Son’s internet history is really weird. No idea what to do.

[Flippersfriend]

A few months back, when he first got his own iPad, I discovered my 11yo son had been looking up videos of something really really strange.

Firstly I apologise for not writing what it is here. I’m worried this post will come up when he searches for this topic again.

It’s nothing remotely illegal or adult or sexual or dangerous, just really really odd and definitely indicative of something very odd on his mind. Nothing to do with sexuality or gender either.

I’ve raised it with him before and asked (very calmly and non judgementally) why he looked that up so often and would he like to talk about it more. I said he wasn’t in any trouble at all but it was an unusual thing to be looking up. He was embarrassed and said no reason at all and refused to talk about it any further.

It stopped for a while but I’ve found a load more searches from the last few days.

As I say, it’s nothing ‘bad’ at all. It’s certainly within the parental controls I have on his iPad. If he’d only looked it up once or twice it wouldn’t be a concern at all, but he’s looking it up over and over again.

While I realise it’s hard to give advice when I’m not giving specifics, my question is more around how I talk to him about it again.

If he were a friend I’d want to say “dude this is really bloody weird. Why the F are you looking this up so much?” But I can’t say that to my child!

I’m a single parent so I can’t ask his dad to talk to him (it’s not a man related thing anyway).

Yeah we've all seen it on telly but it's a bit OTT to go straight there. Intrusive thoughts to the point of wanting to amputate a limb falls under OCD anyways. I don't think OP should go in all hysterical and hiding the lawn mower.

Yesi second this, I should be called Alice with my pet chant for rabbit holes. I also have always constantly had an alternative life narrative running in my head like a movie where I take real life problems to sort them out. Sometimes I’ll google all manner of random shit regarding my inhead narrative. It’s like research for a book. If one of my characters gets ill, I’ll google that.

realise I now sound completed balmy lol.

Honestly, first thing I thought, given your example, was that he has a sexual interest in it. If that's the case you need to nip it in the bud, although I appreciate very difficult. One thing that stood out to me was his embarrassment when you brought it, if it was just an interest you'd think there would be no embarrassment. In this situation I think I'd bring it up to see his reaction and if I had an inkling it was sexual I'd block the search and look at getting someone professional involved.

My ds around that age was very fixated on a particular animal, is it something like that? If so he was quickly over it, a year or 2 if I remember correctly

Apologies if this has been asked already OP, but has he come into contact with anyone with whatever he's looking up before, or for example could it be something that came up in school perhaps?

Using your example of an amputee, has he maybe been learning about WWII in history or something similar where the topic may have come up?

I have a vague memory of a science lesson where we were being taught about biology I think it was, and we were told of this experiment where someone had a stomach wound that wouldn't heal or something and at the time people were dangling things directly into his stomach from a piece of string to do random experiments - It might've been in relation to someone who was constantly hungry and would eat anything and everything he could get his hands on - It could be maybe something like that piqued his interest and he didn't quite get all the answers he was after from whatever the original experience was?

Is it something he may have seen on TikTok?
Only asking as one of my DD friends is always talking about a certain group of people who like to act and even dress up as a certain animal (not furries) it’s an identify thing which she discovered on TikTok. She sent my DD videos on it over WhatsApp but I check her convos regularly so we had an opportunity to discuss it all, I was a little worried as my DD has autism and can be easily influenced.

At 11 presumably he's just about to start secondary - there's usually all sorts of rumours/stories running around wrt what happens to first years - googling drowning from head in toilet bowl wouldn't be unusual?

Of course he really could be researching issues that a friend has - ie not necessarily him.

( If he's been watching eg black mirror then anything is possible as a thought train.)

Are you my long lost twin? 😯

Op i wouldn't worry too much, this is the age where you deep dive into a rabbit hole of weirdness. I couldn't get enough of Hammer Horror films at that time and I do believe I caused my mother a huge amount of stress. I absolutely hate horror films now.

An 11 year old should not have free access to the internet to look up whatever he wants, IMO.

@Thurlarder there's parental controls

I would offer to meet you to try to change your mind but that would be a pattern and I'm not a serial killer.

If the object of DS' fascination is some sort of disability or disadvantage (based on your amputee example, which is helpful) it might be worth having a chat with him about how hard life can be for those people, and that although differences are interesting, we should not treat other people's differences and difficulties as entertainment. Encourage him to pursue other interests.

If it’s burn victims I would be concerned

I just googled t a x i d e r m y and mumsnet and this post came up.

I don't know if you're trying to fool youself because you like this guy or you really believe it, but your grooming theory is nonsense. Almost everybody who uses the internet knows about furries and very few of us become one, because we have no sexual attraction to animals or pretending to be animals. Your ex already had that and just found his people. He wasn't a victim in any of it.

Do you think if someone had got hold of you at age 12/13/whatever and started telling you how great amputee porn was, you'd now be a raging amputee fetishist? Spoiler: you wouldn't.

It's Lelly Kelly shoes isn't it? Or Barbie?

I don't want to concern you unnecessarily, but I'd suggest trying to see a child psychologist for an exploratory chat if that's within your means, I appreciate waitlists are very long and arduous to get onto at all sometimes. I know amputee was just an example, but I recently interviewed someone who had a history of sexual offences, whose obsession actually was amputation. It developed gradually, and the first overt exploration (though not consciously sexual) was the age your son is at now. This fascination led to some poor choices that harmed both the offender, and his targets, in very serious ways and it is unlikely he will ever leave an institution for both his safety and that of others. This is a very extreme example, but one that we can learn from.

Think carefully about how whatever he's searching could manifest if it were acted out, either on himself or on another person, and variations of that. If it would be harmful, that's a cause for some early concern and gentle exploration before it escalates in puberty. Try not to confront him with it again - the fact he couldn't explain it, and ceased his activity after the 'confrontation' is why my mind goes this path, rather than just something he googled out of interest and from a context that inspired the interest. Confrontation may increase the 'taboo' nature of the topic at a sensitive developmental period.

OP, could you coincidentally just happen to have spotted a story about this on the news/internet, and mention it to him in passing, in order to spark a discussion about it in a positive way and then see how he speaks about it - eg: is he anxious, embarrassed or enthusiastic about it?

Everyone looks up weird stuff. I've looked up whats narcissistic and got obsessed with that, what's prison like and how to survive it, and I haveca secret Britney obsession. I was also briefly interested in the life of a porn star and how families that have 22 kids etc. cope.. I'm a normal woman with manageable/barely noticeable adhd and autism in my 30s. The thing is once you see something say in the news you can obsess over it. Technology gets us hooked.

I'd just check he's OK generally, encourage getting out more, hobbies, screen time limits and otherwise leave him to it.

Sorry, he's 11!! I should read properly!

parental controls!

If this obsession of his is causing you concern, whatever it is, then talk to him about it. 11 is a funny age, not a child but not yet a teenager. Lots of stuff going on both physically and emotionally.

Does he know someone with the thing he is looking up? I had a friend at primary school who was blind, in my strange child brain it seemed really cool and exciting and I thought all blind people would automatically get a dog that could take them anywhere they wanted to go. If we had the Internet then I would definitely have been looking it up.

Why are you concerned that he might 'cut off your leg'? I think I may have guessed what it is, but the fact that you're worried he might harm you suggests that it's a bit more than just a bit of googling.

Does he write stories, or act? I think a lot of kids have a secret universe with different characters, anything like that? Or a friend who has a relative with eg anorexia, a conviction for bank robbery…

this week I have googled, amongst other things, how to prepare snails for cooking. I’m vegetarian, and I can’t remember why I wanted to know…

How have you guessed?? I'm so confused by it