5, almost 6yr old watched something horrible on a playdate

[Hungrycaterpillarsmummy]

I'm really upset about it. My son told me to look up "have a sandwich" on YouTube (adults YouTube not kids YouTube). We don't let him watched the non kids YouTube at all Obviously! But this is what he was shown and I feel sick! Do I let the mum know or do I just keep quiet? This was my 5yr olds first playdate without me so now I am angry with myself for letting it happen.

Just type in have a sandwich meme and it's an old old man shouting at his wife but as you will see, it's vile.

I think that when children are shocked by something they sometimes react by wanting to ‘normalise ‘ it and make it less scary by getting their parents to reassure them it’s ok so they regain a sense of safety . They’ll present it to us as ‘funny ‘ to ( subconsciously) get a soothing reaction from us to calm their sense of anxiety. An upset / angry reaction from us increases that anxiety & can make them feel a sense of shame too .
As PPs have said this can be reset by explaining to him why you reacted the ( completely reasonably) way you did .

My kids are adults & I ‘messed up ‘ so often in my initial reactions to things when they were growing up . When I calmed down I always took time to reflect on why and how I’d reacted and explain , apologising if appropriate..They have all said that really helped them understand how humans work !

Look it's not great but the internet is a cesspool of way worse so if kids have access to it, they'll watch it. But it's honestly not that bad compared to some of the stuff out there. And I'd be more likely to discuss appropriate things with my kid than tell someone else what their kids should watch.
My kids were way more conditioned to horror styles because it's what I'd watch and what they like. From young age they have always known the difference between movie/show that isn't real compared to real life. But only you know your kid.

If someone hit me up about this I'd speak to my kids about their audience and not showing other kids stuff like this but they wouldn't see a problem with it or have any effect from it as it's pretty tame in reality.. Going by the thread I expected WAY worse...
We can only worry about our own kids within reason and that wasn't bad in the grand scheme. It's a "pick your battle" situation IMO.
I always wanted mine to know whats out there and let's discuss or hear bad language and know it happens but know appropriate times etc. That worked well for mine who are now adults and doing fine.

Best way around it is block stuff and wrap them in cotton wool until you're ready.. No internet - ever. Or they WILL see stuff.

My Dad gave my 3yr his phone to watch Peppa Pig (in same room). He unlocked the phone and opened it as he was well aware that watching “Meg and Mog” is ocassionally allowed. She asked for Peppa.
it transpired “Peppa Zombie chainsaw massacre” (as bad as it sounds) was the 3rd video on the list and she scrolled through. She is still talking about it 3 months later, it caused horrible nightmares and suffice to say EVERYONE is a lot more aware I my family.,,,,

i genuinely had not realised how easy it is to finish up at something like that, partly as we rarely use YouTube.

Oh god, can only imagine. It clearly is a lot more easy to access horrible stuff from having been watching ok shows so I am removing all YouTubers from my phone, DH phone and the apps on the TV.

I think this is really sad. They are 5 years old. “There’s worse out there” is a really depressing response.

@SmashFlight the fact you think it's not that bad, that you were expecting worse against pretty much everyone else on the thread shows your boundaries are a lot more lax.
I have a colleague who lets his 5yr old play Fortnite etc. colleague was stupid enough to announce that to the office and the rest of us internally judged him.
Watching horror shows is not ok for children!

God, horrendous. We had a similar issue with our then 5 year old.
He was being supervised by MIL during the summer and was allowed to watch football skills on you tube. Unfortunately, it rolled on to an inappropriate short showing a man getting buried in the sand by his kids (nothing sinister) and then lightning strikes the sand!! (Sinister). Cue a week of him not sleeping.

Since then YT has been removed from all devices. MIL was shown the film and was mortified - it was our fault for not warning her about it more thoroughly. Even the kids version just can’t be trusted IMO. It was also a great learning opportunity for our 5 year old about always switching off if something feels scary/off.

You live and you learn. Defo flag up because any decent parent would want to know if their child was watching inappropriate content. And if you’re going to send your child there again you need to know if they’re a decent parent!

