My 12yo son is watching porn

[honeyJD]

I am horrified. I was in the loo and came downstairs to find him in the living room watching porn on his phone. He's 12 and a half and is well into puberty. I have parental locks on his laptop and thought his phone did too, clearly not. I asked him what he was doing and he said he was listening to music. Do I raise this as an issue with him? Is it normal? Help please!

Err..yes raise it as an issue. 12 is way too young. You need to put parental locks on his phone too

Not ok.

You need to take Internet safety a lot more seriously. Digital parenting magazine is good, our school send it out free.

OP, first, don't panic - it's normal to be curious and most of us have been there at some point (as either the child, the parent or both).

You've got a great opportunity to discuss it with him rationally like the young adult he is and to open the dialogue about sex and relationships in a way that means he'll come to you for advice in the future and won't feel shame about having sexual feelings or being curious.

1. He's naturally curious about sex, so ask him if he has any questions and talk them through.

2. Talk to him about the damage porn does and about how unreliable and unrealistic it is as a guide to sex. He will inevitably see porn again at some point in the future, and I believe it's better for teenagers to be able to 'read' porn appropriately and to see it for what it is as opposed to pretending it doesn't exist. You can't shield them from everything, but you can teach them what it means and to respond appropriately.

3. As PPs have said, sort your wifi/internet security out.

Also, are you sure he wasn't watching a music video that just looked like a porno? I find it hard to tell the difference sometimes so he might not have actually sought out porn deliberately.

Still an opportunity for a grown up conversation, either way, though!

Also OP, remember that parental controls don't necessarily block everything. We have what we thought were pretty bomb proof parental controls on ours as our youngest is only ten. However, our twenty year old came home and tested them for us (out of the kindness of his heart ) and although all porn sites etc. are blocked, when he put 'naked men' into Google on his phone and did an image search the results made my eyes water. I know you haven't had it suggested as an approach, but please don't just say nothing and quietly change your internet settings....

Take brick away and replace with small light cheap text and talk job, cost under a tenner.

He cannot be exposed to this stuff at twelve.

I've had a discussion with him about what I saw earlier in a non confrontational manner. Now looking into android apps to help block this stuff and going to start limiting the time he has with his phone when at home, which will be a good practice anyway not just for the porn side of things.

You're very naive if you think your kids can't get past those filters, plus they don't filter all porn, like porn on Twitter or Tumblr.

This is the problem, the kids are pretty savvy, they know all about vpns etc, so we do have to be careful. Norton family premier seems quite good to me. If he has an iPhone. I think it's actually normal for boys to be very curious, the conversation about porn is the best thing.

Also, they'll see porn in the playground or after school on friends' phones, etc at some point. You can only police so much. Which is why it's so important they understand the impact of porn and they understand what it depicts and what it doesn't.

In my view, arming kids with that knowledge is much more useful than kidding yourself that you can shield them from everything.

When he gets to 18, I'd far rather my teenage son knows about porn and the realities of the industry as opposed to thinking 'everyone watches it and this is how everyone's sex life is'.

"Norton family premier seems quite good to me"

Does it block all the porn available on Tumblr and Twitter?

Does it block sites like Startpage that allow you to use a proxy server?

As far as Im concerned these filters are a waste of money and time because they're so easy to get past, and all the kid has to do is type into Google - "How do I bypass porn filters".

The only way you're going to stop your kid looking at porn is to ban them from the internet or be right beside them when they use it.

@LonginesPrime

I think your approach is the correct.

Yeah, you need to talk to him.

That was around the age I started reading 18+ Fanfiction. I was never interested in porn, but I loved reading it at that age, particularly gay porn about Harry Potter & Draco Malfoy, aha. Luckily I grew up with my Grandparents who simply weren't that tech-savvy. Parental controls also don't block everything.

For Android you can instal Google Family Link, it's the parental control by google (android is google) so like the "standard" one for android phones, totally free.
Limit the screen time to the recommended maximum one hour a day, and totally block it at night (better one hour before bedtime).
Block all the inappropriate apps already installed and set it to allow new apps installation only after your approval.
Activate the web and Youtube filter, block specific inappropriate websites.
Last, change his google account password to one only you know, he can still check email and other stuff he is already signed in, a notification will send to you for new access or subscription. Check in his account for messages and history.

That's all, problem solved quickly without cost!

I forgot... check or set Chrome is the default browser and block any other one, that could be used to bypass web filters.

I've got the same problem with my 12 y/o (about to turn 13). He is fortunately quite willing to talk about it but it is really disturbing how he considers some really inappropriate stuff to be totally normal. I have put some Internet security in place but it seems to me that unless you "secure" the Internet to the point that it it pretty much unusable you can't filter out all inappropriate material. I have also had great trouble shutting off the Internet at night. Vodafone provides an app which theoretically allows you to shut down the guest WiFi and to block devices but every time I use it, it succeeds in preventing access but then doesn't work when I try and switch it back on. Then I have to waste an hour of my time rebooting the router etc just to get the Internet back.
Really it seems to me the only way to stop kids seeing bad things is to physically remove devices. But again, I can't take them away permanently and I can't look over my son's shoulder all day every day so realistically he is going to see porn.
Yesterday he started chatting on an app called Omegle which pairs you up with random people from around the world on video chat. When I enquired who he was talking to it turned out to be some random unidentified 14 Yr old in America but he also told me that he has previously opened up a chat to find that the person he has been connected with is an adult man who is cracking one off live on video. My son seems to think it's perfectly normal for a 12 year old to see this and he says "don't worry, I just click away if anything like that pops up". 😱
I'm not really sure what to do because if I ban him from Internet he will lose his one form of entertainment and connection to his friends during this lockdown. And he understandably doesn't want to be treated like a baby. He is at least quite savvy about the dangers of predators etc online.
He has the same curiosity I had at that age about sex etc but in my day you had to salvage a dirty magazine from a hedge..
Whereas now they have an entire world of hard-core filth at their fingertips.

