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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

girlie pics on 12 yr old sons laptop

47 replies

tinktink · 18/07/2012 23:44

Oh god. Watching film with my son and thought he was casually keeping an eye on something on his laptop/facebooking his mates.... I looked at it and he had googled "nude girls". I had taken the grot block off to enable him to look up some sport gear he was after for the holidays and the little tike is looking at some pretty hard pictures.

Do I put the grot block on and give him a talk or take the laptop off him until he is older and get furious?

Should a 12 year old even have unsupervised access to a laptop? - he travels between me and his dad and homework goes back and forth on it so I thought it was ok, but not to search out nudie pics. He goes to his mates houses and watches jackass and looks at god knows what. 12???? I was climbing trees and eating sherbert fountains not thinking about sex....

Am I just getting old? Is it a healthy interest and if so shouldn't he just happy with nicking his dad's copy of the Sun or is it straight in at the deep end now?

I am insulted that he did it when we were meant to be watching a film earlier as an end of term late night treat after the other kids had gone to bed, I mean not mega late but 8 until 10.... but I suppose that is me being unreasonable? Is 12 suddenly what used to be 15? If I blow my top and stop him won't that make it even more intriguing to do?

Someone talk some sense into me.....please

OP posts:

FredFredGeorge · 19/07/2012 08:43

Erm, what is the "old 15" thing? 12 is an old age for boys to become interested in such things in my experience as a now 38 year old man, and the poor searching he's doing suggests he's new to it.

manup2012 · 19/07/2012 09:10

I agree with Paradisechick. Our young people have been seriously neglected in this regard.

Parents need to change their attitude to the seriousness of this. If that girl in her Marks and Spencers was under 16 and he shared the photo he is committing a child sex offence.

janelikesjam · 19/07/2012 09:34

I am in agreement with other posters.

Curiosity is natural and no growing child/teenager should ever feel ashamed about that. However, there is nothing wrong with maintaining your own old-fashioned values (if you happen to have them) and believing that computers need to be completely supervised (and filtered) until they can afford to buy their own.

As others have said, typing in "naked ladies" on a pc is going to get you a lot more than a page 3 "stunner" these days

boneyjonesy · 19/07/2012 09:44

I think it's normal and natural for boys that age.Back in my day hardcore porn mags were circulating in the first year of secondary.

funny how on another thread its so important for chickens to be able to exercise their instinctive behaviours and yet when kids do it we are aghast.

Step · 19/07/2012 09:45

Had the same thing a few weeks ago on DSS's phone.

I didn't want to make him feel too guilty, curiosity is normal. He's just googled "fit girls with massive tits". Not the ned of the world, but we had a wee talk that was as embarrising for me as it was for him. He's 12, it's normal.
We now have net nanny, but that's not going to stop 3G on his phone. No idea how to police that.. ideas?

manup2012 · 19/07/2012 09:59

Have a look at the CEOP site, there is advice on there.

KissMyEmbroideryHoop · 19/07/2012 10:00

Boney...watching young women get fisted is not instinctive in young men and boys. It's learned.

As is watching porn which is made in dubious circumstances. How ridiculous to try to compare chickens with people.

KissMyEmbroideryHoop · 19/07/2012 10:02

And before you say "The OPs son did not watch anyone get fisted"

If hefollowed a couple of links, he certainly WOULD have seen something like that before long.

Its a hop skip and jump from "Girls with big boobs" to "Barely Legal Gang Bangs"

BertieBotts · 19/07/2012 10:12

Step - I'm sure there are parental control apps you can get for phones, and also, there are two versions of the internet for phones I think, you can set it to only access the family friendly one, but I can't remember how.

boneyjonesy · 19/07/2012 10:16

Utterly pointless!! They'll just look at the stuff on a friend's phone.

mummytime · 19/07/2012 10:51

boneyjonesy - so it is utterly pointless to do anything to try to control what our children see and do?
Nope we show them we don't approve, at least the use of NetNanny etc. makes it clear that these images we don't approve of. They may circumvent the ban, but then they may also realise why the ban was there in the first place.
They can also be educated in how exploitative the whole industry is.
Yes I do think the more we just get rid of the rules and allow things to be freely available the worst the material freely available gets.

flatpackhamster · 19/07/2012 11:27

Step

Had the same thing a few weeks ago on DSS's phone.

^I didn't want to make him feel too guilty, curiosity is normal. He's just googled "fit girls with massive tits". Not the ned of the world, but we had a wee talk that was as embarrising for me as it was for him. He's 12, it's normal.
We now have net nanny, but that's not going to stop 3G on his phone. No idea how to police that.. ideas?^

You can buy content filtering for some mobile providers, so it's worth checking for that.

In terms of content filtering within the house there are two ways to do it. First is that you need a broadband router which does the content filtering for you. A few routers do the content filtering - the Draytek Vigor 2700 range, for example. The router is about £140, and the content filtering about £30 a year. 100% effective.
Second way is that you can get parental controls applied by the people who manage your DNS. You can buy content filtering from a company like OpenDNS (who are very good).

