Caught 8 y/o watching porn

[loganfuckingroy]

I've accidentally caught my son watching pretty hardcore porn while I reached over where he was sitting on the sofa to pick up a cup next to him. He tried to draw his iPad up to his chest but I pulled it down and saw a video playing. It was Pornhub and extremely graphic hetero porn.

I took his iPad and started searching through his history and this has been going on for a week. His search history started with Googling "naked people" and then he's been watching several porn hub videos every day. He's autistic and loves watching Minecraft/Roblox/robotics videos with his headphones on so I don't suspect. It turns out his dad left his Google account logged in on my son's iPad after showing him something on YouTube and that's how he's been bypassing the content restrictions I've put in place on our Apple/icloud family settings.

We've chatted about it but he's very embarrassed and thinks he's going to be arrested. Husband has taken them to bed, iPad has been removed. I'm just completely at a loss. 8 is so young and he's not neurotypical.

He is 8. He should be playing with toys, not an iPad. Jesus wept…

Oh god all kids that age play games online.

There are some stupid responses here.

Op I'd be concerned why he watches this. Someone must have shown him or told him about it.

@MrsDTucker

It's the dad. He got access to his porn history, read the comments.

Absolutely irresponsible and shameful behaviour. I'm not sure what OP wants because I'm sure she knows that her partner watches porn and has explicitly said that her partner logged on to watch porn on this iPad and forgot to log out.

That's why the parents are getting blamed and rightfully so.

I agree that therapy maybe a good route for him, he is incredibly young and needs to be able to process what he’s watched. You need to make sure he does not put himself or others in vulnerable positions based on what he has watched. Complete iPad ban also.

He will have probably heard other children talking about things in the playground and then got curious. My son had autism and he is nearly 10 with the emotional maturity of a 3 year old. He heard a lot of things at school that he doesn't have the emotional skills to understand.

My 22 year old son is anti Roblox for children. He doesn't like his nephews playing it. Bit of a minefield reading up

"Is Roblox safe for my child? | NSPCC" https://www.nspcc.org.uk/keeping-children-safe/online-safety/online-safety-blog/roblox/

No, his dad was watching YouTube videos on a less restricted google setting, read the comments.

OP for some young boys it’s natural curiosity. You made a mistake, you can now fix it by setting high levels of parental controls and changing how your son accesses the internet - he shouldn’t be allowed any access unless with an adult.

This does not mean you are not a good parent! Sometimes these things happen. It's good you found out and can now be more mindful. Kids are curious, a chat with his teacher will probably be enlightening. Don't be too hard on yourself, you obviously had all the necessary precautions in place, one slip doesn't mean you're a bad parent.

@MeanGreen

You're first sentence is exactly what I mean. The semantics don't make a difference.

It is still irresponsible behaviour on the parents' part. That much is clear.

I disagree that he needs therapy - IMO that will make it all a much bigger deal and will drag it on.

He needs stricter boundaries around internet use and immersing in age acceptable non-device activities.

If he shows signs of being damaged by this then that’s different, but therapy at such a young age is more likely to introduce him to more reasons to be stressed or anxious.

MrsDTucker · Today 21:35
HcbSS · Today 21:32

He is 8. He should be playing with toys, not an iPad. Jesus wept…

Oh god all kids that age play games online.

No they don’t. Our nearly 4 year old grandchild has a “tablet”. It has hundreds of age appropriate games. It isn’t connected to the internet.

These things happen, what you do next is the decider. DS was caught doing something similar when he was a few years older than yours after his Dad (my ex-husband) hadn't set up the parental controls properly .

We had a long chat about sex, porn, 'plastic' bodies and how seeing that kind of thing could be damaging. He got it and hasn't done it since.

The phone and internet have been very much locked down and I check his search history to see what he been looking for an at.

You need to explain to him that what he has seen is not what adults do regularly and that what he's seen it out of context. You need to make sure that he doesn't feel overly bad about accessing it...explain to him your short comings for allowing him to have watched it.

I think you need to explain that sex usually happens in a loving relationship and people need to be respectful and ask for consent etc.

Irresponsible yes, but your post implied that the dad had been watching porn on the boy’s iPad which is untrue and which would be vile and open up a whole new level of shit for the OP.

Unsure about this. On Apple products, if the account is a family one, no one can access anything that is restricted unless you enter the passcode.

So, if I went onto my son's iPhone, which is part of our family account, I'd not be able to search porn up. It's set to his age, and if there's anything that comes up he has to put in the code (which is doesn't know, obviously).

So how had your son been able to do this? If he is part of the family account?

What the fuck.

Why do you not have parental locks on the iPad?! I can’t quite believe it, this is going to be damaging and now he has seen it he would’ve been getting massive dopamine hits. It’s not just the fact he’s seen it but what will he say to other children at school about the content he’s seen?! The fact you don’t have tighter locks on the iPad baffles me when you know how easy it is to access porn.

This is how it his iPad was set up by me and how it still is, he only had access to authorised websites. I'm so upset and I'm just questioning everything. I did separate similar settings in the Roblox apps, he's mostly playing Minecraft on his own private server and building SpongeBob characters out of blocks. It's his outlet and something he's very good at. His classmates have tablets, some even have their own smartphones.

Oh my goodnes, some of the replies on this thread!!
Obviously this is really not ideal but this is not child abuse. You thought you had set up the parental controls but he’s a bright child and found a loophole!
He will have heard and discussed about this sort of thing in school, yes even at that age.
OP do not give yourself an unnecessarily hard time over this. Just make sure parental controls are on properly all devices and have a chat with him about it. Job done.

@MeanGreen my husband is absolutely not doing that

His iPad?

Why does an 8 year old have his own iPad?!

Careful, you'll pull a muscle reaching like that, FFS. Please point out where there OP 'explicitly says' that her partner was using the iPad to watch porn?

FWIW I've just (on our WiFi and my device in an adult only home) searched 'naked people' which is a fairly innocuous and believable search term for a curious child, and every single result was porn, as demonstrated below.

He's not needed to use anybody's search history, or be shown anything, the only mistake here is leaving an unrestricted account logged in and his simple search has resulted in pornhub.

OP I think you're getting a really hard time here, either that or you've attracted an unlikely amount of people who've never made a single mistake in life. iPad removed, restrictions checked and tightened, and a big calm chat about what he saw and the thoughts he has on it, with honest answers and reassurance from you. Not a bad shout to advise his teachers either x

Right!

I can't believe some of the ridiculous comments on here. Counselling and the like. 🤦‍♀️ A lapse in parenting has occurred, as it does now and then. Okay, this was pretty bad but it's not the end of the world. Have a chat with him, make sure he can't access those websites again and move on. Don't beat yourself up OP.

Yep. During the WW2 topic finding out how Hitler died, 10 year old googling "Hitler's brains blown out" in class, hoping to find a photograph 🙄

OP some of these replies are insane but that's Mumsnet for you. Your poor husband will be gutted, he was sharing a nice moment with your son and one mistake led to this. You can make it better by talking to him honestly about it all. He needs to know these videos are for adults and also that they are not realistic- they're performances that don't look like real life relationships.

You can't let your boy sit with his iPad hidden from view and headphones on. He's too young.

I know, that’s what I was saying. Another poster suggested that.