My 7 year old ds has been looking at internet porn

[motherofmine]

Apologies for my first post being a request for help but am clueless with how to deal with having found out that my 7 year old ds has been looking at porn by having googled stuff like 'naked women, wee, sexing" and clicking through to images I really don't want to see let alone him. Its happened when he has had friends over to play - I have rung to let the other mum know and apologised but don't know what to do next. We do have parental controls which normally block access to unwanted material - and also blocks google - which is why I left them to it - but it seems that the controls had failed to load the last few times he had logged on. He is very upset, both at having been caught I think and also by the stuff he has seen and I haven't yet got to the bottom of what made him think of doing this but don't really know what to do next - do I tell his teacher, do I try and make light of it, do I get really cross with him? Help!!!

I wouldn't be too cross with him, but would explain why that type of material is not suitable for him & his friends.

Then take the PC away, or stop him using it unsupervised. Parental controls are good, but actual parental supervision is better!

Thank you and I agree about not taking too hard a line with him - although I think he could clearly see how shocked we were which in turn upset him. I hope I will be able to explain why he shouldn't be searching out info and pictures like that but I also worry that he will remember the images for a long, long time. And also his friends, this happened in my house so can only imagine how his friends parents will feel - I am going to call them again this morning.

We have already taken away his own access to the PC and am looking into finding another software programme to use - as clearly Virgin's PC Guard doesn't work! However to ban it completely for all the children just isn't going to be practical - not when schools require internet research for about half of the homework they get.

I take on board your comments about parental supervision - our PC is on an open landing and together with the PC Guard I thought that was enough. Of course it wasn't.

You don't have to ban it, maybe impose a break of a short time & then fully supervise him in future.

I do sympathise with your consternation and worry, but try and look at it this way. He wasn't TRYING to access porn, necessarily, he was just messing about putting "rude" words into the computer. He may not even know porn exists ...

I caught DS1 and his friend trying to google "bum stuff" (little boys are obsessed with bums !!). Luckily I caught them at it and they had got into Googlemaps because I've hidden Google, but I do go hot and cold at the thought of the images they might have accessed.

I'd just ask him if he's got any questions about sex (don't know how much you've told him already, but IME, he's probably heard a lot more at school than you might imagine).

BTW, i saw some hard core porn at my friend's house when I was 8/9 (her dad's stash - eeew - donkeys , and it didn't make me turn into a raving nympho who wanted to see more. Quite the reverse ....

I think you should punish him if he's gone against your rules, but otherwise I'd say he was just showing normal curiousity., and needs more supervision/parental controls

Install K9 web protection it's free and works well. We have installed it after catching DD doing the same except she was looking for sex games so thankfully only got cartoon images but still bad enough.

Have you looked through the history to see what he actually saw?

He's just exploring, as we did with "rude" books- well I did!
My dd googled "naked ladies"- and had hysterics when she realised I knew she had from google history.
Have a good chat with him about things on the internet you don't want him to see and update parental controls. If you tell him mummy ALWAYS knows what he's been looking at, it may make him think twice.
Have you ever googled FIST DIRECT my mistake (with no filter)- we got a movie not a link which was vile.

no unsupervised internet access from now on.

No internet at all when friends are round for now either - I reckon most children will get up to sillier/naughtier pranks than normal when with a friend, egging one another on.

its your fault tbh.

its like putting sweets on a table and telling a 2 yo not to eat them.

your internet obviously needs a parenting lock.

i think his embarrassment is punishment enough.

ash we had htis
feels terrible at the time doesnt it?

Custardo hits the nail on the head - it is my fault. I should never have assumed that the parental controls I had loaded were actually doing the job intended.

Luckily the other parents have been nothing but extremely understanding about the whole issue and none of the children seem to be traumatised by the experience. I just hope they can forget some of what they've seen.

Thanks for letting me know about the google controls - if only I'd known earlier because that would have prevented most of the stuff coming through - I see that 'naked' is a word which stops stuff coming through.