sex offender laws for youth

in the article i read in the nytimes i found out that if a minor around the age of 16 was to send an explicit picture to another minor that child would be punished legally. The child would be labelled as a sex offender. I think thats completely wrong. Its only something that happened due to pressure from an outside source. We need laws that deal with the issue based on facts and the particular situation rather than a blunt outcome.