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Original poster

8 year old son searching for "sexy girls" on the internet when my back is turned. Normal or Not?

37 replies

LizzieWizzy · 17/02/2010 16:07

Hi. This is a little tricky as my son is only 8 and my first born therefore not much experience of children at this age. I shut my computer for about 10 minutes to do something and have come back in to find a seriously sheepish-looking boy at the kitchen door. The computer was shut but I instinctively knew something was up because he looked guilty . I asked him casually what he had been up to & he came up with a ready answer so thought nothing of it until I opened my computer to find pornographic material on it. I have searched in the browsing history and found that it's not the first time...in between club penguin . I have asked him about it but he gets very angry with me. He says that nobody has influenced him and that he just wanted to search for it. That he keeps thinking about it. I understand that he probably isn't going out of his way to search for pornography. But is it too young for him to be looking at what are essentially "explicitly biological images"? Not sure whether it's to be expected and what to do? He doesn't have a man around as his father is more than useless and I don't have many male friends that he would feel close enough to talk to. What do I do? He gets embarrassed and angry talking to me about it. The thing that bothers me the most is the sneaky way in which he does his searching. Doea anyone have any advice? thank you

OP posts:
nickschick · 17/02/2010 16:09

I have 3 sons the eldest 2 are teenagers and theyve done it albeit a bit later agewise....however my 9 year old ds wouldnt dream of doing it.

I think you need to tell him that this isnt for little boys and limit his internet access.

rainbowinthesky · 17/02/2010 16:10

Normal, normal, normal.

rainbowinthesky · 17/02/2010 16:11

Normal, normal, normal. Just put a child search thing on it.

solo · 17/02/2010 16:15

Normal? really? I don't know if it is or not, but as far as I know, my Ds(11.6yo)has not done this ~ yet! I'm sure the time will come though, but 8 'seems' very early to me.

DebiNewberry · 17/02/2010 16:17

I think it is normal to get that curiousity about sex at 8, but it is way too young for him to be looking at porn.

Can you amend your parental control settings on your internet? Or stay in the room with him when he uses the internet?

duchesse · 17/02/2010 16:27

There are some books about sex and body matters listed on this BBC page that might be useful and interesting to him.

CharlieBoo · 17/02/2010 17:41

I couldn't help having a chuckle at your post! Boys will be boys, when my brother was 9 we went on our first holiday abroad and my brother gad his own camera. When we got home we had them developed and all the pictures were of topless girls by the pool or beach. He also would get in the pool as soon as a topless girl would get in (with his goggles). Its the same thing but different. He is a normal 33 year old. My 5 year old is already distinguishing between the really pretty girls at school. It's normal just sort your laptop out so he can't access the porn. Bless him being embarrased. X

PixieOnaLeaf · 17/02/2010 17:53

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

itwasntme · 17/02/2010 17:58

Bloody hell, that is young. Frightening so for a child to see porn.

I would stop internet acces altogether for a while if it were me, and only introduce it again with supervision and parental controls.

You need to talk to him. He's going to think that's what normal sex is all about :-(

brimfull · 17/02/2010 18:00

Reminds me of my friends 4.5yr old ds who was always anti-girls. He was having bath and said to his dad ;
'I think my willy is making me like girls'

Human nature I think, your ds is angry because he is embarrassed about his natural feelings. I would reassure him that it is naturla to be attracted to girls . The looking for images something I would expect in an older boy.

Jamieandhismagictorch · 17/02/2010 18:22

I think it depends what search terms was he using.

I would think it was fairly normal to be interested in girls. I suspect my 9 year old gets "funny feelings" about girls, although he looks kind of nauseous when he sees people kissing.

Unfortunately, DCs know words like "sexy", nowadays, without really knowing what that means, or what will pop up online.

I agree frightening for a child to see porn. Me and a friend found some quite hard-core mags when I was 9

Jamieandhismagictorch · 17/02/2010 18:25

sorry - realised I had no advice. I think you need to put on parental controls, monitor his computer use, but buy a book about sex and relationships to leave around for him to look at.

He needs to get the message that his feelings are normal, but that your job as his mum is to protect him from some of the things he might see by mistake online - which are aimed at adults, not 8 year olds.

solo · 17/02/2010 19:10

Ggirl, that made me chuckle. It's so innocent

HelenSouthcott · 17/02/2010 19:25

Just a decent password on the computer and/or a quality web filtering system would work, net nanny is the one I think one of my friends use, however even with the 'worlds most locked down computer' the avid searcher will still most likely find something, so dealing with it offline is probably a better idea.