Basically you need to do the filtering at the point where the broadband enters the house, not on the individual device.

lastnerve · 19/07/2012 12:45

Firstly, yes its very normal for a 12 year old boy to be thinking about sex.

However the access to porn available now is a newish thing and is a big worry. He probably just wants to look at boobs and good looking women having sex (sorry I know he's your little boy)

but will possibly coming across some woman being spat at and god knows what else. Do you have like when my sons get to that age there will be one computer in the lounge so I can see everything muhahaha.

Alurkatsoftplay · 19/07/2012 12:58

What's your suggestion then boneyjonesy? Have 11 year olds watching anal, rape, gang banging, bestiality etc because it's 'pointless' to stop them and 'back in your day' they did?

Mrbojangles1 · 19/07/2012 13:01

This is why our child uses a communal computer and adult content is censored we also have a swearword filter which you can add your own words to so we added words from the urban dictonary we also have timer on the computer so it only come on a certian times of day so we dont. Have to worry about what he is doing when we are not here

LeanderBear · 19/07/2012 13:10

We got DC1 a laptop at about 12 or 13 and gave him a contract to sign at the same time. They are usually clever enough to work around any of your blocks so you need to be clever. You can put a program on his laptop that will register every site he visits, even in private browsing mode. The program will automatically email you the results every day, or whenever. If your son knows you have that it will help him control his curiosity.

Apart from the moral aspects of kids and pornography, the fact that porn sites are often laden with viruses is not an unimportant one.
My DC is now 19 and I, guess, he can look at what he wants

Mrbojangles1 · 19/07/2012 21:06

flatpackhamster heres a idea get him a phone with out 3g

tinkertitonk · 19/07/2012 21:26

You are making too big a fuss over this. At best, the outcome will be that he decides that sex is one more thing he has to lie to you about.

WeeDom · 20/07/2012 01:03

12 year old boys will look at pictures of naked girls, if they are available to look at. It's a fact of life, and has been happening (probably) since caveboys realised they could draw boobies on a rock with a piece of charcoal.

I agree it's inappropriate to do it in front of your mum, though! eeew! What was he thinking???

Is 12 the new 15? No, not at all. I remember being shown my first jazz-mag (stolen either from his dad or his paper-round employer) by an older boy at Scouts, when I was probably about that age. I probably didn't have the faintest idea what I was looking at, or why it made me feel funny, but it didn't do me any harm (afaik)

Re free porn on the internet and links to harder stuff/bestiality -well, maybe, but he'd probably need access to a credit card in order to pay for it. That's easy enough to prevent. Don't worry about it.

I'd talk to him about boundaries, inform his father and (like I've done with eldest DD) not allow unsupervised internet access - if she's online, I'm either in the vicinity or looking over her shoulder.

Oh - and don't bother blocking.

I caught my 10yo DD marking emails as unread so that I wouldn't know she had confirmed access to moshi-monsters.

Clarification - I gave her a hotmail email address, but not the password (only rp mum and I had that) - that way I could a) make sure she was only emailing when I was around and b) login if I wasn't around to check she wasn't doing anything dangerous/stupid. The bollocking she got was ferocious, and I now won't trust her with unsupervised IT until she's much older - because I know she already knows how to pull the wool over my eyes (unless caught in the act)

Anyway, I'd put £5 on it he can out-computer you already. You'll wind up with online banking blocked, and access only to greatbigboobies.com (though maybe that's just what my 12yo old me would do to teach you a lesson :) )

TheEnthusiasticTroll · 20/07/2012 01:12

talk to him about it, dont go off the wall at him though.

give him a very clear and transparet view of what porn is and why it is wrong ie exploitative, unrealisist view of women and relationships, what he sees is not a true represenative of normal bodies, normal sex and excludes love and respect. tell him he is too young to be exposed to this and tell him you will conviscate the lap top next time this happens. I would also lay on about lack of respect to you that he was doing this when you where both suposed to be sharing time together.

I dont know the answer about natural curiosty at this age TBH, at my aghe it was just the odd wank mag with pics of fannies tits and erect willies, often inserted in a fanny arse or mouth, pretty foul however nothing like what the internet is able to conjure up in this day and age. does not make it right or less exploitative and I would not want my dcs or anyone to view any porn however metart is a very tame site of just fannies and breast, but im concerned some of the very pretty models are very young. It may be something you weish to direct himto if you are not concerned about the moral dilema.

biddysmama · 20/07/2012 01:13

check that everyone knows that children should be montitored on the internet, i stupidly assumed my grandad would know and now my 10 year old has seen more than he should have :(

manup2012 · 20/07/2012 22:08

Flatpackhamster, I didn't know you could filter content at the source connection, that's really helpful. Does it slow the system down though?

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