Ds and porn

[claw4]

Ds is 8, ASD and very gullible and naive. I am fully aware of this and usually have parental control over his web viewing, however for 2 days whilst installing my new antivirus etc software to pc's there was no parental control.

Ds usually only goes on 'Moshi Monster' website anyhow. However during one of those 2 days, a boy from ds's class sent him the name of porn sites and told him to check them out, 4 in total.

I always search ds's history and found that he had visited these sites, it was extreme hard core stuff (some rape, some gay)

I have informed the school. The boy who told ds to look and provided the names of the sites often targets ds, gets him into trouble at school, blames him for things that he has done etc, etc. He knows that ds will do whatever he tells him to do and will not speak up.

School are aware of this and ds has previously been banned from playing with this boy (although this was pointless, as they have no way of monitoring it).

What would you expect school to do about this?

I'd expect the school to flag it as a child protection issue because the boy who gave ds the website addresses has obviously been exposed to stuff that a young child shouldn't be so would expect them to share the information with SS.

That was my first thought when reporting it, ie i know where ds got it from, but where did this boy get it from, not 'appropriate' 8 year old behaviour and how many other children had he told about it too i did express this to school. (Ds tells me he told him 'not to tell anyone else about it) which again has alarm bells ringing.

This boy is one of what would be described as 'naughty' child in school too.

I havent heard back from school yet as to what they are going to do about it. I am also concerned about ds, as he is so very gulliable too.

Have asked for this to be deleted, i should not be discussing someone else's child with regard to this. Quite insensitive of me.

Have you considered speaking to the other boy's parents or reporting it yourself to SS? You are obviously concerned for the other boy as well as your DS.

School just phoned, apparently they spoke to the other boys parents and it didnt happen

For a child of 8 to even know about such graphic porn I find very disturbing. Are the school taking it any further

How is your son? Is he ok having seen this stuff :(

They just phoned to say that they spoke to the other boys parents, his parents have said they didnt find anything on his PC and that someone must have 'hijacked' this boys account to pass the messages.

Ds has not been able to sleep. I am now going to delete his Moshi Monsters account.

Poor thing. It is awful that he has been exposed to this esp being so vunerable :( Is there anyway that you can keep his MM account but keep it safe. Otherwise it might feel to him that he is being punished - even though he was not at fault.

I really feel that given the age of the boys involved that this needs to be reported further. Can MM even be hacked? Would anybody actually do that?

I really feel for you

Actually I see that it is very possible. I just googled Moshi Monsters hacked and there is even a Youtube of how to do it

I hate to tell you this but Bedfordshire Police are currently investigating paedophiles on MM and Club Penguin. Sickening. Daily Fail article. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2143562/Warning-paedophiles-grooming-primary-school-children-Club-Penguin-Moshi-Monsters-websites.html?ITO=1490

Thanks for that Sally

I've just told DS that he can't use them but luckily he hasn't got any memberships on them. It is truly sickening.

Claw :( Might be worth a call to 101 then to report it if the parents are saying that the boy's PC was hacked so that they can investigate. The alternative is that this other boy has been exposed to this sort of imagery and goodness knows what else by someone around him - that needs to be looked into if it is a possibility too.

Thanks for highlighting this - feeling sick at the idea of dd2 coming across stuff like this. Sorry your ds was exposed to this, claw.

Sorry it was a site called Binweevils, not MM, its very similar thing to MM.

It gets worse and more sinister, the parental controls DO NOT WORK on the things that ds was told to google, i checked last night.

And ds is only alllowed to add 'friends' if they are children from school or children we know.

Last night i asked him how did he know that it was boy x.

He says that boy x had told him he had a 'pink' character. This person sends ds a 'buddy request' (and he/she happens to have a pink character) and says that he is a friend from school and ds asked 'is that x' this person replies yes.

So ds assumes this is his 'friend' from school.

I feel sick just thinking about it. These sites both binweevils and MM, lull you into a false sense of security. I read both before ds was allowed to sign up, they both say that they filter out 'key' words such as swearing or porn, so message containing such things cant be sent.

You then think that you have parental control and filters, that will stop your child from being able to search for anything like this.

Whoever this was, was not an 8 year old boy.

At the very least you should be calling the police. Secondly the school should send out an urgent newsletter warning of the dangers you have highlighted.

The LA in our area have a dedicated person to deal with this sort of thing. He comes into school to give talks to children about the dangers, and then the parents are invited to a meeting with him to highlight some of the problems they are facing at any particular time. Very informative but scary evening tbh.

Spoke to the HT this morning when i dropped ds off, they are going to send a letter out to all parents.

Ds's school also hold evenings about internet safety for children, but they do not tell you things such as our parental control might not work.

I will not be calling the police, for various reasons. It would scare the life out of ds and i think he has already been through enough. He cannot explain himself clearly, he becomes extremely confused, very quickly.

Claw. So awful. I live in fear of these things. My 12yr olds have been told that they're not having Facebook a/c yet. I don't care that half their friends have had them since they were 9. It's 13 for a reason!!

