Help! How do you stop kids bypassing internet / phone controls to watch porn?

[Namechangedisaster]

Just this. I've just realised that DS is accessing adult content via proxies. I thought I had iphone locked down with parental controls on the device (via Screen Time) and by the provider (all parental controls set appropriately and regularly updated and checked).

Aparently this all counts for nothing, because teens know more about tech than we do. He's accessing the entire web via proxies and this has got around all my controls.

I had NO IDEA this was a thing.

Apart from taking the phone away, what can I do to stop this? I feel absolutely sick about what he has already seen

This is a good suggestion. Last time we talked to his friends parents they did not restrict their kids internet usage at all and seemed to think that the parental controls would block everything. They don't.

You have to talk with them. Keep the communication open and easy. Discuss anything and everything,

The rules of parenting teens have flipped dramatically. they’re supposed to push us away, go explore, and experiment and tell us only what we need to know. But instead we need to compete hard with peers and pop culture and keep them talking to us.

My parents held boundaries and standards by forgetting their own transgressions and being wilfully blind to mine and we don’t have that luxury. They had the luxury of being authoritarian in a world with less options.

Take him for a drive. It’s easier to talk sitting side by side, and listen to his thoughts and views. Don’t worry about whatever comes out of his mouth first (it’s often nonsense) just stay calm. Ask questions that are genuinely curious and seek to understand his motivations and perspectives. Be honest and open yourself. Be prepared to compromise a bit too.

You’ve got this op

I have to disagree that he's not going to admit porn use to his friends. It's more likely they are chatting about it and sharing videos!

Difficult one, OP, when you think the restrictions will work and teens find their way around them.

I believe you.

My teenaged girls have seen porn and do not like it and avoid looking at it. I believe them about that but even if I didn't we have talked and talked about it, sex, what girls might actually want to do, what porn suggests they should do, etc etc. I do think it's easier to have these conversations with girls but possibly even more important to have them with boys. I'm not pretending they are easy, open conversations but they are vital and actually the only thing we have to combat this horrendous state of affairs because even if you do manage to control his access, somebody's parents won't. You can set it up as a cat and mouse game or you can set it up as you as a team.

I repeat: I am not saying any of this is easy.

Thanks for this. It's such a kind and considered reply and I really appreciate it.

I think I'm flipping out becasue I already resent how much the online world has stolen from my children's childhoods. I hate that my kids can't go out to play because there are no other children playing out, they're all on devices, indoors.

I hate how they're influenced by porn, the manosphere, body shaming... ALL of it.

I am so angry that porn is available to anyone with a phone.

The car ride is a good idea, hopefully then he won't see how upset I am by all of this. Thank you.

I loathe porn. The idea that girls are seeing it too is just so upsetting. If I were a teenager seeing so many vulnerable women and girls abused, millions of them, being watched by millions and millions of boys and men every second of every day... I don't know how they handle it.

Sending so much love to all mums of girls.

And boys, obvously. Seeing this shit is cripping them.

You need to restrict what apps he can download so he can't download VPN apps. You will also need to go into settings toggle VPN access to off and the password protect that setting. Make sure that the phone is actually using the router because he is probably getting around those restrictions by simply using data instead.

Update - I have spoken to our provider, EE (supposedly the best for online safety) and they have confirmed that there is nothing they can do to prevent VPN/proxy use to over ride their parental controls.

They have suggeseted going onto the phone to remove the VPN then changing settings so that no more apps can be installed.

Not sure if that is helpful for any other parents reading this going through similar.

Thank you.

Just to be clear, he has a child's SIM. I hope anyone else reading this realises that a children's SIM card and parental controls do not protect againts VPNs / proxies being used to get around them.

I think going forward we will have to check his phone every day. Settings and privacy controls are regularly updated by providers (and kids).

Your child has access to technology that you know nothing about @Namechangedisaster. That's your biggest problem. Take the devices away until you learn how to lock them down properly. You arw making excuses that ALL children have phones etc. They don't at 13. He is a child. He doesn't get to make the rules.

Let him go to a library. He won't be able to access porn there because the computers are locked down so VPNs can't be installed in the first place. A 13 year old accessing such material would be reported to Social Services.

You need to put controls on what apps he can download, on a properly set up iPhone you can enforce this, I assume you can on android but not sure how.

Again on iPhone you can see what websites he is visiting and block them within the screen time app so you can block websites too.

He is using proxies - I can see what he's accessed, and I can block those, but it's impossible block every single proxy address on the internet.

Adult sites are blocked by the screentime app, but proxies aren't.

I don't know a single year 9 child without a phone. Do you?

My son got his in year 7 and was the last in his year group to get one. The year 6 whatsapp groups are flooded with porn regularly, according to a teacher at his year group. One of my neices was regularly forced to watch porn by boys on her school bus and stopped going to school as a result.

It's everywhere and I thought I could block it out of my own home and phones at least. I was wrong.

