Concerned about gay SS(10)

[Emmaex]

Im concerned if im honest

SS is 10 and turns 11 literally a few days before he goes into year 7, DP has half the time but are less stricter with it during the holidays. We had him for the first week, his mum has had him for the last 2 weeks and we will have him for the next 3 inc his birthday and start of year 7.

Hes had a phone at his mums since 2023 since he was 7 and it has no restrictions on it but his mum has said it’s her house her rules. He has tiktok and I think tiktok and general unsupervised internet use is a very very big factor in his personality, he told us (and his mum & his whole class) he was gay last year when he was still 9, his mannerisms aren’t what you would expect from a 10yo though, he constantly says things like “slay” calls people “queen” and “babes” as in “calm down babes” (one example) and talks in a very dramatic manner as if he’s performing but it’s how he genuinely talks all of the time, he’s very looks focused aswell he’s always looking in the mirror and asked DP for skincare for his birthday and those spot patch things (he has and never has had any spots bar chickenpox), he insists he WILL be a famous actor, he’s very boy focused and constantly is talking about his future boyfriend and when we remind him he’s still young he doesn’t have to worry about boyfriends right now but it’s currently constant and id find it concerning if a girl was the same about a boy or a boy was about a girl

He has siblings at his mums and he’s left to his own devices a lot (and she booked a holiday for the week he starts secondary for just them) and yesterday she didn’t even know where he is when DP picked him up. Luckily SS had his phone (he doesnt usually bring it to ours due to the disagreement over parental control issues, I think his mum must’ve told him to leave it at hers) and DP picked him up but it was after 9pm by the time DP got him in the car and he was quite far away in a park and it had already started getting dark and he’s 10.

DP has got his phone and he’s had a quick look and alot of his for you page on tiktok is drag race and makeup/skincare type things just from a quick scroll. His search history is things like “cute boys” “hot boys” and names of various men actors etc, searches about stranger things and pretty little liars and ive never watched the whole of either but I don’t think either are suitable for a 10yo that was from just a quick look too. His screen time is 11-12 hours a day and I worry about the cute boy searches and the fact he is constantly talking about a boyfriend could potentially put him at risk for grooming

DP is also really concerned about bullying at school if he acts this way especially as he’s already the youngest he’s worried about the dangers of the phone use and how he’s already acting at 10 - he doesn’t care about if he is gay but he’s acting very old for his age

Would this be grounds for trying to change the custody agreement ? Any advice will be appreciated

Don’t be ridiculous you cannot seriously be telling someone to try to take custody off a mother who is not abusive or neglectful. 🤦‍♀️ ffs

11 hours of phone use, unrestricted Internet access and being allowed to wander around parks at night at the age of 10 is extremely neglectful. The boy is very vulnerable. Someone has to look out for him.

No one should be on there screens for 10 hours a day. Especially not a child. That is shite parenting. Weirdly I could count in several languages by ages 12 before the Internet was invented, books, meeting people from other places and doing karate taught me.

A couple of hours, fair dos but 10 is ridiculous.

But you said it as if it were a significant barrier to access. Why would using 2FA make a difference? It’s to stop unauthorised account access, it has nothing to do with stopping children accessing porn. It presents no obstacle to the account holder other than tapping a few extra buttons. I don’t see what point you think you’re making.

Thank you. I get that people want certainties - this IS a safeguarding issue and this isn't. But when you deal with safeguarding allegations, disclosures and concerns you quickly learn that it's much more complex and you have to weigh up so many aspects. Literally life or death in some cases. Different professionals view issues in different ways to add to the challenge of reaching a consensus about levels of risk.

Some people are woefully ignorant of the range of risks unsupervised online access poses to children. Not just from the huge number of predators who seek them out online, but from many other dangerous sources. The Children's Commissioner has just released a report about children addicted to violence and how they're ignored by the Prevent anti extremism programme:

https://www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/press-notice/press-notice-childrens-commissioner-demands-reform-of-anti-extremism-programme/

Nobody should be dissuading adults from raising concerns about children with extensive unsupervised access online.

