12 (nearly 13 year old) looking at inappropriate content, this time accessed at school

[pinkoneblueone]

My son was working on the mac and had his USB plugged in and removed it in a hurry when I sat down to check my emails. It raised my suspicions due to the hurry he was in to get away.

I asked him what was on it and he refused to give it to me and was going to damage it I eventually prised it out of his hands and he owned up that there was inappropriate images on it.

There are 3 digital manga images of nude girls in duos that he downloaded at school from Yahoo.

He was honest with me eventually but i'm not sure on the best course of action. He only gets supervised access as he has had a previous bing search history couple of years back looking for nude pictures of a certain female from Harry Potter.

Please can I have your advice on what is the best way to handle this.

I will be contacting the school ASAP regarding the matter.

Anyone?

Telling school is the responsible thing to do but you also need to keep channels of communication open with him.

DD2 had a miserable time in ICT class sitting next to a boy who was constantly accessing porn. In the end she cracked and told me and I reported it to school.

I think its going to be tricky because accessing porn is so easy. I think I would start by having an open discussion about the impact of porn on himself, he affects future relationships with women - but he may not care about that atm, lots of it is extreme & damaging and once seen it can't be unseen. You should put parental controls onto his phone/computer etc but be aware that he will find a way if he's determined. Ds has told me he'd seen porn when he was at primary - another kid passed it around.

Thank you for your responses.

It wasn't seriously bad, it was Manga drawings of new nude ladies together I am guessing he accessed it after school in the library.

I will be informing the school. Would you punish or just explain the facts? I'm not quite sure what to say tbh I have told him he's too young for this sort of thing and it's not appropriate. We just had a conversation about condoms as he had a class discussing it recently so I wonder it if it's related in some way.

Don't school have strict controls to prevent children accessing porn on school computers? Complain to the school that they are not protecting your child from inappropriate content.

You can't stop him accessing it somewhere, but he really shouldn't be getting hold of this stuff on school computers.

That doesn't answer your longer term question - re that, relationship guidance might be the way to go eg that it's normal to be interested in attractive people of the opposite sex, but they are real people too with feelings, not just bodies, and that to have a real relationship with real girls involves getting to know them as people.

I don't think punishment would work - you need to help him understand why it's not appropriate.

There were kids at DDs school who could bypass every type of security the school put on the firewall - one of those areas where a student may well be ahead of the staff.

How do you know he did it at school?

A. He told me
B. He does not get unsupervised access here after previous internet searches
C. The school have just had a system change over

I don't think punishment is fair. He is curious and the information is available so it's very tempting for him.

Take a little time before your respond and think about what you really want him to understand about why he shouldn't do it.

Don't make him feel ashamed of wanting to see naked women.

Explain that the temptation will always be there but he must never abuse school computers in that way. Then talk to him about how porn can damage the way he sees women. Be honest and tell him he will regret looking in the long run.