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

A lovely boy doesnt google such disgusting things - sorry but someone had to say it. You need more conversation with him about it as to why he'd google such a thing. It isnt just 12 years old messing around, thats a very dark & disturbing thing to be searching. If my son did that, i'd be absolutely mortified & would probably book him a therapy session.

I do wonder what the conversation had been about beforehand. When I read your OP, I immediately thought of ‘Scarlet’ Blake, cat killer (don’t Google if you don’t want the details).

Yes - that is real and horrific, and sadism and psychopathy often starts with harming animals.

But this isn’t that.

Just like watching Tom and Jerry isn’t celebrating the abuse of animals, and not everyone who played Lemmings did so because they enjoy senseless animal death, and not everyone who eats meat will go on to murder humans.

Different things are different. This Google search is not even the smallest step on the way to murder.

Ah okay - well I’m sure you are right to believe him then.

You know they don’t start with the big stuff, right?

I sometimes wonder what would be made of my searches. Luckily I don’t have a head of year. Non-event.

Completely this. Can't believe how lax other replies have been.

Has nobody on here ever watched Spongebob Squarepants or any other cartoon aimed squarely at this age group or a bit younger? They are full of nonsensical violence which is portrayed as completely silly and a bit gross. Stuff like characters ending up in blenders happens all the time. Other popular themes are comedy electrocution making you look like a glowing skeleton, eyeballs which can be pierced or fall out, skin melting off, body parts being stretched or flattened etc. All things which would be absolutely horrific if you imagine them happening to a real person but in a cartoon, it's so unreal that it's silly.

I think most of the horror around the idea is adult, because we are imagining the fact that somebody could in fact try something like this in real life due to the size of small pets and the accessibility of a blender. And obviously, that would be really awful and not funny in the slightest. I would be totally horrified if I thought for a second that a child was considering this. I just also don't think that googling something means you're considering doing it. It sounds very much like the kinds of conversations boys of that age have in a silly/gross-out kind of way (in much the same style as Spongebob etc) and then one of them might well wonder whether it's illegal because clearly, if you had access to a human sized blender and did it to a human it would be, which presumably they know, BTW, in order to even have thought of the question. And DS was the one who happened to be sat at the computer so he typed it in.

I think it's fine to give a consequence and impress that violence against animals IRL would be unthinkable and horrific, and imagine how frightened and in pain the animal would be, but I would not worry that this is any sign of a deeper issue, and I probably would not even ban the watching of cartoons with nonsensical violence, because there's probably a 99.9% chance that's the way the suggestion was being thought of by all of the boys in the conversation. That's exactly the kind of gross humour a lot of boys of that age have, it's not because they are imagining real bloody violence, they're imagining a cartoonish silly version. It is sometimes worth reminding them that in real life, violence is not a cartoon and it is not funny, but OTOH they often do know this already and just find it funny because of the slapstick aspect. They also grow out of it, and the vast majority of them never harm any people or pets aside from the occasional playground scuffle.

There used to be lots of crappy jokes along the lines of “What do you get if you put XYZ in a blender?” Something linked to Kermit from The Muppets I recall.
I think you’re worrying unnecessarily, it’s just kids being daft. When one of my boys was that age he & his friends used to compare photos of poo in toilets & think it was hilarious. It wasn’t pleasant but hardly worth stressing over. This is the same kind of nonsense.

phew thank god you did not over-react! I can't imagine how that would be

(and as above, do not watch Gremlins)

It’s not a cartoon though and at that age they should know the difference.

A child who enjoys torturing animals and will go on to kill humans may well enjoy watching Tom and Jerry for exactly that reason. But it would be statistically absurd to treat all children who enjoy the cartoon as proto-killers. Similar with children who ask questions about animal cruelty laws.

(I’d be answering very differently if OP had said this fitted a worrying dark pattern with her son, but that isn’t this thread).

It’s even less than a cartoon.

The cartoon is a depiction of animal cruelty presented as entertainment.

This is a text question about animal cruelty laws motivated, presumably, by curiosity.

Why is the latter punishment-worthy at all, but let alone if the former is condoned?

This is exactly how I imagine the conversation going as well.

I am surprised that you had a surprised reply to this but perhaps some people haven't spent much time around 12yo boys?

When my 4yo plays cops and robbers and pretends to shoot people, I do not worry that he has been watching videos of police officers shooting people on the internet, nor that he might be a murderer-in-training. Just because I know those videos exist and am disturbed by them, it doesn't mean he knows anything about it. He is just copying a playground game which has been played for generations because it is fun to make "pew pew" noises and chase people. (And sure you can discuss the ethics of this but I'm just glad he is making friends TBH and I'm sure he'll grow out of it.)

MN is determined to jump to the worst possible conclusion at all times especially where boys are involved. Obviously a 12yo will have far more chance of having unsupervised internet access than a 4yo, so it's not completely impossible that someone in the group might have an unsavoury interest, but in the absence of other disturbing signs, do not attribute to malice what can be explained by just being immature (ie, literally a child).

Because googling it suggests some kind of intent, whether it’s to prove it’s illegal or to get tips.

But I’m sure the OP knows her son (although she was concerned enough to post)

And they probably do. What makes you think they don't?

He probably is fine. But surely you understand why people raise the point

He's a good lad and there's no concerns. I'd chalk it up to a random wondering. I'm sure we all have some super weird shit in our google historys but 99.99999% of us are perfectly normal.

I just don’t think it does.

Don’t you have a sense of curiosity about all sorts do things you’d never do, don’t agree with, but just find interesting to learn about?

And if we don’t want 12 yr olds to be curious then what are we doing at all? That’s prime finding-stuff-out age.

MASSIVE overreaction.

At worst he was dicking about with his mates and it was under his login.

Was it on here or somewhere else that someone said a kid was searching for Yoshi videos online, and it went on to something twisted involved animals? It worries me what kids see, and while you might have never left your kids unsupervised online, I know my kids' young primary friends are sometimes given phones and look up all sorts, and they talk to the other kids about it, so even the well looked after kids hear about these videos.

I am sure you are right. But it’s still worth monitoring in case it escalates.

When I was a teenager there were jokes about Kermit in a blender. What green then red at a flick of a switch? See, still remember.

Children being their glorious, gross little selves imo. Horrible Histories for example has been popular because its gross. As he's normally a lovely lad, I'd not worry. Keep keep an eye on him for a while to see if any strangeness going forward...!

I'd be very concerned if he was searching for videos involving animals and blenders.That's not what this is at all. It looks like innocent curiosity and was probably the result of a conversation with friends - I've googled all sorts of strange things when nobody in the group was sure about the answer. Yes, the answer to the blender question is obvious to us, but maybe not to 12 year olds.

I think it's a massive leap to go from that search to imagining he actually wants to do it or is in any way dangerous or disturbed. Honestly when I read 'disturbing Google search' in your title I thought it would be something far, far worse. This is completely harmless unless there's already a worrying pattern of violent behaviour you're not telling us about.

When I was a child we used to sing a song about squashing a bumblebee and then licking it up. It didn't result in anyone killing and eating bees, it was just gross humour.

Of course I’m curious about things - I’m always learning. However I don’t feel the need to be curious about awful things I would never do - and certainly not enough to bloody google it!

So should a curious 12 yo be able to look up anything at all? Kids of that age are often curious about bodies and sex as they are hearing about it and being taught at school. Is it okay for them to have a quick browse of PornHub or whatever?