Yes. And this case has a strong whiff of neglect by his mum all over it. Poor boy. At least OP is aware and trying.

The lives of the olds I know could not be more different (in a good way). This boy deserves better.

*10y olds

Yes you should be concerned about this young boy. 12 hours a day unrestricted screen access and a mother who doesn't know where he is? I don't think his sexuality necessarily puts him at higher risk since paedophiles groom both boys and girls regardless of their sexuality but having said that, I always remember the case of that young lad who was chatting to someone on line who he thought was his bf but was murdered when he went to visit. But yes this is a concern and I think all you can do is educate him about internet safety and safety when he is out and about unsupervised eg remind him that even when he is at his mums he needs to tell her where he is going and what time he will be back. You could even turn on the tracking function in the phone and link up with that so at least someone knows where he is at all times?

I’m talking by age 4/5 not 12 though.

screens didn’t exist when we were kids so we can’t compare then and now.

Screens are useful too.

Because you cannot access porn until you age verified, he cannot age verify because he doesn’t have a credit card or an id that shows him as 18 plus.

He can’t log in using someone else’s already age verified ID because he has to be able to get a code from their Authenticator app.

Does that make sense now?

If the mum is allowing 11-12h a day of screen time for a TEN year old and unlimited internet access, including to tiktok and age inappropriate stuff then I think I can safely agree that in this case mum does not know better than the step mum.

Of course ten year olds are impressionable and will easily copy whatever they are exposed to. This is why it's important to not expose them excessively to content that isn't appropriate for them. I could be wrong but I would it concerning if a ten year old child repeatedly voices a strong sexual preference and keeps talking about it. I have a ten year old and neither my ten year old nor their friends seem to be interested in anything remotely sexual. And most of them are still pre pubescent.

I don't know if op is homophobic but whether she is or not her concerns are valid.

She is giving unsupervised and unfettered access to the internet to a child. That's no different to deliberately putting porn on TV and walking away. Or showing live executions or anything else you find on the internet.

You don't have to be violent to be abusive. Neglect and emotional abuse are often longer-lasting and more impactful on a person's long-term mental health and happiness.

This woman is allowing her child's personality to be grossly distorted. And she even has tools to help prevent it and doesn't use them. That's despicable.

Not everyone is supposed to be a parent. Giving birth doesn't (/ shouldn't) entitle you to raise the child if you're not going to do it well.

Kids could potentially use parental ID and unless their parents are signing in to every porn site, that will work.

They can also just download porn / videos from various torrent sites. Plenty of ways to circumvent restrictions. I'm surprised you don't know this. Do you really believe children cannot access porn or murder / beheading sites etc - been around for decades now.

In this case suspect porn's a bit of a side issue (grim as it is). Predators looking to groom children aren't on the porn sites - they're on all the online gaming, live streaming, snapchat, tik tok, public chatrooms - anywhere there's DMs or disappearing content that allows private contact. And they'll usually not present as adults - they'll pose as other children.

That's why this child and others are at risk from unsupervised online access. It's safeguarding 101 and the OP is doing a good job by raising it as a concern.

Would that all children had trusted adults in their lives who recognise the risk the online world poses to children. Here's a link to CEOP - the police Child Exploitation Online Protection. Useful to bookmark as they provide clear information for anyone who finds inappropriate online content aimed at a child:

https://www.ceop.police.uk/Safety-Centre/Should-I-make-a-report-to-CEOP-YP/Should-I-make-a-report-to-CEOP-parent/

He hasn’t said anything sexual, just that he wants a boyfriend when he is older. This could be because the boys and girls have started coupling up and there are no boys that he can couple up with.

Just to be clear I don’t mean couple up in any sense other than the silly childish thing kids do at that age where they all have boyfriends and girlfriends but they don’t actually even speak to each other they just both are in the same class. Surely you guys have seen this with your own 9-12 year olds…it’s not about sexual preferences and I wish people would stop saying sexual about children, because to them there is nothing at all sexual about it, they’re prepubescent children ffs

ODFOD, letting your child use their phone and look at what they want is not the same as randomly putting porn on the tv for them to see.

