Madamez's suggestion of books to leave around for DS to find is spot on. I'm going to try to subtly arrange this for my DS1 (12yo). Far better to see this mutually kind and respectful (albeit slightly cheesy)image of sex than learning to fetishize body parts in a girlie mag.

so glad to read something else about this, I was called into my ds1 school at end of year 6, saying that some parents had reported pornographic sites being created by chidren of the school. Turned out he and his friends had photographed pictures out of "where do babies come from" and posted that along with rude comments and stick drawings of the girls at his school. Had a long talk with him about how its normal for boys of his age to talk and think about sex but not to post private thoughts in the public domain of the internet. I don't think he actually realised anyone else would see the stuff as it was on one of these networking friend type sites (like myspace but for younger kids - forgot the name now. Think he learned his lesson - hope so - not sure how to keep policing it without disturbing his privacy! He's 12 now.

A few years ago BILs 2 boys found and printed out photos of beastiality. Then proceeded to show them around the playground. Cue traumatised children and the police getting involved.

My mum burnt my bro's porn stash - he still got more though.

I think it's more about the doing something naughty and taboo behind your back that is the thrill. Showing him the Joy of Sex will not stop the thrill of that!

i guessed it would be nearer secondary age- he's in year 4 now so still 2 yrs in primary, so am hoping i have plenty of time to work things out. my biggest concern with the internet is that he knows more now than i do about comps and things, so if i can figure out how to work parental controls etc- he'll get round them if he really wants to.
maybe if i am honest about things as issues come up we ewont have too many issues

We have our computer in a very public place so that I can be passing at any time. I also check the history and the DSs know that I check the history. There are some truly horrible things on the internet.

AND (this is a topic close to my heart can u tell) im amazed at the pics school kids share on sites - several of ds friends (girls) are in full school uniform posed v sexily and sultry and it does worry me that theyd fall into the wrong hands ....

dylsmum dont worry it WILL happen generally secondary school is the place it all happens.

We too hve to do spontaneous fone checks looking for undesirble videos

ok i have been curious about this for a while. my ds is nearly 10 and is so far not showing any interest (that i am aware of!) in this but would like to be prepared. his dad isnt involved so am going it alone. i want him to have a respect for women but not to think his curiosity, when it appears is wrong.
any tips about things/what to talk would be great. i really am concerned about getting it right!

with regrds to junior ccounts -on my aol settings i can choose what they can access under certain screen names so instead of leaving the pc signed on in my screen name i made up a junior account giving them access to only v suitable stuff it really bothered them and they realised the privilege of trust in using an adult account

I like the joy of sex plan - might learn something myself...
I must admit that the Nuts plan was a really bad one on reflection, I don't want to be a prudish parent though so J o S sounds like a good compromise. I have ordered a couple of 'puberty manuals' from amazon today so we'll see what they're like.
They don't give you information like this at ante natal classes do they??

Buy him the joy of sex - pictures that aren;t too horrid and he will know far more than anyone else his age and hopefully have abalanced view of sex and human bodies - think Nuts is the wrong thing to buy a kid of that age!

I wouldn't give a 10-year-old Nuts either (though I wouldn't go beserk if he acquired it himself) - which is why I said I would see what I could find out about suitable books. There are bucketloads out there which are about nice couples having affectionate sex, called things like How To Spice Up Your Marriage and full of advice on mutuality, kindness etc.
Basically, have one or two of these lying around the house. They are not much cop for an actual adult, but perhaps better for an interested and nosy pre-pubescent or pubescnet than the books aimed at actual children which (while great for younger DC) may be percieved as too babyish by older ones.
The idea is to get the message over that sex is about liking your partner and giving her (or him) pleasure, and treating each other politely as an absolute minimum, but getting this message over in a way that doesn;t seem like grownups wanking on and preaching.

Agree that the idea of giving Nuts or the like to a 10yo is pretty awful.

Oh and I realise that just because mine shows no interest doesn't mean others won't, agree with you there. I would be interested in the answer to the question of what to do about it without involving the likes of lads mags.

Madamez, I wasn't being a prude about sex and puberty, I don't know the answer to the question of what to do to satisfy his curiosity but I am convinced that the likes of Nuts are not it, given their view of women and womens sexuality.

WWW: there's no official age for puberty to start, so no need to assumed that something is wrong with the OP's DS - or indeed with yours.
But a good book on sex might not be a bad idea - if you don't want to be creepy oversharing parents, just buy one and leave it somewhere he will find it. But buy one with photographs in it so he gets a visual treat as well as useful information.
Can't recommend any titles straight away but will have a rummage and get back to you.

Buying him a copy of Nuts? Are you mad? That's VILE. What sort of idea does it give a TEN YEAR OLD about women and how to treat them? It treats women as objects, to be used for nothing but sex, I really, really would say this is a very bad idea indeed.

I think there are 2 issues:

internet use and what he is and isn't allowed to search on

his interest in sex and so on

Thge first is easily fixed, install netnanny or something (or Protowall works! It blocks mn as well though!) there was a recent thread on what software so I'm sure there are loads of recommendations on there.

The second thing, hmm, not sure. My ds is 10.8 and doesn't seem so far to be remotely interested in girls etc, it's all urgh as fahic.

What's piqued his interest? Is there a friend who's shown him this? Where did he get the idea from? Also, put safe searcgh on google.

You have my sympathy, I've got this to come.

