7 year old viewing porn

[ipadshocker]

DS1 aged 7 has been using my iPad for homework.Quick flick through history reveals he has seen some porn sites,first accessed by him searching for "Simpsons naked."Then obviously has seen other things and had a look at pornhub, fit chick teenage fuck and other similar.I am very shocked and don't know how to deal with this.I asked him what he had been doing with the iPad and he said he didn't want to tell me.When he realised I knew,he cried ,said he felt embarrassed and got upset.Quick chat about not looking at things unsuitable for children ,have obviously changed security and restricted iPad use and left it at that for now.What else should I do? We have never even had a facts of life discussion other than in biology/animals mating context.I think it was childhood curiosity initially but am worried about exposure at this age and whether I should talk more? Am also sad that I have let in happen by not being careful & supervising .Any advice?

I think this thread is really harsh on the op. I'm also confused by the poster who thinks a seven year old shouldn't know the work 'naked' I'd be amazed to find one that didn't know the meaning of naked tbh.

Anyway, op - similar has happened to me. My ds's (aged 6 and 8) have i pads and dh spent a long time putting parental controls and safe filters and all that gubbins on. My two are supervised but not every split second - yes the ipads have internet access but they mainly use them for apps and games.

Anyway, a couple of months ago I was pottering around and realised the dc had gone quiet so checked on them - they were huddled over an ipad looking worried and deep in conversation. I asked what they were doing and they showed me - and it was the front page of pornhub. Obviously I took the ipad and asked them about it and they said guiltily that they'd been typing words into google and that the site had just appeared.

A history search showed that they'd typed in the words 'boobiees', 'bum' and 'testacal' into google - the rudest words they could think of between them. Personally I find that entirely 'normal' behaviour tbh and like a pp said, akin to previous generations kids looking for dirty words in the dictionary which I definitely remember doing at this age!

I have no doubt that somehow the safe filters failed and a pop up appeared and don't think it's any indication that my dc have been abused and were actually searching for porn .

It was a lesson learned for us that you shouldn't put too much faith in safe filters and we've moved on. Some of the responses on here are OTT.

My 6yo thinks anything to do with 'bums' or 'willies' is hilarious so I could easily see a 7yo innocently searching for naked Simpson without there being sinister connotations as some posters have implied.
However, as other posters have said you will need to have a careful talk with him to be sure he hasn't picked up on from elsewhere.
Going to check my iPad settings now too and be a bit more careful in my monitoring. DS is always on there, playing games and looking at cat videos on YouTube. This has also been a wake up call for me that I'm going to have to talk to him about Internet and adult things.
Sad that it is so easy for them to be exposed so young to this kind of stuff :(

Btw some children seem to ask a lot of questions ant sex, where babies come from and the like.
My dcs didn't so I have created opportunities for me to tell them about it and talk bat sex, what it is etc...

Dc1 would have been quite shocked by that sort of films at that age.

*Im sure this is a child protection issue.

How the hell would a 7 year old know what porn is? He must of been exposed to it by someone alot older than him.

I would be extremely worried about any sexual abuse going on here.*

What an enormous pile of of alarmist shxt. He probably witnessed some naughty discussion by older boys in the playground, and he and his friends all agreed they would see what they could get a look at on their parents iPads. The only mistake OP made was not having the necessary locks on it.

When my stepson was 7, and I was 8 months pregnant, he picked the bathroom lock to come in and have a good look and a laugh at my nakedness. Of course he got hell from his dad, but it was no more than innocent curiosity. (Or perhaps he had been abused by a naked pregnant woman and developed stockholm syndrome and thought he was in love with me and now needs serious therapy).

My daughter and her friend googled "kissing" on the friend's mum's ipad (clearly had no parental controls enabled) and found all sorts of dodgy stuff within a click or two which traumatised my daughter a lot. She was 8 then but was able to tell us something of what she had seen and didn't understand. I don't think OP's son was being anything but curious as my daughter and her friend were clearly just curious, and unfortunately you cannot police and supervise every bit of computer access these days which is very sad, you can protect your own devices but your child's friend's families might not. Curiosity leads to the world of adult content very quickly. All we could do was have the talk after the fact...

We're all perfect parents until we aren't

A few of the sanctimonious wind bags on here could do with reminding themselves if that.

OP

**of

DameDiazepamTheDramaQueen - I ALWAYS agree with you.

Hey OP.

I am dreading parenting through times like this.

Have you seen the PANTS campaign by NSPCC? I would use this to form a discussion and then go onto say that it applies to other people as well and that viewing things on the internet also applies.

He may seriously be interested to know what others look like so a good age appropriate human anatomy book may be useful - the DK ones are great!

Also, has anything been raised in PSHE at school that may have caused him to have a look? School may be doing a bodies topic or maybe internet safety so worth checking with them and going along the same lines (just in case you contradict what each other say).

My 7 year old knows what naked is.

We all makes mistakes and the op is here to ask for help to resolve the issue.

If my 6 year old had never heard of the word naked I'd worry about his vocabulary 🤔

As others have said, I think talking is key!

I have found suggestions from Anya Manes useful. She is an American ex-teacher who now coaches parents on talking to children about sex and relationships. Her approach makes a lot of sense IMO. Having a look at her website would be a good starting point.

Agree- all 7 year old boys are curious and love looking up rude words. I'm shocked that so many posters on here are so shocked! I suspect if this was a mainly make forum there would be much less outrage! Most men would say they started quite young to get curious. Not talking porn curious just curious! And nakedness is funny when you're 7 (and older )

*Mainly male forum

Same happened to me years ago, and I still feel sick about it. I feel your pain OP.