This podcast episode addresses a lot of the questions you’re asking OP, not the tech stuff but how to discuss porn, sexuality and masculinity.
Ignore the title (which is somewhat misleading), it’s broader than that.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-unspeakeasy-with-meghan-daum/id1524832743?i=1000598238927

The guest’s website: https://richiehardcore.com/

I know plenty of 13 year olds without smart phones. They are banned at school.

The person responsible for your 13 year old being able to access porn is you. Take away the devices. He can't be trusted to use them responsibly. Actions have consequences or are you just blaming everyone else?

That’s very depressing response from EE. I don’t think there’s massive interest from companies is doing stuff like this. After age verification came in recently, VPNs were the top downloaded apps that day.

Let us know how you get on with removing and then blocking the apps via the phone. Hopefully that’ll help!

Yes I do, DS has had his taken away for not following rules. He's also been threatened with his old brick phone back if he can't behave. It does seem to have detered him somewhat.

How is he accessing a VPN, is it an app on his phone? DH has managed to lock down DS phone so not only can he not download apps but cant access websites without permission either.

I told my DS that our accounts were linked (I pay for his phone), so I could see everything he accessed...😂

If I were a teenager seeing so many vulnerable women and girls abused, millions of them, being watched by millions and millions of boys and men every second of every day... I don't know how they handle it

This is the angle we went with. We told ours that we would not be angry if they watched porn per se, but that we would be disgusted and ashamed of them if they watched women being abused which is what porn is as ethical porn is some fantasy unicorn people believe in only to try and absolve themselves of being complicit. We hammered home the abuse, exploitation and examples of porn actresses who told the world for years that it was great and they felt liberated only to come back decades later and say they were delusional as they were being abused. It’s in the same ballpark as people who look at paedophilic images and don’t think it’s wrong as they didn’t take the photos. We told ours that they were not those people. If you want to watch porn, great, draw some porn cartoons yourself and look at them, that hurts no one.

I had a colleague with older kids and that’s how they successfully managed it with theirs so we thought we’d give it a whirl and it worked. The other trick is to have DH (or a respected male in life if no father present) give all that information and messaging as that is more powerful than it coming from mum.

I do think this is definitely more so in your area, your kids friends etc. I don’t know a single 9 yo with a phone. None of the secondary schools around here allow phones at all. Whatsoever.x even on the journey to school. If they are found they are taken until the end of term

Hard agree. You seem annoyed at everyone but yourself OP

My DD is 12 and in Y8 so will be 13 soon. She has a smart phone but it's very locked down and she can only call and text her friends. She moans but she manages to do a heck of a lot of socialising without much in the way of smart phone capabilities.
She gets a long bus to school but she has music/Kindle for that (or, I'm assuming, she does watch YouTube on other kids' phones but we can't do much about that, and she's allowed a limited amount of YouTube kids on her own phone).
She tried to reset an old phone of hers, and DH had an alert set up to notice when she tried to sign in to that and/or her Gmail address. She also tried to log a phone which we think came from a friend, into our WiFi and again we noticed that (or it might have been the same old phone, I can't remember, but anyway she didn't have a SIM and she doesn't have money for data, so she can't use that phone for anything.

Our DS is 14 but has SEN and is in a specialist school. His best friend doesn't have a phone "at the moment" his mum says. We do arrange for them to meet up (they are not local) but DS also only has offline games, text and phone and friend's mum is OK for them to speak on the phone using her phone. Clearly teenage boys CAN manage without a huge amount of phone access. DS takes his phone to town if he goes to the shops and now is able to pay with it, will photograph or video things he wants to show us, but otherwise doesn't use it much.

We have other problems with her but this is one we have a handle on. If she misuses her phone (she's only allowed it outside of her bedroom) we physically lock it in a box with a combination (where we have to put cash - as I say, we have other problems with her - diagnosed ADHD, waiting to try meds - but this one we are on top of.

I really think this needs unpicking in a totally different way than just taking the phone away.

I have a teen the same age. Very tech savvy. Three quarters of the way through puberty just incase you assume he is some innocent little flower. He understands why we have all the safe rails set up on his phone and ensures his younger brother is also safe online. Neither of them can use the chat function on any games and my eldest will make sure my youngest is using his devices safely. Both of them will come to me and tell me if one of the safeguards is allowing them access to something they know isn’t allowed (there was a spate of time when some glitch happened and the chat function was suddenly accessible.)

With all of that in mind I’m most interested whether you’ve had conversations with yoir son about navigating the internet safely and particularly about grooming and access to porn. If you have, and he has ignored that, then that invites a further conversation as to why he is lying and being deceptive.

Children will often lean on their peers early when their parents are unavailable. If your thirteen year old is prioritising his friends over you then I would see that as a sign that you e lost connection. If you are seriously telling me that your expectation is that he would just access another device if you took his phone away that’s a really eye opening statement and you have basically lost control.

This is my thought. You can take all the tech away from him, become a 1980s household, whatever. He will still access it somehow - friends phones, other households. You need to have some seriously frank conversations about sex and porn. It’s essential with both boys and girls, but especially boys in my opinion, and especially around this age. Usually most schools start assemblies about sex, consent, sending nudes, watching porn etc from about year 8, so that’s usually a good time to start discussing it.