@Papatron Have you tried Family Link for android or Family Sharing for apple? Maybe these cannot filter all the inappropriate stuff, but they do for the most part so it's still worth it. About limiting the device/internet use at night, these parental control apps do a perfect job, you need to set the blocked hours once and that all. You can also set a maximum screen time for the day time that leaves less options to look for inappropriate stuff. Omegle is not good for a 12yo, a new app installation will need your approval first so that would have been avoided. Give it a try, it's free.

Yes I have tried family link and it does work. In any case I physically remove his phone at night so the android device is not too much of an issue. And Vodafone seem to be fairly successful at filtering out the bad stuff when he is away from the house and on mobile data. But this doesn't deal with the fact he has a desktop PC as well. For example I've just been out to walk the dog for a couple of hours and he has been at home on the computer so I can't really be sure what he is up to on it. I will have to look into whether there is anything available for pc that will prevent porn being accessed. I'm not sure there is any protection app capable of getting in the way of a teenage boy's curiosity. It would be useful to speak to the parents of his school friends and see if this is a common problem amongst them but lockdown doesn't make that easy and I don't really know them well enough to ring them out of the blue and discuss this. Plus I'm worried that word will get round that my son is a potential bad influence and all the parents will panic and stop their kids interacting with him.
Of course, when I ask him what his friends do he tells me that they are all allowed unsupervised unfettered access to the internet 24/7 🧐🤥

This turned into an IT chat but I think the core points are that you need to have a dialogue with him. Is there a dad in the picture or a male role model? My boy is the same and I’ve limited his phone hours and it stays downstairs at night etc.

Remember that boys that age are in bloom. That’s the polite way of putting it. He’s going to find something to wank over whether it’s a picture on the internet or a dirty magazine. My boy and his friend just had a message thread and were gushing over an old picture of Kylie Minogue. I didn’t have the heart to tell him how old she is 😂

@Papatron I know, it's hard to block any inappropriate stuff on all the devices. My daughters rarely use the PC but when they do it's mainly in the living room and we can easily check what is going on. Anyway if his PC is Windows you can use the built-in parental control (windows family safety), add a child account (keep its password secret), set screen time limit, put filters on the microsoft browser and block the others ones.
It's not an infallible thing but filters works for the most and it's essential to prevent screen addiction. You can look at his web history and add web addresses to the blocked list... like Omegle.

We set also the dns on the router like advised here... idk exactly what dns is but this simple change worked very well: www.opendns.com/setupguide/#familyshield
Obviously keep the router password secret.

Years ago we used Qustodio on their phones, tablets and PC, but it started not working properly on the phones, so since it's not free, even not cheap, we switched to family link on phones and kidlogger (full version with fee) on PC. Now, for us windows Family Safety is enough, we still have Kidlogger free version installed but just for added security. You could try the microsoft built-in one and opendns, both free, if that is not enough for you, kidlogger free, paied or at last Qustodio or similar more complete parental control (with monthly fee).

Anyway, as @Meeeh said, a good talk is the first thing, you should be a good IT expert to avoid any inappropriate web stuff and probably a teen will find a way to bypass that too. I spent days looking for a good way to make Family Link non bypassable, it has been very hard even finding online the good guide that finally has enabled me to do that.
In any case the parental control apps can do a good job in limiting the most part of inappropriate stuff and mostly the screen time (that should never be more than a total of 2 hours a day), not infallible but still it's really worth installing them.

Thanks - I will check that out. There is a way to control the individual devices via their MAC address too but apparently kids have been known to bypass that too!

2 hours a day screen time 😂. My boys are spending more like 6 hours a day, not counting schoolwork. Not normally the case, but during this lockdown there isn't a great deal for them to do, with no school, team sports, friends, outings and I need to work so I don't have time to provide the necessary 'guidance'/entertainment for non screen activities.

I have spoken to my son about viewing dodgy material and he is at least willing to admit what he has seen and discuss it. He isn't completely clueless about internet safety but I find it very disturbing what he and his friends seem to think is 'normal' for a 12/13 yr old to encounter. It may be normal in the sense that they all encounter it but it's not normal in the sense of what any young boy should see.

He has been better behaved since we had our chat and have agreed some sensible boundaries which give him some freedom but on the condition he behaves like less of a rude twazzock.

I had a porn chat with mine and made it quite clear that a) he’s too young to be watching this although I totally understand that his body is changing, wanking etc. b) the porn out there can be weird and my concern is he’ll think some things are normal and then when he is old enough to have sex he has a bad experience and c) normal girls don’t look or behave like this

He said he missed school so much because there he could “fill his eyes” with pretty girls his own age. Poor kids - lockdown blues

@meeeh Yes I had the same conversation. Hopefully some of it sank in.