Aibu to worry about my child being shown porn on the school bus?

[anxiousnervous]

My son is starting secondary school sept 2027. He will have a fairly long bus journey to and from school.
He will be 11 when he goes. I am so anxious about it. I really want and hope people tell me to get a grip and stop being neurotic because it will make it all so much easier.
He doesn’t have a phone and if he has one for secondary it will be calls only no internet.
But, I have seen the stats and I have heard the stories.
I’m so worried about older boys showing my 11 year old porn. He is quite young for his age in that he goes to a tiny village school so he’s been quite sheltered.
please someone tell me I’m being ridiculous and that this doesn’t really happen..

OP it won’t be the older kids.. they ignore yr7s
itll be his mates

The older kids have zero time for year 7's, they find them literally the most irritating things on the planet. Tell him to stay downstairs and sit near the driver. And in the kindest way, if your son is "sheltered" please prepare him better for the outside world. You can't protect him from it forever.

You need to have this conversation with him before he starts secondary school.
This happened on my son's bus: an older kid was watching all kinds of stuff, fortunately he is quite open with me, and we had had conversations around this stuff for a few years.

And it won't just happen on the bus. Schools do their best, but kids get round rules and he will at some point be exposed to it.

Secondary school can be a bit brutal in terms of suddenly being exposed to stuff you have protected them from up til now. Better that you and he are prepared.

You are worried about a years time, yes boys will show him porn its horrendous but you cant stop that, he will be bullied if he doesnt have a phone, he will grow up you cant stop that, you need to be talking to your husband all boys look at porn do you think your husband doesnt

I recommend you look at childrenscommissioner.gov.uk for information and resources to help you navigate this subject with your child. YANBU at all this is a serious issue that affects all school children. The statistics are depressing, 27% of children have viewed porn by the age of 11 and that figure rises, by the time boys are 15/16 they are viewing porn between 5 and 6 times a week. Let’s be clear, when talking about porn we are talking about abuse, the content they are watching is violent, degrading, disturbing and harmful. Hence we now have a situation where young people think it’s normal to strangle girls during sex. The platform 40% of teens view porn on is Twitter. If your child is getting the bus I would say make sure he stays with his year group. He is more likely to be exposed to this by older kids or kids with older siblings. You really can’t afford to stick your head in the sand and pretend this doesn’t happen. Even if your son doesn’t have a smartphone there will be those that do and their clueless parents will not have put restrictions on their DS or DD’s phone. Get as much information about this as you can and help your son to navigate these tricky years. We have the most unhappy children in Europe and this has got to be one of the biggest reasons why.

Wow you really need to educate yourself on this topic. I suggest you look at the government website Chilrenscommissioner.gov.uk and find out what’s going on in the real world.

And on today’s episode of things to worry about that haven’t even happened….

It is a form of planning ahead.

‘Forewarned is forearmed’ and all that.