I check my (just turned)12yo DS' whatsapp group chats every so often to check for grooming, bullying etc and he knows I do it as I do it in front of him some times and I've asked him about messages I've seen. I looked recently and was shocked by the sexual nature of the conversations. The group chat is around 6 or 7 of them, all boys except one girl who is a friend but also one of the boy's girlfriend. There's lots of talk of sex, gay sex, male and female genitals, bodily fluids, fetishes, being gay with each other, threesomes/orgies. Lots of sexual memes and emojis but no pornographic images. It seems like silly talk and I'm not concerned that they're doing any of this but I had friends who were having sex at 12 years old so I'm not sure. They don't use snapchat or social media and they play roblox games together so still seem quite "young" compared to a lot of other kids their age who are obsessed with snapchat and tiktok and dating.
I feel uncomfortable reading the messages of kids saying these things and don't know if it's time to stop or if I should be worried? Is this normal now? They're only year 7s and this time last year he was still an innocent child.