8 Year old DS googling Sex.

[Louboo2245]

I came home this evening for my DH to tell me he had caught DS looking on google images for, boobs, todgers, missy's and naked sex.

Thankfully due to his appalling spelling he didn't bring up anything offensive. DH had a brief conversation with him and told him we would talk to him tomorrow.

He has a computer in his room, on this he only has sites which we deem acceptable (cbbc, Disney XD, club penguin etc) and can't veer off of these sites. The laptop (the computer he was using) is only allowed to be used downstairs and where we can see him (hence being caught), we've now also upped the parental controls on his user. I'm not overly concerned with his safety regarding the internet as we have taken steps.

I am looking for ways in how to handle this conversation. I want us to have an open and easy relationship and let him know he can come to me with questions, but not sure how to get started. He was embarrassed when DH spoke to him, so much so he took himself to bed 10 minutes early.

Any insights would be brilliant.

just tell him it is ok and normal and appropriate to be curious, however the dangers of an 8 year old boy googling such things will mean that he will by mistake find some things that are not very nice and certanly not appropriate to his age that he will find upsetting and embarasing.

I think it is also important even at this age to stress, the matter of respect and the fact that it is not very nice for the woman involved to have there bodies and images all over the internet and that unfortunatly some people may have been taken advantage of and had their trust broken which results in some images of them ending up on the internet.

Then just ensure your pc does not block M&S underwear section so he can tamly stisfy his curiosity.

Then together take a look on the internet together for books that may answer his questions about sex etc.

I wouldnt be telling him off or coming down heavy on him either.

There is a very good book on amazon 'lets talk about sex' which I got for both my boys when they where about the same age as yours. I gave them a copy each and they are very well thumbed, although they have both not really wanted to discuss anything they have read with me. I havent pushed it, and the only time they have wanted to discuss anything was DS2 asking me what some very rude swearwords really meant. So I told him and explained that he would be better not using them at home or at school!

I agree - stress that being interested is normal, but that the internet isn't the place to go wandering looking for that kind of stuff. Buy him age-appropriate books about sex education - they'll only have diagrams not photos but at least he'll know what bits look like, which may be all he really wants at this stage.

If you think his interest is quite mature for 8 - maybe he's closer to puberty than the average - then you could think about getting him a book aimed a bit older than his actual age, say early teens rather than one of the pre-puberty aimed books.

btdt.
I don't think you'll get him to open up about what he has seen. You could chat about why you don't think it's appropriate for him to see it at his age ever. Help him to accept your authority about why you don't think he's ready for all that. What you are trying to protect him from. He will appreciate you have his best interests at heart, even if he ultimately tries to sneak behind your back again.

Check parental controls on things like DSi + phones, too.

Well, we had the talk. He was less than forthcoming, but it's out there now.
I had the Usborne book lets talk, which is now on his bookshelf for him to look at on his own.
Lets hope it doesn't happen again...

I know you didn't ask for feedback on this but here goes.....

At my CEOP Safeguarding course on children using sites like Club Penguin, I was explicitly told that at any one time there will be at least one Paedophile posing as a child. They advised to always be present when your child uses these 'chat'sites.
They showed real time conversations where adults were talking explicitly and got around the controls using asterisks etc mid word. Not just this but other unpleasantness.

I followed this up with a good friend who teaches IT. He was employed at one point to do forensic analysis of confiscated PCs. He was firmly in agreement re supervision during visiting those sites. On no account allow the child unlimited access on their own, eg in a bedroom.

Hope helpful.

We have this for dd, also 8

We had a huge discussion one day, she asked something & it all lead on from there, so I got her this book (the girls version). It is great! She knows she can ask anything that she reads about & we will answer it as best we can. She has asked lots of questions already & and is quite clued up!

It also takes the mystery out of bodies & sex, so goggling isn't needed.

MrsFaffnBobbocks. I too did a similar course, not only Paedophillia risks but also innocent searches can bring up all sorts. The most memorable one was science and nature looking at certain habitats Beaver was not a good animal to search for. I have 8 year old dd and she will never have tv in room or go on computer unsupervised. I just think this is obvious to any parent

Do you have safe search settings applied in Google.

support.google.com/websearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2521805&rd=1