Boys and "magazines"

[peppercat]

Hello. This us my first post here and I'm hoping for good advice from those who've been there!

DS (my eldest child) will be 13 in October. He's well into puberty and I've just discovered he has a couple of girly mags hidden in his room. He was with me when I spotted them and I pretended not to see them, so I've yet to sneak back to see exactly what their content is. I feel I need to think carefully about how to tackle this, even before discussing it with OH, because it may set a precedent for discussing other sensitive issues throughout his teenage years.

I appreciate that "curiosity" is normal, but I'm not a fan of such mags and am not comfortable with him being exposed to inappropriate explicit content. I obviously want him to grow up with a healthy, respectful and responsible attitude towards women, sex and sexuality and recognise that this will need ongoing "training" throughout his teens.

I've no idea where/how he got hold of these mags and that is almost my most immediate worry. He's an intelligent boy in an excellent high school, but I know that doesn't preclude him from exposure to "trouble".

I'd really appreciate advice and experiences from parents of other teenage boys before I talk to DS.

Thank you

P

Sally - you still haven't said how you reached the conclusion that the OP doesn't encourage respect in her home. All these "little chats" that you so patronisingly call them is what keeps the channels of communication open - vital for healthy family life.

If a 12 year old has porn in his possession, like anything else which is age-inappropriate, then as a responsible parent I would "counsel" having a discussion about the source of the material, and then have a wider "little chat" about porn in general.

Maisie- you're spoiling for a fight. you're not going to get it here. All I did was make a suggestion, have already said I wasn't insinuating anything.

Little chats, in my experience, are ineffective and limit communication to specific times on the parent's terms. Discussing issues around dinner table as a family, or after it comes up in conversation/film/tv/theatre/books/newspapers or driving/walking alone with dc are much more effective as it allows the conversation to happen organically and can be more dc-led. Little chats, in my opinion, lead to the idea that the thing being discussed is slightly shameful and should not be brought up in everyday family life. Your dc, if surprised with a little chat, will not be as open or ready to communicate than if the topic is broached slowly and organically.

Yes, a 12yr old boy should not legally be in possesion of porn. But sexuality does not begin at 18 and the porn mag is practically a rite of passage for teenage boys.

Peppercat- chill out a little bit, you will get a big cross section of views here and it would be daft to take the ones you disagree with personally. Sally is just making a point, from how I read her posts, not implying that you are going wrong. Perhaps it is better to see it as a way of saying that it's not the 'chats' that will form your son's attitude to women, but his general environment. And if you are not worried about that, then there's probably nothing to be too concerned about.

I wouldn't worry my son has a mucky novel no pictures or anything...how weird is that.

Sally, if you want to reach that conclusion from my post then be my guest - you seem particularly keen to infer things that aren't there, in the same way that you managed to reach the conclusion that the OP will approach the issue by having a little chat, which you then assumed would be had in isolation and therefore ineffective, and would be on the parent's time. If you read her posts, she in fact says "please tell me how you have discussed issues of pornography with your adolescents because, being new to this side of parenting, I'm looking for ideas of how to, or even whether to, address the subject constructively at home".

Sexuality obviously doesn't start at 18, but I would be very keen to find out where he got the magazine at 12. If it was something that was circulating around the class, then it's no big deal. If a shop was selling the stuff to a child of 12, then as a responsible parent I'd take action - just as if a DVD rental place was renting 18 rated films to minors, or a shop was selling alcohol or cigarettes to children. All of these are rites of passage, but few responsible parents would turn a blind eye to a shop selling them to their children.

Thank you all for you input.

As an update, should anyone be interested, OH did have a "little chat" with DS (with 2DDs aged 3&4 "Incidental", naturally occurring conversations on such subjects are nigh on impossible although I agree it's a better method in principle)

I'd managed to get a better look at the mags and they are "only" "lite" ones- 1 of the page 3 variety, the other a little more explicit in it's editorial content and both entirely inappropriate for a 12yo, and as Maisie said I was concerned how he got them whether thru class circulation or being sold them (or as OH worried - stealing them!!). Having them at all seems pit of character for my son as he is right now- he's well into puberty but very naiive and innocent and still mainly disinterested in Girls. (tho I know as parents we tend to see our child thru Rosey Tints so I may be wrong)

Anyway, it transpires that on 2 separate occasions he was approached in town by a bigger boy from a different school who effectively bullied him and "sold" him the mags in return for a higher sum than the cover price. Nifty business!?! DS was so ashamed and distressed that he'd been bullied and now had stuff he didn't want, that he didn't know what else to do but hide them. Now it may sound naiive of us to believe him, but we do know him well and OH judges his emotional reactions and explanations to be genuine. As I said, he's still an innocent 12 year old. I'm glad we did broach the subject with him.

SO the positives to come out of this are that DS is hopefully better equipped to deal with bullying and will be less ashamed in telling us about anything that happens, and when/if DS does become interested in porn (by whatever medium) we're better informed about how we should deal with it.

Thank you again for your comments- always interesting to compare different views and parenting styles.

I have told my oldest charge that if he wants to read those magazines (and all he reads is FHM etc) then he needs to make sure that his younger siblings do not find them. That he realises that women do not look like that in real life. That the genitals are photoshopped and that he does not base his true life assumptions on women from what he has learned in FHM.

Sounds like you dealt with it beautifully, and by having a conversation (or "little chat") you enabled him to confide in you about the bullying and opened up the whole subject of porn for the future. I have a sense that DH and I will probably experience something similar with DS1 in the not to distant future ourselves, so it's been very interesting to hear about how you broached the subject and what the outcome was.