My diddums comment was in response to the OP being 'sad' that she'd not supervised her child and to emphasise that he should not be in trouble for this.
I do think that this generation of parents is sleepwalking into a real crisis wrt children accessing disturbing and dangerous content online. Parents of older children had time to process and develop techniques for protecting our children. There was the internet, but it was very slow and you couldn't use the landline, it was in a common room/ then phones, but only for adults and they were expensive, ditto tablets whereas primary school children today probably have multiple daily opportunities to see horrific content if they're not supervised

Op there are lots of parents totally unaware that their children are accessing this stuff. When we were kids we'd look things up in books. Now they can google it and get exposed to all sorts. Even if they have total lock down at home, they can be out on the street looking at someone's phone or in their friend's house on the tablet looking at things. We all need to realise this is not something we can totally protect our dc from and educate them about what they should and should not be watching.

So we have to be explicitly clear. If you ever search for something like 'naked' or 'sex' then you will be banned from the ipad until i am ready to trust you again. Because you will find things that might scare you or confuse you because they are not appropriate. You could ask them if they have seen anything like that. They might want to ask you some questions about it. Be open. Don't give them a massive rollicking if they've viewed something and you never said to them not to look for 'naked' etc. It's happened and you need to talk about what they saw. But be clear about future rules.

You need to discuss sex in terms of loving relationships and if he has seen porn, then you need to say sometimes people film things that aren't loving and that this is not appropriate. Also, I would maybe talk to school and see where they are with their sex ed and also e safety as I think this issue is little understood. We all assume little ones aren't going to google 'simpsons naked' and then have all this porn available. Which could happen at someone else's house where their internet safety is not kept an eye on.

Im going to guess he's put in naked simpsons, been taken to a dodgy site that has then led him on to the other sites. I doubt he was actively looking for porn, although obviously you need that conversation to check. I doubt he was even actively looking for anything 'adult' or even curious. Just the whole bums, farts and nakedness is hilarious.

Now pandoras box has been opened its time to talk about appropriate behaviour, co-erceiveness and how what you see isn't 'real'.
Ive got a 7 year old, id be mortified. But i can see how it could happen.
Bums, farts, nakedness is all hilarious at this age. Unfortunately rather than giggling about it at school they have these bastarding machines that give them access to this whole world they aren't ready for.

I've got a 7yo ds who is very curious. Computer is always in a public place where I am walking around. Youtube is on restricted settings which also stops them accessing a lot of music videos (good thing imo).

If it makes you feel better, my two boys (then aged 7 and 5) were allowed unsupervised access to the internet at after school club (yes, really) and one of the girls (aged 7!) googled 'bums' and this opened up a whole new world of images I really wish they had never seen. When I raised it with the after school club teacher she replied that this was 'the first time it had happened' and if I was worried, she would ban my children from using the computers. To say I was pissed off by her response is an understatement. Up until that point, my children had no idea they could do an image search on any word they liked.
It's not abnormal at all for 7 year olds to be curious. Good luck OP!

In the Simpsons movie there's a bit where Bart is skateboarding with his willy out and that's probably been brought up at school. OP, have you checked the NSPCC guidelines on online safety, they might give you an idea on where to start the conversation. Also the PANTS advice is really good for starting those kinds of conversations too. It all sounds like it started completely innocently to me, you noticed and did something about it. Think you've been flamed unnecessarily to be honest.

Squeegle

You're right. I was introduced to what were then called girly mags around that age. It came from being part of a large circle of neighbourhood kids of all ages who got up to all sorts of shenanigans together and the older ones passed their tips and tricks down to the younger ones. I was making rather impressive bombs before I was 10 but strangely I never grew up to be a terrorist. I had seen naked women in numerous magazines and knew roughly what sex was long before I hit puberty but never grew up to be a rapist or an abuser and I don't even find porn appealing.

The OP's son may grow up to be an emotionally dysfunctional misogynist, or he may not, but it will have nothing to do with him briefly seeing some dirty pictures when he was 7 (IMHO). I'm actually more concerned for the children of the neurotic numpties who are advocating calling in social services or the NSPCC than I am for the OP's kid. Having a nutter as a parent is far more likely to produce a dysfunctional child than having a parent who makes the occasional honest mistake.

I can see naked Simpsons being something a 7 year old boy would think funny. Most boys of around this age think bums willies and farts are hilarious.

The problem is a search on the word naked opens a massive can of worms if you don't have filters enabled. He has probably just clicked things randomly.

You need to talk to him. First watch from the history so you know what he has seen. Then ask the questions above why did he search for that? Did the videos upset him? Does he have questions? Etc.

You also need to have the sex talk now. You can't put it off if he's seen this stuff. Find an age appropriate book and do the basics at least. He needs to know what he saw and that it's not normal.

Also put all of the filters on already. It will be different for each isp but we are on plus net and it filters at their end so the settings are valid for any device that connects to the net.

A- how dose he know what porn is
b - small children should be supervised on any device that hasn't any safety settings on place

I have security settings on iPad etc BUT I have to be totally honest in the OP's defence I wouldn't even consider the possibility of my seven year old searching for porn. Maybe I'm just naive but it wouldn't be something I would think was an issue at that age.

I have no real advice other than to have a good long chat about why he was searching for things like that in the first place. And take it from there