013). The study involved children aged six and twelve years. Essentially, these findings show that children between the age of six and twelve engage in risk behaviours although the tendency varies with variance in age.
Risk taking behaviour in children is occasion by sex. Sex has a strong influence on children’s tendency to engage in risk behaviour (Morrongiello & Lasenby, 2013). Sex drives the young children to engage in risk behaviours such as participating in sexual behaviour. Boys are more tempted to engage in sex than girls. Partially, this explains why a young boy of five years would be involved in sexting behaviour. In addition, sex is one factor that influences how other factors operate to affect risk taking behaviour among the children. Psychologically, boys have a higher motivation to dwell in risk behaviours than girls and the tendency is high with sexual immoralities.
In cognitive reference, risk taking behaviour among children is determined by the perception of risk and injury. Chil...