12 year old ds disturbing Google search

[SusanSHelit]

I have just checked my voicemail this evening and had a message from 12yo ds head of year (y7) about 'something offensive which was picked up by smoothwall on the school laptop while he was logged in'. In the voicemail the hoy said that no requirement for a set of educational sessions and that he assured her it was a one off.

The message didn't detail what was picked up. I obviously had a conversation with ds about this and first he said he didn't remember what he typed. Then a few minutes later he revealed that he typed in 'is it illegal to put an animal in a blender?'

Im honestly really shocked and very disappointed. I would never have expected this from him. His father and I are separated and have been for a few years and he has pets in both houses (gerbils in his dad's, a cat at mine).

I've spoken to his dad about this, we have a pretty good coparenting relationship. Ds is going to his dad's after school tomorrow as I'm working nights for three nights from tomorrow. I'm going to call the school in the morning obviously but I don't even know where to begin with this.

Ds said he was just messing about with his friends but that he would even think about this has really disturbed me. He's a good kid at home, and this seems very out of the blue. He didn't say his friends typed it in, he said he did.

He's been banned from his PlayStation tonight and I've taken his phone too. I don't know if he will be allowed these in his dad's tomorrow

Id be thrown in the nut house if some saw what i google.

If this is all you have to worry about then you are doing great 🤣

i honestly wouldnt give this a second thought, hes just being a silly 12 yo

I think you making a big deal out of this is worse than him googling that. God, i probably googled worse at that age. 12 year olds have very inquisitive minds, this is nothing particularly unusual. Probably some jokes between him and friends.

It’s probably nothing but I’d still talk to him about it. Think how you’d feel if he did act on his search and you hadn’t said anything

Definitely toward the end of primary school the playground jokes were what's green then red? Frog in a blender. What's white and can't turn corners? Baby with a javelin through its head. I went to a lovely Catholic primary too.

Unless he has exhibited disturbing behaviour then this seems like a massive overreaction to what is probably silly thoughts. Some child in year 7 brought in their Mum's anal lube from her bedside table and was glooping it on everyone's bag which prompted the question from my year 7 Ds of what is anal lube? That was a joyous conversation.

Kids do stupid things. This is not news.

This is perilously close to thought police on your part.

Do you never think about hypotheticals or wonder about random stuff? If I searched, for example, about concentration camps or gulags or unit 731, would you assume I wanted to torture & kill humans, or that I was researching history?

He asked if it was legal, and I suspect @likelysuspect is pretty accurate as to why.

I'm sure you'd be horrified at my search history, but none of the weird things I search and look at info about mean that I have any intention of committing crimes or carrying them out.

There's a huge gulf between having an idle passing thought about something (probably sparked by a random conversation), and an unhealthy obsession with it, and even an unhealthy obsession is still miles away from a desire to do an action. This sounds very firmly in the first category.

The difference, since we got the internet, is that when you needed to go research in libraries and books, idle thoughts stayed idle. Now you have access to most of the information in the world at your fingertips most of the time, of course you'll use that to satisfy random curiosity.

Curiosity is actually a hugely positive trait. Don't punish all the curiosity out of him by overreacting, that would be hugely detrimental to his development. A gentle word on what's appropriate at school is really all that's needed here.

I don’t think a one-off silly search like that would mean he actually has thoughts of harming animals. He might’ve even been the one backing up an argument of why you shouldn’t put animals in blenders. In my day it was all salad fingers, blue waffle and other things that were generally more disturbing than a hypothetical question

You're right , I hate parties but not sure what parties have to do with it .

OP, I don’t think you have anything to worry about unless there are other behaviours you aren’t telling us about.

This is, however, a great opportunity to have a calm discussion about what is and isn’t legal to search / general internet safety.

I am shocked and extremely saddened by so many posters minimising this. OP this behaviour would upset me deeply.

I think you sound like me OP any sort of animal abuse is really upsetting and if DS thought like that I would find it upsetting too. My cousin as a child apparently put a cat in a microwave not sure if it was turned on but when I heard that I was horrified. He could be a little shit at times to be honest as I remember him kicking my lovely aunt when he met her for the first time. He grew up to be a responsible member of society as far as I know though.

If he was the type to put an animal in the blender I very much doubt that he would be the sort of person who would reconsider his drive to torture animals because mummy had a few words with him about his Google search.

I would assume it's a joke between friends if he doesn't have any antisocial tendencies in general.

I used to do things like that all the time for a laugh to see what results popped up, it's called knowing but asking a question that someone really daft would ask. I'd be interested in knowing how a computer would respond to something so ridiculous. It's called having fun with AI.

I would be more worried about a school monitoring what my child is looking up to be honest. Teachers are very intrusive these day, some of the questions they ask children are down right perverted.

I’d be more worried if they didn’t monitor what children were using the internet for…

If they are in the same room as a teacher they should not have to be monitored to within an inch of their lives.

wtf
you don’t think schools should monitor use of their IT systems and what their students
are using it for?

do you have kids @TheseWordsAreMine ??

A teacher can’t be expected to keep an eye on every pupil using a computer at the same time! That’s why they have software to block certain content and flag concerning searches!

One of the greatest campfire songs involves tempting a bird (with a yellow bill) in to the house and then torturing it. Including putting it in the liquidiser after coaxing it in with a can of Tizer.

Sounds like a perfectly normal search history to me. As would searches for things such as boobs and vaginas which is what I was expecting this thread to be about!

It sounds like a typical Y7 boy. It’s funny, I’m sure he isn’t planning to make a smoothie out of the cat. It’s probably just boys chatting and being curious about nonsense that goes through their undeveloped brains.

As a society we routinely put animals in blenders, or at least grinders, to make minced meat. That’s not disturbing, I bet most people have even eaten (!) ground or blended meat in the past month. He didn’t even ask if you could put a live animal in the blender.

DH and I had a lengthy chat the other day about what would happen if we put our very loved and cherished dog in the tumble dryer. We are both empathetic, normal, caring humans who take incredible care of a dog that has zero risk of being put in the tumble dryer.

Agree with pp, not a big deal unless other alarming signs. I remember jokes at school about dead babies in blenders. Kids pushing boundaries, showing off. I’d probably use it as a way to show him that what you put out to the world is easy to come back to you so he needs to be more aware of internet safety etc because realistically he’s not done anything wrong

And yet I turned out to be a safe, well regarded functioning and contributing member of society! There’s hope for OP’s son yet!

Not the most objective on that