The responses on this thread are actually mind boggling to me.

The school probably wouldn't do anything. That's not the point of telling them though. The point is they are aware the children have seen something inappropriate, so if they a) act up they have a point of reference for why that might be the case b) they have it on record that the parents of the other child may not be supervising well. As a one off incident it's a nothing report. However if it fits in with a wider pattern it makes it easier for them to take action if they need to because they have more evidence to make appropriate referrals.

It also protects you - if the school become aware that your son is talking about this - they might ask questions because it is inappropriate. You are giving an unprompted explanation.

I know that a lot of people will say it's an overreaction to tell the school, particularly because it's an incident outside school, but it's still something you should do if it's something that's given you cause for concern for multiple reasons.

You are not trying to get anyone in trouble. You are trying to look out for your son and his friend.

My DD has seen some disturbing videos on her Dad’s phone (we split when she was 6 months).
He’s an idiot and just lets her scroll through YouTube.
I hate kids watching YouTube, people are vile and put horrible videos with children-related captions or titles to ensure it comes up for children.

Let the other parent know, they might have no idea.

Way back in the mists of time a work colleague had a little girl come for a play date and brought a VHS. The little girl thought it was one of hers. It was porn.

Cow Orker ejected it PDQ.

School would usually send a letter to all parents reminding them to limit their kids' l'internet access. Of course the feckless ignorant parents who already let their kids watch this stuff never pay attention to these.

This. I messed up with my DS loads of times but always would revisit afterwards and explain why I’d reacted the way I had, and revisited whatever the issue was so it could be dealt with in the right way. DS is now an adult and remembers this as a real positive about his childhood and that it helped him understand others, process things, and not take on my “failures” or emotions as anything to do with him….thankfully!

You can still recover this OP!

My experience has been that the parents who are most vocal about banning smart phones are also the parents who let their kids on YouTube without supervision and have clearly been watching stuff they shouldn't.

I think it would be helpful to let school know particularly if the children are in the same class.

The reason is if they are acting out parts of the film at school (children do process uncomfortable experiences through play) or using phrases from it (e.g. my 6yo comes home shouting out things like "sigma boy" and "skibidi toilet" despite having no idea what those things are, just because they travel like wildfire through groups of kids) it helps the teachers if they are aware what "Make me a sandwich" refers to. The fact that "Make me a sandwich" has been a meme for decades relating to sexism might already be something they are aware of but TBH, a video about a sandwich sounds fairly innocent - as OP assumed when she looked up the video in the first instance. It is less likely that a teacher would happen to know about a connection to an obscure horror video. Therefore it's helpful if the children in the class/school all suddenly seem to be talking about "the sandwich video" it's useful for the adults to be aware they are referring to content which is inappropriate for children.

Presumably the DS's friend did not come across this video completely by chance like the Peppa Pig chainsaw search result. A video like that wouldn't hold a 5yo's attention unless they already associated it with something that has "cool" value. I think it is highly likely that somebody, perhaps an older child who thought it would be funny, told him to go looking for it in the first place. And as OP found out - the message "This is funny/cool/shocking!" sticks so her son immediately wanted to show it to people that HE thinks are cool and wants to impress - his parents. 5 is a funny age because some children will be still fairly innocent like OP's DS and it won't occur to them that adults might see things differently, whereas others will be more aware that there are things they should hide from adults because the adults won't approve. By 6/7 most children are more aware of this difference.

So, if children at school are trying to impress each other as they do at that age (esp boys) and telling each other to go on youtube and look up the make me a sandwich video, it's helpful for the school to be aware of that just as they should be aware of any inappropriate craze. If it turns out to be becoming an issue, usually they send an email or letter out to parents informing them that some children have been upset by viewing this inappropriate content and asking parents to check their child's access to the internet/youtube and be aware that "the sandwich video" is not innocent.

That's all really. It might be a storm in a teacup and go no further but in that case no harm comes from letting school know anyway and it probably wouldn't need to go further than the class teacher.