Hope someone can help me.
Earlier in the year, I discovered my son was looking at some odd material on YouTube. I won't say what exactly, as it might be too outing for us. He is 14 years old. I know, they grow up so fast. I think I'm a good mother, not overbearing, but there were some odd jokes I overheard between him and his friends when they stayed over a while back, all the same age, from his class at school. He has a Smartphone and I allow use until a certain time of night and I do keep an eye on what he's consuming.
So after the odd jokes and comments, about quite aggressive behaviours towards girls and women, I checked his phone and his Google History was worrying. Also his YouTube history. I had a very gentle motherly conversation with him and he said he was ashamed and it was mainly due to his friends "messing about". I noticed the times he was often looking were when he was alone though.
We discussed misogyny, I thought I had brought him up to respect women, and outwardly he is a very kind and sensitive, well spoken young man. What is going on in his head is more worrying, but of course I am aware that our youngsters are surrounded by this stuff and even if we block it for them, their friends can sometimes have ways around it.
This was back in March/April time. I decided to track his phone and I hadn't seen anything else since then. Until yesterday. I put our TV on and decided to watch some YouTube. I would normally watch on my IPad or computer to wind down, don't use the TV for social media at all usually. I started typing into the search bar at the top of the YouTube screen, something totally unrelated, and up popped searches for the violent material with a clock next to them, which I know means they are someone's searches, not suggestions.
When I checked the Youtube history on the TV, there was nothing saved there and it was not logged in to any account. But there were at least 10 to 15 searches popping up with the clock next to them. He denies it and says the searches "just appeared". I challenged that, he said they were from before March/April time.
My issue is there are no dates or times in the search bar. Can someone please advise? I've tried to test it on my phone and it looks as if the search bar only saves the last few months of searches, signed in or not. The History is different of course. I need to figure out whether my son is lying or not.
Nobody else uses this TV in the living room. And noone else would be looking for this material anyway. Is he lying to me?