Year 6 boy watching porn. WWYD?

[conveyancing]

A boy in DS's year 6 class has been watching porn on his phone and telling some of the other boys, including my DS, about it in graphic detail. I know the mum well and I'm fairly sure she'd be horrified. Should I tell her directly or tell the school?

If I tell her directly I'm fairly sure she'll be grateful, but she might tell her DS who it was who dobbed him in, making things difficult for my DS.

There could be grooming to account for this or neglect

No, I don't think so. His mum's a midwife and talks to him very openly about sex, so he's not shy of it, but he's always been the sort of boy to push boundaries too. The school know the family well, so I expect they'll nip it in the bud appropriately. If he does the same thing in Year 7 at a new school it might end up in a sledgehammer/nut scenario (though not literally ).

Porn isn't a cheeky glance at some boobs. It's toxic for children and may well be used for grooming them for sexual activity with them.

Have you ever seen any of the Internet porn available for free these days?

The second-hand description I got from my DS was of a man walking into a hotel room where there were two sleeping women on the bed, who he had sex with.

Tell the school.

Similar actually happened in a school I worked in, although it was very coolant, but legal porn. The child had blue toothed it to himself from his dads phone.

Violent*

When my DS was 10, he used to play Grand Theft Auto. One evening, after his friend had been over to play, the Dad (who I knew well) phoned me and asked if I knew what the game was all about as the boys really shouldn't have been playing it. I thought it was car racing and was horrified when he told me it was about stealing cars and featured prostitues and drugs! I genuinely had no idea, and it was a big wake up call that I needed to be much more vigilant.

If the Dad had gone to the school before speaking to me, I'd have been mortified. And it would have created a massive amount of work for something that was easily resolved with a conversation.

In this sort of situation, I think you really need to use your judgement. You say you know the family well and are satisfied this is about a bit pushing the boundaries, so need to drag the school into it.

Tell the school, fgs. You really think she’ll tell her ds who “dobbed him in”?

I would talk to the mum personally its 100 times more likely that he learnt about sex is sex educations and googled it than he is being forced to watch porn at home by someone

easily resolved with a conversation
Do you really think it wasn’t an issue to let your ds play Grand Theft Auto because you didn’t know what was in it? It’s rated 18, presumably you knew that much?

if you go to the mum she might think it could be nipped in the bud but especially around sex I think a boy is more likely to hide and carry on or it exploding.
whereas the school is detached and can deal with it less emotively and they will be the ones around the boys in the time to come and so will no to spot anything or keep an eye on it.this is a wider issue and more about safety than anything the teachers need to know

Tell the school because I wouldn't trust the mum to deal with it if she hasn't bothered to block access to porn sites on her son's phone!

OP, tell the school. Particularly because other children have been involved by having to hear about the details of what the boy saw.

When my DS was 10, he used to play Grand Theft Auto
So you knew your son was playing an 18 rated game and you didn't think to check why it was an 18?!

@Iamagreyhoundhearmeroar no, I don't know it was an 18. I didn't buy it, he borrowed it from another kid. It was really lax of me, I fully admit that. But that's the point making. Busy parents do slip up sometimes. In this case, I think a conversation with a Mum I knew well, would be a much better way of dealing with this than reporting to the school.

Tell the school, if only because telling the mum might well reduce / prevent the harm to the child himself, it won't support / help the other children he has told / shown. The school is in the best position to deal with that 'secondary harm', as well as considering the welfare of the 'principal child affected.

Obviously it’s better and more likely that he’s not being groomed or abused. However it doesn’t affect the safeguarding issue especially since porn on the internet is a far cry from the top shelf magazine in the woods of some of our youths. Hopefully what he’s seen isn’t too awful (though more than you’d want your child to see at that age) but he could easily click from that to something awful.

The family needs the school to talk to them because apparently they aren’t monitoring their child’s use of the internet well enough to properly look after him and others. It is difficult nowadays and schools can be quite helpful in supporting parents with media use as the schools are required by law to be quite up to date with it and parents aren’t.

Tell the school AND the mum

Tell the school, because they may have noticed sexualised talk or behaviour around this child or in a group of them, and also because if you tell them they can keep a closer eye on this child in case there is behaviour they have missed but may pick up on with a closer eye. Schools are VERY used to doing this.

Also tell the mum because the school won't necessarily tell her and they are unlikely to pass it on to social services unless they are aware of other behaviour that you are not aware of. Your son needs to accept that the boy's mum has to be told. You mustn't keep this to yourself.

It is not uncommon for children to watch porn on mobile phones then act out what they have seen with other children, either 'consensually' or violently/coercively. It's very risky.

I know very little about all sorts of popular culture but I know that Grand Theft Auto is 18 and for a reason.
I know we all have different tolerance levels but porn is porn. There are levels of porn and none of them is suitable for a Y6.

busybarbara
He’s seen doubtless seen graphic images of penetration. He’s probably seen photos or footage of females (hopefully women choosing to dress up and look like prepubescent children) and not children having sex with at least 2 men at the same time, rape scenes which are hopefully fake and probably much more besides.

He’s 10 or 11 fgs. This is exactly how boys either learn to believe girls are sex objects and treat them badly or are so traumatised themselves that they are completely put off sex.

This is a massive problem. Not viewing boobs ffs.

Tell the school. Even if there's nothing untoward going on, they'll need to talk to the other kids who have now been shown porn, and presumably their parents will need telling. Is the mum likely to contact the other parents and let them know her child has shown theirs porn? Thought not.

Exactly - it’s not just about this child and your son, but about the other children who’ve been told.

I would tell the school. Not the mum. You may know her well. But she needs to hear it from the school, discuss it with them and decide whether or not to talk to you about it. If you talk to her about it, this will change the dynamic. Let her have her dignity and preserve your ds’s friendship with her son. Her son is a child and he’s made a really stupid mistake and by the sound of it you are happy for them to remain friends.

I also think you should tell the school. A lot of parents are oblivious to the prevalence of children watching online porn. Research has shown that kids as young as 6 have viewed online porn and by the age of about 14/15, the figure is over 90%. That was not the case when I was at school- absolutely no way. And this is often highly violent and misogynistic porn we are talking about. As this post shows, it takes only one kid with a phone without parental blocks and it exposes other children to it too. The schools need to hear about it and in my view, internet porn needs to be made illegal unless paid for by a credit card. I am sure lots of blokes would weep into their pints and feel that their human rights had been violated, but I feel very strongly about young children seeing this as normal. Parents are clearly unable to protect against this (if the boy's mum confiscates his phone, he will watch it on a mate's phone), so it requires hardcore state action.

Good luck.

I work in a secondary and I think you need to talk with a member of the safeguarding team. I would not speak with the boys mum. She doesn't need to know who reported it.
No, it's not uncommon and that's the sad thing. As smile says, soft porn soon turns into much uglier stuff including child abuse and much more.

And for some of the comments above about 'it's just boobs'. I think this is incredibly naive. Maybe you should check it out yourselves.

@HarryLovesDraco The school ABSOLUTELY will tell the parents!! They have to in situations like this!!

@VioletCharlotte and @upsideup Why do you think the OP shouldn't inform the school? I'm shocked that you can even be thinking that she should avoid the responsibility of safeguarding the other children!! The boy's mother is hardly going to go telling all her son's friends parents what he has shown them, is she?? And they absolutely need to know in order to protect their children and talk about what they've seen 🙄🙄

We are not talking about busyBarbara's 'boobs' here! This was a threesome, with full on penetrative sex that they watched 😳😳😳😳😳😳😳 And that's just the one that the OP's son saw...who knows if he's been sharing other stuff before this incident?