Is this normal for teens/pre teens at secondary school and can I stop it?

[elliejjtiny]

I have 3 younger dc aged 13, 10 and 9. When 13 year old started secondary he started to get more aware of bad language etc and I caught him trying to look up things on the internet like breasts etc. Thankfully because of our filters at home the only thing that happened is now he knows about how to breastfeed and the symptoms of breast cancer. I'm struggling with you tube though because there are so many awful things on there I have had to ban it completely which of course means ds wants it more. I'm wondering if this is normal at his age. It doesn't help that ds is just under 5ft tall so looks a lot younger than he is. His cousin is over 3 years younger, but taller than him so a lot of family members forget they aren't the same age.

My 10 year old is going to secondary school in September and I'm concerned about the kind of behaviour he will be exposed to. He has GDD so is very immature for his age and he can read but can't write much beyond his name. The staff at the secondary school are great, I'm just worried the other students.

When my daughter was at secondary school I learned the meaning of loads of rude words I'd never heard of!

On a serious note I do think it's scary what teenagers have access to on the internet.

I don't think you can "stop it" apart from your own household no.

You can teach your children to navigate it.

I've had more conversations about knobs than I ever thought I would!

I don't think you can stop it, but I guess it depends on the person, my DD didn't want to be friends/get close to anyone that she wasn't comfortable with as she didn't want any trouble. She was very lucky to be in two decent friendships groups though and didn't need to be friends/close to anyone she didn't feel right about.

Good luck with that one OP. Frankly the things you've mentioned so far are small beer in terms of what he will be exposed to over the next seven years. All you can do is stay abreast of current issues, stay calm, reinforce your family values where you can and always be available to talk and support. It's not easy, good luck. 💐

It’s a nightmare. We have had to tell our 11 and 13 year olds we will check their search history regularly. I don’t like invading their privacy like that but you have to keep them safe online. The hard thing is most of their friends have free rein on the internet and have tik tok etc. We are the bad guys for being so strict.

In terms of bad words do you mean swearing? I don’t really mind about that. We swear in front of our kids but just teach them about using words wisely (don’t swear at school or in front of your grandparents)!

I think it is normal and there isn’t really anything you can do to stop it, especially the bad language. It’s good that you have filters so that he can’t access anything disturbing, but there is always the possibility of his friends showing him. The most important thing you can do is just make sure you create a supportive environment where he feels like he can share things with you.

No you can’t stop it and regardless of what your values and filters are at home your DS is going to have his eyes opened massively. The best thing you can do is try and make sure you have the type of relationship where he feels he can safely ask you things and you can talk openly without fear of judgement.

What happened when you caught your 13 year old googling things? Can he also help your 10 year navigate going into secondary and be someone for him to ask if there’s things he doesn’t feel comfortable asking you?

We put various blocks in place, which I think mostly worked as DH tech savvy - this was several years ago as DC are in their 20s now. One other thing we did was say that they could ask us anything at all, and we would answer - which might mean we did the googling not them.

My son at 12 was more into cars thankfully, wasn't bothered with girls breast or anything.
He was googling, wanted to have a look at classic cars and ones they alter/chop/vamp up. He googles Hot rods The magazine OMG the scream and panic from the living room, I ran in he's in a panic can't stop all the pop ups, what a mess. I still laugh about it and he's an adult now.
However you can't stop them, I did tell the kids, no swearing around me please, I knew it went on at high school so couldn't control that. They still don't swear around me apart from an extremely rare slip all's good.

Of course it’s normal. He’s a teenager and curious about the world around him- including non PG things. Teenagers now have the internet to answer every question they have, you can’t expect them to not use it. I believe every parent should check their children’s search history regularly too- it isn’t an invasion of privacy, it’s a parent’s responsibility to keep their children safe. Offline and online.

Did he not know what breasts were then? That example is a bit strange, I find it highly unlikely he was googling the meaning of that word, more likely looking for pictures of them.

It is normal for kids to be curious about all the new bad language they are exposed to though. My ds asked my why everyone kept laughing at the number 69 when he was in y7.

Its messages and videos that can spread round WhatsApp and Snapchat that are more difficult to monitor.

Is breasts considered bad language? Isn't it quite normal for a 13 year old boy to know about breasts? Bit confused by this aspect.

I'd say yes it's normal for them to start to become exposed to content of a more explicit nature, if you think of the content of a 12 rated films vs a 15 rated film, there is an obvious progression in terms of adult content, the expectation being you will be more familiar with things of an adult nature.

My DC usually asked me things or googled with relatively safe settings on, but as a PP said its the things being sent amongst themselves that are usually more concerning.

Thank you. Apologies for the drop feed but 9 year old is autistic and has echolalia so will repeat words he has heard over and over again. Any word he gets a reaction to, he will say even more. We are obviously calm about it when telling him not to say those words again but it's mortifying when he says fuck in front of his cousin or grandparents.

The dc all know that I am happy to talk to them about anything and although I seem old to them I went to a fairly rough secondary modern school so not a lot shocks me. 13 year old does talk to me about some things, mostly about star wars though.

I think you need to distinguish between what's normal and what's harmful. Children need to learn swear words, it's part of life, they just need to know when is appropriate to say them. They don't need to see graphic videos of violence etc, that's the bit you want to really control. If you have an autistic child repeatedly saying fuck I think you need to handle that by explaining his disability and encouraging people not to give it attention.

He knows what breasts are, and no I wasn't thinking it was bad language. I was concerned that he was looking for videos of foreplay. I check their internet search history too and I think I am keeping them safe both off and online but at the moment with my 13 year old I feel like I need several pairs of eyes at once and it's getting exhausting.

You can't stop what they are "learning" in school but you can control what they are up to at home.

DD had strict mobile phone rules, the same with internet searches. We learnt fast that most parental controls meant she had issues accessing required websites for school work. So we ensured that we checked brower history regularly.

We also were open to any discussion she wanted to have, we talked about porn in the car (felt easier for her than sitting down it seems), we talked about vaping, smoking, drugs, health, bullying etc. You name it, we most likely talked about it.

Yes, the language deteriorated but we also told her what we see as acceptable behaviour and behaved ourselves to model it.

We always told her that trust and respect has to come both ways.