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.

So they say "all kids that age" then you compare an 8 year old to a 4 year old?

Jesus FC. If this is real. I simply can't believe with all the knowledge parents have they let their kids have unsupervised access to the internet. Not all 8 year olds play online games. Mine don't. You're the parents, just don't allow it. Roblox and all that shit is damaging and unsafe for little kids anyway.

It's not semantics
Their is a massive difference

I can't understand why an 8 year old has unlimited access to the internet with no parental controls. 8 year olds don't need iPads or internet access.

I agree with some of the others, some completely over the top and really mean comments to someone who has been very honest and expressed her worry and asked for help! I think searching for that term is very normal for that age and whilst very unfortunate that he found hardcore porn, there are far worse things that can happen to children. As someone else said, it's what you do now that will ultimately define you as a parent. No one's perfect and it's so hard to 100% protect our children's physical and mental safety. Good luck OP and ignore the negative comments, they are really unhelpful and not in your or your child's interests!

No-one in their right mind gives internet access to an 8 year old, @sleepwouldbenice .
A kids’ tablet with games is more than enough.

No not all 8 year olds have iPads for playing games and unfiltered internet access.

iPad parental controls aren’t that great, and have big gaps in what they actually control.

For absolute safety you need to set it up via your WiFi account.
Years ago my son (also autistic, also hell bent on searching for weird and inappropriate stuff) had an app called NetNanny on the tablet that the dc were allowed to use - there must surely be something like that still that adds another layer of safety on?

At the end of the day though full supervision is the way to go.

@sleepwouldbenice

The point still remains, as is the general consensus, that it's irresponsible behaviour on the parents' part that has led to this.

Do the people who are very quick to dismiss therapy… have any idea what a child therapists does? Through working with children, I have witnessed many therapy sessions, for so many reasons, some that seem very minor. Some therapy is through art and some through play, this child needs to know what what he saw in these videos do not portray a healthy adult relationship, he needs to understand why it was inappropriate he watched it and ensure he doesn’t try to replicate it.

Lessons to be learnt not something to be swept under a rug.

Good luck with that
OP clearly had restrictions in place. It was the processes around them that went wrong

No... 🙄

Read the OP again and calm down.

The child had unrestricted access by mistake and googled "naked people". To echo a PP, I'm a teacher- this is not uncommon.

Everyone losing their minds over why the boy would search for this- have you no imagination? He obviously had no concept of porn, he had a normal child's curiosity to see pictures of naked people. I had a book on the human body and growing up as a child and you'd better believe which the most worn out pages were. My friends would all have a good giggle over it too when they came round.

OP needs to tighten restrictions and they need to be really careful but the husband's mistake was innocent. A PP said it was child abuse for goodness sake 🤦🏼‍♀️

@Somehowgirl

This has already been addressed twice now.l by two people who have addressed me directly. How about you read the comments.

I just block adult content at the router ( plus YouTube and a load of other shite). If I want to watch it ( YouTube that is) I just use data.

There will be so much to be more mindful of from now on as those things cannot be unseen as you know.

The starter search was naked bodies: when the time feels right, you need brave conversations asking about that; what did you want to know about naked bodies? See? Can you answer any questions he has, this will be an open thing from now on; he may not feel able to ask right now but this dialogue now needs to be open and without shame from you and your husband.

Consult with school; safeguarding lead and identify what resources school can support with to assist and guide you. I think you said your son has ASD, in my experience of working with children relating to harmful sexual behaviours in early adolescence, ASD and early exposure (but not always early) and fixation on various aspects of sexual behaviours were linked. Oh gosh please don't think I'm implying your son would display harmful sexual comments or behaviours - totally not, I'm just saying I've had a link with pornography and ASD.

There are lots of incredible links out there, not just for this specifically but I think all protective adults should be aware of;
NSPCC
Barnados
Action for children
Children's 1st.org

I may be wrong but I think it was the csacentre which I read an awful lot of incredible research and info when supporting a teenager who developed an unhealthy porn addiction and needed some support. Again, not scaring you at all, but recognising that the seen cannot be unseen and having an awareness that curiosity may have grown; it's not the end of the world, but being brave and open dialogue in a timely way right for your child and his processing is key

As well as the stuff you already know and have been awoken to with reviewing internet access

Take care

Quite a consensus as to how far you over reached with your explanation and explicit facts yes

@sleepwouldbenice

Yes, the consensus is there. Read the comments and stop @ing me. If you don't think the parents are at fault, that's your opinion.

I don't agree, so stop going on.

Ok frankly I don’t have children, but when I was a child some commercial TV channels (ones you had to pay for monthly access) would broadcast erotic content after 10pm and no one gave a damn, including the kids. I only remember it, because Cartoon Network (24/7 cartoons) was on a double-digit channel, and to get there I had to hit single digit (erotic…) on a remote and then quickly add the second digit. Couple of times we tried to watch the erotica, but comparing to the Powerpuff Girls extravaganza (fast-paced and brightly colored violence, some characters were clearly gender queer) the erotics were terribly boring. Obviously, young kids should not be watching that, but I doubt your son needs therapy as others have suggested.

This. You haven't caught him. He's a child and he has done nothing wrong. The fault is not with him.

Remove “how stuff works” op. It’s recently changed on my instagram to showing naked women.

Im sorry this has happened.

Did you read the OP's comments at all?

There are parental controls, but unfortunately a mistake happened where an uncontrolled account belonging to an adult was left logged in on a device, allowing a smart 8 year old to circumvent said controls and make a reasonably innocent search that unfortunately took him directly to very much not innocent results. A mistake. The type that anyone can make, and that the OP came here for advice to rectify.

Do you have any advice or just holier than thou judgement?

Quite!

8 year old and 5 year old. Neither have access to screens of any kind besides family film night at weekends. They survive!

Addressed how? By saying it amounts to the same thing regardless?

The reading comprehension on this thread is shocking. So many posters just wanting to stick the boot it to OP when it was her husband's fault, and an innocent mistake at that.

You just want to give the OP a kick so when it's pointed out that you're wrong you say in a nutshell, "well, it doesn't matter, they're bad parents anyway."

sleepwouldbenice

Good luck with that
OP clearly had restrictions in place. It was the processes around them that went wrong”

Not enough, clearly. Our kids are 21 and 29. One of them is now a parent. Neither of them were exposed to harm in the early days of the internet because we went out of our way to protect them.
If OP’s 8 year old has been exposed to harm, sorry but that’s on her/her husband.

Sneaky watching Queer as Folk at 10 years old when our parents didn't know.

Internet pornography doesn't compare however, and OP will have to go through the entire search history for this past week to see what he's actually watched

I'd be doing that OP as I'd want to know exactly what he's seen and be hoping it's fairly tame and vanilla.