Why must people ruin their own points by making such outlandish claims.

The stupid thing is I agree that it isn’t great that he has this much time on screens or can use the internet as much as the OP claims he does (note I did ask about the screen time breakdown but it hasn’t been replied to, so we don’t know whether his screen time was spent on YouTube kids, games, or on less wholesome content), but to liken allow in a child to use the internet to putting porn on the tv is insane.

And as I keep reminding people, to watch porn you have to produce identification such as a credit card (which he doesn’t have) or ID (which he doesn’t have), and even if he could guess his mum’s porn hub log in, he would not be able to access it as he needs to have a 2FA code which comes from an Authenticator app that is on her phone. You don’t just accidentally stumble across porn anymore, or ‘easily’ bypass the controls.

ALSO for what feels like the 50th time, there have been zero claims made that this young boy has accessed any sites with explicit content, or that he has tried to view them. He has literally searched for cute or hot boys…just like loads of other kids his age did. I remember when I was in year 5 and a group of girls were looking up boobs, penis, vagina in the dictionary and giggling, that is the nature and curiosity of children, but this boy hasn’t even done that, he has just talked about a time when he will have a boyfriend when he is older and looked for pictures of cute boys.

I feel sad for him that so many adults want to make this something inappropriate.

Do you know what's sad? That from the outset you have dominated this thread with repeated dismissals of perfectly reasonable safeguarding concerns about this child.

Those of us with experience of safeguarding and countless other parents have agreed that he is potentially at risk and checking his phone in more detail is reasonable. You've told someone to fuck off for making a perfectly reasonable point about the harms of unsupervised online access.
I wonder why that is?

I suspect I know why it is, that poster is massively hung up on OP being a step mum, there are people on mumsnet who have chips on their shoulders about step parents, so I think they have an issue with that, to the point they couldn’t care less about how vulnerable this child is.

Yes, I agree. This has been clear from the start but I couldn’t be bothered to raise it.

Throughout this thread I have agreed with the vast majority of what you’ve said. Also IYRC I actually have said that the phone should be checked more often, and you poo pooed this as not being enough.

I’ve just consistently made it clear that:

1. a step mum should not be given advice on how to remove a child from his mothers custody when there is no evidence of harm
2. a child should not be reported to social services for having unsupervised internet access
3. unsupervised is vastly different from unrestricted - we know that there are restrictions in place just from the regulations around website access, and we don’t actually know whether the access is supervised because we do not know what happens in the mums home (we only know the step mum’s obviously biased version of events - and she doesn’t know what happens there either)
4. talking about having a boyfriend when he is older is not sexualised behaviour
5. many of the people on this thread talk about the boys sexualised behaviour, but that’s just them pushing that onto the boy, the step mum has given no instances of sexual comments or content from the boy

Do I think the mum could do more to ensure he is safe online, well obviously. But we need to be clear, he is not inherently at risk just because he has access to the internet, we can’t be ‘afraid’ of screens because it doesn’t help anyone at all. There are far too many people on this thread that think because he goes online that he is instantly going to see porn…that isn’t how it works.

I am annoyed that someone would try to take a child from his mum and ask for help here to do it.

The OP asked how to get sole custody, then realised it wasn’t going her way so created a new thread with the same info but removing the sole custody.

Are you all perfect parents? How would you feel if your ex husband got a new wife who judged your parenting and wanted to take your child from you. So yes, in this situation her being a step mum does piss me off, and it should.

Ask yourself this, would it be worse for this boy to be removed from his mums custody and not be able to see her, or worse for him to be allowed to access to lots of screen time? I cannot believe that screen time would be more harmful than being taken away from your mum.

The answer to this whole problem is for dad to sit down with the mum and discuss the dangers of unrestricted internet access, and for them to establish better and more sensible rules around when access is allowed and when it isn’t.

Productive co-parenting is far better than trying to remove one parent because of screen time

Sorry quoted wrong post

Agreed.

Social services are not the parenting police.

This is something the child’s parents need to work out together.

I’ve now read both threads and @Emmaex I think you’ve got zero chance of getting sole custody or even increased custody based on what you’ve shared.