Helen

southeastastra · 17/02/2010 19:33

i would seriously freak if my ds(8) was found doing that.

nickschick · 17/02/2010 19:48

S.E.astra im glad its not just me then .

MustyOdour · 17/02/2010 19:51

I think 8 sounds very young to be looking for such pictures.

Most 8 year old boys I know can't bear to be in the same room as a girl (apprently they smell)

ApplesinmyPocket · 17/02/2010 19:55

Absolutely normal for boys even of 8 to be curious about girls' bodies and have the stirrings of feelings. But unfortunately nowadays they can fall headlong into the deep-end before they're ready, via the net and so on.

Of course he is 'sneaky' about it, he feels the pull and it's irresistable but he doesn't want to share it with you - we're all a bit like that - you can be very sure I didn't tell my mother about the almost obsessive way I looked for 'naughty' bits in library books at about the age of 10 (I had a knack for it - could and still can go straight to the blue bits in one quick skim .

So don't feel he's bad or it's something shameful, bless him. But DO protect him from things he isn't ready for. The net does, IMO, make it far too easy for curious growing-up children to get plunged into far too much too soon. We had to work at it in my day and the strong stuff was hidden very deep and far away.

IlanaK · 17/02/2010 19:56

I have an 8 year old boy (nearly 9 actually) and I was shocked to read this. Sorry, I know its not what you want to hear, but I think 8 is shockingly young for this.

4andnotout · 17/02/2010 20:02

My dd1 is 8 and I recently found out that she had used my iPhone to look for sexy boobs on YouTube, I knew it wasn't dp as it was misspelt and he doesn't even k ow how to use my phone.
I have stopped her accessing YouTube on my phone and told he that its because she is too gong to he looking for rude things, Its jsut so hard with the first knowing what is normal or not

SeasideLil · 17/02/2010 21:42

I don't think it's weird that a child should do something taboo like type naughty words into a computer. My six year old dd composed a poem recently that comprised only of words like 'bum, wee and poo', it wasn't a very good poem obviously. But had she typed that into Google, she'd have seen things that were totally inappropriate (except that my husband had put the computer on the highest child security setting and it's also on a time-limit so goes off at 7pm). So, I don't think he's weird (children say rude words, play naughty games with each other, hear things in the playground without truly understanding what they are) but I don't think it's right for him to view adult porn at all and that's what you need to be more concerned with (there's a big difference between the soft porn magazines we found under my brother's bed aged 13 and what you can now get to straight away on the internet, as I have found to my cost when typing in what I thought were quite innocent words...)

SeasideLil · 17/02/2010 21:44

I also meant to say that the 'bum, wee and poo' poem was secret, on a hidden scrap of paper, so clearly they know it's naughty and a bit wrong, but still feel compelled to do it!

solo · 17/02/2010 22:05

Lol! just recalled my brothers stash under his mattress aged 8. Hmmmmmmm...perhaps 8 is that magical age then.

JaynieB · 17/02/2010 22:09

A work chum sons has always had a thing for boobs...and he found he'd been looking on the internet for some pics but due to his mild dyslexia he'd typed in 'stirpers' instead of 'strippers' (cue much mirth from his Dad...)
8 might seem a bit young, but there can be an innocent curiosity behind it - seems like good advice on here to talk to him about the facts of life tho.

Original poster
LizzieWizzy · 17/02/2010 22:23

Thank you for your comments/advice everyone. Some of them made me laugh, others made me feel like a bad mother, hey ho. Just to let you all know, my children don't routinely use the computer unsupervised and it was password protected at the time (this has now been changed). I have had a chat with him tonight and it transpires that he wanted to know what happens between boys and girls when they're older. Quite understandable however we did discuss the fact that he should not be seeing these sorts of images and that they do not reflect man/woman relationships (obviously in more "childlike" words). He also said that he didn't want to ask me because he thought that I would be cross with him. We will visit the library tomorrow and gather some information on basic biology. Quite worrying that children will be exposed to this sort of information and have their interest in it sparked by the introduction of "sex education" at the age of 5?! x

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