help-16yr old ds addicted to his ipod and porn on it -how to stop?

[exasperatedemma]

I have found out today that my DS has been going onto an adult/porn chat site after he tried to access the site on our laptop - the software we have on it sent me an email telling me what he tried to access. I don't think he knows that I know at the moment but this explains his utter distress when we took his ipod for a couple of days earlier this week - this was because he refused to put it down and had been on it for about 6 hours straight. He walked out of the house when we took it and didn't come back till late at night. Had no phone or money, but I eventually tracked him down at a friend's house.

I don't know what to do, I can't see how/why a 16 yr old with raging hormones would stop looking at porn when it is so easily accessible, no matter what I say to him. I think he'll just get smarter at hiding what he's doing. I have no way of knowing what he does on his ipod and have tried to let him be a bit more grown up by not insisting that he has software on that to restrict what he goes on, but I'm at my wit's end. any advice gratefully received....

Don't have teenage boys, yet but this is my nightmare so don't want it to go unanswered for you.

He is no doubt going to hate you if you say anything to him and hate you if take the iPod away. My thoughts:

• take it away and open conversation about sex/ exploitation/ find some documentaries on trafficking etc..
• buy him so good old fashioned porn mags,

I am about, after half term, going to take the Internet off my boys iPods. At the moment they just watch endless videos of people paying minecraft. But life is too short....

Good luck, hope you get some better advice.

thank you dededum, I know, I hate being the internet police and it it so utterly exhausting, I thought I had cracked it a year ago when I put software on the laptops to safeguard them and prevent them flicking websites when they were supposed to be doing homework, but now there's just another leaky hole to plug! Life sure was simpler even 10 years ago!

Have a good half term.

I had trouble looking at your post because it had the word " porn" in it. I had to disable my netgear blocksites to see it.

I use this to turn off the wifi when my dc are spending too much time on screens and you can also put key words or sites in that you want blocked. I have a list of word searches to block which reads like hard core porn !! I turn this on and off from my laptop which has a cable connection, I can effectively remotely control every ipod, phone, computer etc in the house

This is an effective way of stopping anyone using the wireless connection to look at porn. It is password protected and you don't even need to tell him you are putting it in place, just next time he tries to access a porn site it will come up as blocked. I don't know how DH set it up but research netgear and see what comes up.

Are you certain he was looking at porn on the iPod?

thank you brighter future, I'll look into that.
Wolfiefan - fairly certain, as he tried to get access on the laptop when I was out (this is during the time when he had no ipod) and he's been spending increasing amounts of time (shudder here) locked in the bathroom with his ipod, I might be being overly suspicious I know, but he did also tell me a few weeks ago that he was chatting with someone who I wouldn't know, I've kind of put all these clues together along with his general demeanour and arrived at that conclusion!!

I don't want to freak you out but kids are also doing chat roulette sex. There's quite a few sites where you can exchange intimate pictures with strangers, I found Dc had left an image on my computer that no mother would want to see [hshock]

I have already been thinking that something similar might be happening since he disappears into the bathroom for over an hour with the ipod - now he's either got very bad diarrhea (don't know how you spell that!) or he's doing something in there with the ipod that Is along those lines. How did you handle it when you found that image?

I think you have to talk to him. He could be up to his neck in something that is getting out of his control. Not just girls are groomed on the internet !

I told him I'd seen the image and asked him if he'd like to see it up on a billboard on his way to school and that if not then he shouldn't post it online !

I talked about love and sex and respect for women etc.. and then blocked all porn sites from the router.

Well done, good luck. In a weird way he is probably happy that you have made that decision for him.