Boohockey - I think you might be right in buying him a copy of nuts or something similar - at least those are nowhere near as graphic as some of the stuff you can see online! You or DP can always glance through it first to make sure it's not too explicit.

"This stuff is so much more easily available to children than it used to be."

Yup.

It's awful isn't it. We just found some fairly hard-core stuff (graphic oral plus intercourse) on DS1-12's phone. He is a physically mature 12, but mentally and emotionally he's very immature and was likely to share the images inappropriately (he had already shown some of it to DS2-11 and his friends). I believe his friends had sent it to him and it didn't come from our computer, but I agree the parental controls are rubbish. Anyway, after we deleted the videos and he had the phone confiscated for awhile we gave it back and told him it would be subject to random checks. And had the 'respect' talk to him as well. I know it's fairly normal, but I also know it will get him into trouble (e.g., at school) when he tries to show it off, so I don't want him having it.

This stuff is so much more easily available to children than it used to be.

I'm intrigued by the Mums with Marshmallows site..
How do you put them on junior accounts? This sounds like a fine plan..
I am also wondering if it would be better to just get a copy of nuts and leave it lying around, at least I will know what he's looking at then?

i made the mums with marshmallows up lol im afraid to even try and google it lolol

Mums with marshmallows?

Anyway I would also suggest making sure it is in a VERY public area and disabling it when you are not going to be around to supervise.

The porn stuff wouldn't worry me too much (after all he is a growing boy!) but I would have a talk about respect for women and just how bloody dangerous the internet can be!

Maybe get dad to do it? It might freak him out to talk to you about it.

ohhh i forgot to add my way of solving this is to put them on junior accounts -they hate it !!!they cant access google ,wikipedia etc etc red hot babes ...mums with marshmallows etc etc ......

we have had this hence ds1 being known as the porn meister!!!

it is a very common thing for boys to do unfortunately it was me that caught him and not his dad so i just gave him the respect talk that a mans respect begins for himself then his parents then ultimately his own family if he shows such little respect for me to be caught then obviously theres a element of disrespect i didnt make him think it was dirty and wrong just that discretion is the key.......later his dad had a strong word with him...THEN ...... i was told ds2 hd tried to buy nuts mgazine in the local newsagent(unfortunately for him hes only 12 and the assistant is my friend ) something tells me this is a lesson thats gonna be hard to learn .......

Would suggest you put a mirror behind the computer chair so he feels more observed! I know, it's a wicked mummy thing to do but you'd be surprised how thinking you don't know whether anyone can see you will curtail your worst excesses

thanks all - thought I was doing the right thing already, the computer is in a very public thoroughfare place in the house and I am always popping my head over his shoulder but they are devious souls sometimes are they not?! He is definitely satisfying his natural urges (had his first wet dream a while ago) and I don't have a problem with him looking at porn per se but the question is how? the internet is such a nightmare should I just buy him a copy of busty ladies and be done with it??[wink}

One thing that can be worthwhile is an online timer prog which will limit the times he has access to times when you can keep an eye on him and/or ration his perving time.

Parental controls are rubbish IMO.

Move computer downstairs and tell him about the history checking.

Cory - such a shame boys these days don't get the Freeman catalogue. I can remember my brothers surrepticiously looking at the lingerie section when no-one else was around.

Meant to add about the obvious risks of the internet. But whomoved has done so already.

If he is looking at stripping, could it be that he is trying to satisfy his (entirely natural) curiosity about the female body and the pleasures thereof? Which is an entirely reasonable thing to do. What is not reasonable of course is to look at internet porn, as it usually (I imagine) involves a cold emotionless attitude towards sex an objectification of women in particular and a degree of exploitation of the models. Can you explain to him why this particular way of finding information/satisfaction is not a good one, and suggest alternative sources instead (a nice book).

(1) Remove the modem cable (or disable wireless networking if you have it).
(2) Get better parental controls installed. What were you using? Even the best ones don't control things like cached image searches on Google (but hopefully your little darling isn't that tech-savvy yet - that's next year!)
(3) Remember this is normal. Kids are intrigued by sex and it's not that different to handing round pages torn out of porno mags in school. What you do need to watch out for though is that it doesn't develop into contacting people or putting himself at risk.

Oh and don't feel bad, I was asked to repair a computer for a dear friend and his 11 year old had downloaded a video file called 'female ejaculation' (and then tried to delete it and deleted some essential files which had buggered the PC). I had a long chat with him and he was mortified - now I don't doubt he still looks at dodgy stuff, but at least now he knows he can be found out, so does it discreetly.

Can you move the PC to somewhere more public, ie living room? That way you'd be able to monitor what he's looking at.

When you aren't around, just lock the keyboard away so he can't get up to anything you don't know about?

I don't know how computer literate you are, but if you check on your 'history' (this is on your internet settings) it will tell you all the sites he goes to - if you explain to him that he can't hide his tracks, maybe he'd think twice about looking for dodgy stuff.

They start early don't they!

Hello all!:0 I am new here and have just been hit by the sledgehammer of my 10yo ds surfing for hot sexy babes on the web. I first discovered it last week and installed the parental controls that come with my browser but it turns out that they are complete rubbish cos he is still able to search and find all sorts of nasties. I had 'the talk' with him earlier today and explained that I didn't want him to find out this way and that I trusted him not to do it again and predictably as soon as my back was turned he is looking at stripping and 'teen sex' on utube
Help!! What do you lot suggest I do next? I am obviously banning him from the PC for a few days but I need a longer term strategy- he's always responded well to 'being trusted' before but this has failed me big time today