8.5 year old looked up sexy websites on my log on. He doesn't know that I know. What now?

[bungalowbelle]

I hold my hands up. I've been lax about internet security. It seems when I set parental controls they block the kids out of even the most innocent, educational website.

Now and again I check their internet history to see what they've been looking at and it's always totally innocent. Until today.

I left ds, who's 8.5, home alone for half an hour and when I came back I saw he'd been looking up naked women. He did a lot of surfing in that half hour. Most of it was pretty tame YouTube, women pole dancing on trains etc ... then I noticed he moved onto Google and accessed some, fortunately, lightweight stuff. Women half naked, or naked and lying down with those ridiculous soft porn pouts. So not the sort of images I want him to be looking at.

I think it's the first time I've left him home alone so he really took the first chance he had. Yesterday I noticed he had smelly arm pits for the first time ever.

So he's growing up.

I have put parental controls on and changed all the passwords so he can no longer go on anyone's log on but his now.

Is there anything else I should do? He's obviously curious. Should I chat with him or would that be mortifying. He'd typed into Google 'i want to have sex' which he doesn't, necessarily, but is obviously getting some feelings.

Do I need to do anything?

Dont worry, you're not a bad parent, and he is just curious, my ds did this about the same age, went looking for Jordan!!! He found what he was looking for too.

I just said, I know you looked for ladies, I know you want to see preety ladies, but you are a little too young to be doing that just now. Not in trouble, done nothing wrong its just my job to keep you safe and make sure you understand whats what before you look at that sort of stuff, hes 12 now and perfectly well adjusted, your ds is just a normal little boy, dont worry.

I would say yes.

He is obviously curious about a range of things. He is having different feelings his body is beginning to change, I suspect at school (mostly) the idea of having sex and naked women being desirable is being touted.

I think it would be wise to have a chat, maybe along the lines of there are completely ok feelings and interests but that the internet has grown up stuff on it so not to look there.

There are very good books about, this one is good

If you haven't already chatted with him about the changes he can expect with puberty, then I think it's time to start. And if you have, it's time to chat some more! Curiosity is normal, but it's better for him to get an accurate idea of what it's all about rather than the playground or soft porn site version (or worse!) He and/or his classmates will be starting to develop physically and be more interested in this whole subject. I'd recommend "Lets Talk About Sex" if you want a book - it's aimed at about 9 to 12 and covers a lot of stuff in a straightforward way.

you left an 8.5 yo home alone??????!!!!![shock

Bless him he is only doing what boys do my first two older boys were 12 and 10 when I dicovered their new hobbie. Don`t say anything just put locks on your pc. Ignore shock waves from mn they prob have younger dc and yours sounds like he is starting to his pubity(sp) x

Gosh Cola my ds#s search also began with Jordan. She obviously weilds some power in playgrounds across the country.

Thanks for the advice. I've put locks on. I haven't had the chat yet but I like your suggestion about its nature Slur.

Cruisemum, I did and have no worries about that.

Nope. Not even slightly.

It's fine to leave a sensible 8.5 y o home alone for half an hour

it's obviously NOT ok to leave THIS 8.5 y o home alone with unsupervised internet access
you live and learn

I think yes a chat would be good
there is some scary stuff on the internet and I would explain why it isn't a good place to be hunting around for naked ladies
could you find him some naked lady pictures that were more suitable? I often wish there was this kind of material without the pouting and the crap clothing and the submissiveness and sleaze
young kids want to look and there's nothing WRONG with looking at nakedness
it's all the porn crap that's wrong

He wasn't going to get in to trouble though was he, he was just going to play on the internet.

I'm sorry to hear you're unable to trust your 8 year old MMJ. Still, one day eh?

He looked at Jordan and a youtube video of Turkish ladies dancing. What's more I was across it enough to notice immediately, hold my hands up and take action.

I always check what they have been on and this is the first dodgy thing he has been on so yes, MMJ, I am totally happy to leave him at home alone.

Mine did this when he was about 10, I tapped something into the address bar and porn .com came up, gave me an almighty shock. We just told him it was perfectly ok to be curious about this stuff but we didn't really want him to be looking it up on the net, could expose the pc to viruses etc. He's now a really normal 14 year old, so I wouldn't worry too much.

Fwiw, I left mine home for 1/2 hour at that age, he was sensible enough, some are.

I've recently started leaving my 7.5 yo DS at home if I need to pop round shops or need to pop out for say 10-15 mins. He is pretty sensible and would hope that by the time he is 8.5 I could trust him for 1/2 an hour every now and again.

Message withdrawn

I would quite happily leave ds home alone for 15 mins or so (eg to run over and pick dd up from a playdate or nip to the post office).
He is just nine. He knows exactly how to behave safely if we leave him for short periods, because we can trust him and we have carefully briefed him.
He also knows about the parental internet controls we have Bungalowbelle
Cod recommended a book by Robie Harris, for another curious little lad on here recently and I bought it. No sign of Jordan but it is a really excellent guide to how puberty changes your body and emotions.

bungalow do you have to buy extra software to put on porn lockouts? my ds is 8 and you've got me thinking. he does sometimes access porn sites but I know that's by accident via miniclip - he always looks abit bewildered (phew) but probably not for long eh??

Mumsnet's very own guide

There are laws about leaving a child of such age alone.
However a few PC things that could help, where is your PC in the house? Is it in full view all of the time? Security and checking visited history.
For your ds a chat about feelings and a good book may help. The trouble with exposure to such things so young can have implications later in life and it would be good to ensure age appropriate information.

Not in the UK there aren't twelvelegs

No laws in the Uk about when it's ok to leave a child alone in the house. Mainly because children are so different, some are more responsible than others.

thank god for that Ranting. There's enough over parenting going on as it is!

Leaving a child alone isn't really about "trusting" the child not to misbehave, it's to do with leaving a child in a situation which s/he may not be able to deal with eg stranger coming to the door/ deciding to make toast and turning toaster setting up high/ getting freaked out by central heating noises.

IMHO 8 is too young to leave alone. My youngest is 8 and the most sensible kid in town but still cannot be expected to deal with unexpected things.

As for looking for porn at 8... maybe he was looking for something other people had talked about without knowing what he'd find so you need to talk to him from an 8 year old's perspective, not from the perspective of a pubescent boy