Sally, i feel awful and even had some tears last night in bed

Ds has no friends, doesnt usually follow trends and literally doesnt have much in common with his friends from school. I thought being able to share a common interest with the children from his class, might help. I talk about ds being gullible and naive, how naive have i been to think that such a vulnerable boy like ds, wouldnt be targetted online. Literally within 10 minutes of meeting ds, other children notice that he is different, i dont know what i was thinking to think that a much older child or even an adult wouldnt pick up on this, online. Im kicking myself.

Ds cant even view facebook, with the parental controls, but yet he can view graphic porn.

A very hard lesson has been learnt.

I can understand you not wanting to call the police if your son has to speak to them, I wouldn't want my DS having to go through that either.

Bloody hell. It sucks being a kid these days. We used to trade trumps cards and collect stamps or marbles when I was little. There is too much pressure on kids to become mini adults and then this has massive repercussions with their safety.

In Secondary School they have lunchtime clubs with games for those kids who struggle with the usual socialising issues. Yugioh trading is still good I am told by my 12yr old Aspie DS.
Nintendo DS's with shared games can be successful if the school were willing to set that up and let that happen over the lunchtime.

I was more into roller skates, skateboards and bikes. The only games consoles around then were the Atari tennis one, a white dot on the screen that went backwards and forwards, showing my age now

Ds shows little or no interest in 'toys' or even games consoles. He usually just lines things up. He has trading card which he likes, as they have lots of facts on, but he reads them, then lines them up in a particular order. Which is why i thought brilliant, he wants to interact, albeit online with his friends from school. I read all the parent safety advice about the sites and how messages containing swear words etc couldnt be sent. Still, i have deleted them both now.

In ds's school they have a lunchtime club for children with SN who struggle socially. Ds used to be part of this. He then requested that he didnt want to go there anymore.

The problem with lunchtime club, seems to be that not much thought has gone into it. All the SN's kid sit on the same table to eat their lunch, supervised by a high ratio of adults. They then use the nursery to play games etc for the remainder of lunch time.

Ds felt he was being segregated, he wanted to sit with the other children from his class. It was making him feel more 'different'. He was also teased about playing in the nursery and called a 'baby'. The other 7 children in lunchclub, were children with the most severe challenging behaviour, very limited communication etc ds also got hit in the face by one of the children and it made his nose bleed, which really put him off going there too.

Hi Claw

What parental controls have you got on? That sounds awful :( Is he sleeping any better?

DS has very similar problems with socialising. He is in Y2. He has started playing Pokemon cards but has been manipulated by the most popular boys to swap his favourite shiny cards as they kept going on and on. He just didn't understand the rules of the playground.

The lunch club doesn't sound right for him at your school. I'm still waiting to see what school will do (if anything)

I have customised the parental controls, so it literally lists everything and you tick which boxes and the age of your child etc. It actually says something like 'gay and lesbian' and 'naked images', 'social network sites' etc, etc.

The problem seems to be 'key' words, none of the sites that ds was told to google contain 'key' words, so therefore dont activate the controls.

So if i type in porn or fuck or something similar, the sites are blocked. But if i type in the words that ds was told to google, i can then view extremely graphic stuff.

The same thing would happen to the filters at the childrens sites i mentioned, because they do not contain 'key' words. This info can be passed back and forth freely.

The day he viewed this stuff, i didnt realise until the day after when i checked his history. That night he came downstairs crying, saying he had a nightmare. The nightmare didnt actual contain the stuff he had viewed, it was about me dying, but probably connected.

Ds suffers with high anxiety anyhow and has difficulty sleeping at the best of times.

Yes we have the same problem, others take advantage of ds. I dont let him take anything to school anymore, he would just give stuff away.

Ds's school have a 'buddy' scheme, as they do realise that others will take advantage of ds or ds doesnt choose the 'best' friends to play with. They tell ds to do stuff or are not very nice to him. Unfortunately, not much thought has gone into this either and the 'rules' of a buddy havent been made clear to ds and he ends up playing with the same kids again. At one point he was told to stay away from one particular boy and when he didnt he was given a 'detention' and threatened with 'lunch club'!

THat is so scary Claw. They have obviously purposefully picked words that aren't going to trigger the various safe search type option. I have google safe search on and thought that it was OK as he wouldn't be able to get in as key words are blocked - I checked...

They haven't gone for any of the ideas that I suggested re buddy or friendship bench. However I have told the paed this and she is roaring mad. DS has only just got his AS dx so she is going to get the Autism Outreach people to teach the school to look after my son. They wouldn't listen to me but they'll listen to them telling them the same stuff... New SENCO starting in September. This one is retiring and thinks she knows everything. I have told them that I know my son better than anyone. They started listening after that.

I can see why you need SSEN for your son as he needs someone to be guiding him in playtimes etc. Not acceptable that he is getting in trouble as he didn't understand the rules etc.

I can message you the name of one of the sites to check if you want, so you can see just how safe your blocking tools are?

I think the problem with the buddy, friendship bench or even a lunchclub, is they are not much use unless everyone who uses them or implements them understands how to use them and what they are for and why iyswim.

Bit like social skills group in school, school tell outside agencies that ds has no difficulties with social skills (hmm he has ASD) so why the bloody hell are you giving him social skills training and what the bloody hell are you teaching him then, what are you focussing on!?!

I think a lot of schools, like to be seen to be doing something, without really understanding why they are iyswim.