Need Advice About Son's Friend

[fedora]

ugh yuck.

so this boy is 12. He is spending the weekend with us. He can be annoying in that obnoxious 12 yr old boy way, but this is way too much.

He was on my computer yesterday evening(alone) and I did come in to check on him a couple of times. Every time I did he was looking at a gaming website. He must have heard me walking up. Then I came up from another direction one time and caught him trying to show my son(10) a youtube video of monkeys having sex. I turned the computer off. My son said he did not get his turn on the computer. I told my son to blame his friend who was looking up monkey sex videos.

so this morning I check the history on my computer. All these porn sites had been visited. I am so mad.

I'll admit at 12 I found my dad's porn movie and watched it. I was shocked to say the least. But I would have never done that at someone else's house. Neither my husband or I look at porn online, so I know it was this kid. while he was on the computer my son was in the other room with another friend. If he had been looking up porn in front of my kid I would be livid right now. I do have a computer block on websites like these, but apparantly it did not work.

I am going to deal with this, am not sure how yet. any advice

[ShayFL]

Maybe your house rule should be that only family members are allowed on your computer. This will leave no doubt as to the culprit if it happens again.

Pre-teens and teens are naturally curious about sex and the Internet has made access to the most vile of fetishes available to anyone. My daughter will be 13 in January. She has her own computer. It is password protected (by me!!) so she must ask me to turn it on and when she is done I turn it off. It blocks porn. I tested it. I tried surfing for porn in every imaginable way and I got no where.

With this said, she knows that I will check the History at random. She isnt allowed on My Space or Facebook or any type of online community situation.

So far, nothing controversial ever.

We had an interesting thing come up last year. See I am an artist and sometimes I paint nudes. I also have a nude bust sculpture in my house. I have never thought anything of these as I I find the human body beautiful. So my daughter asks me what is the difference between Porn and Art? Hmmmm....how to answer this one.

I told her that Porn is meant to excite a person sexually and art is mean to be appreciated for it's beauty. So she asks, well cant art stimulate someone sexually? O.k....yes it can.

So I asked her how she felt when she looked at my nude paintings and sculpture. She said she felt nothing really. She had seen porn at her Dad's house in his bedroom, so I asked her how she felt when she saw those magazines. She said icky. I said, there you have it......LOL

It is so tricky at this age....

[fedora]

yes, sadly I think that no one will be allowed to use the computer but us.

I did find that our blocker had been turned off and not turned back on. It blocks all non rated websites(including this one) so I have to use a password. I turned it off and forgot about doing that, but it is back on now.

How do you block the porn on your daughter's computer? Did you buy software or do something else.

I am mad, not at their curiosity, but at being taken advantage of.

[ShayFL]

I use this one:

Open Original Shared Link

[ravenwoodglass]

yes, sadly I think that no one will be allowed to use the computer but us.

I did find that our blocker had been turned off and not turned back on. It blocks all non rated websites(including this one) so I have to use a password. I turned it off and forgot about doing that, but it is back on now.

How do you block the porn on your daughter's computer? Did you buy software or do something else.

I am mad, not at their curiosity, but at being taken advantage of.

The kid could also get you in a lot of trouble if he goes to the wrong porn site. I would make sure his parents know and whenever he visits from now on I would lock up the keyboard and mouse and tell the boys to either play outside or find a board game.

[curlyfries]

Telling the parents can be oh so tricky. When my DD was that age, she was at her best friend's house along with a cousin of the friend. They were on the computer talking to grown men and my daughter told me. I approached the mother and told her I was informing her so she could keep a more watchful eye. I asked her not to let it be known that my daughter told, but she did, anyway. They were no longer friends after that.

Another time, another friend was smoking around my daughter and she told me. This girl's parents are very good friends of ours. I told them, the daughter denied it, and they chose to believe her.

[Lisa]

Dealing with other parents can be tricky. Yup.

You could go over to the child's house and ask the him to tell his parents what he was doing on your computer. Maybe if the parents hear it from their son, they would be more likely to believe it.

Secondly, this would be my preference, you could re-define your house rules to ensure that the computer is only used by family during supervised times. The your son's friend is not in any immediate danger (at least at this age), so it might be better to leave his parents out of this at this point. No parent wants to hear that their child was not acting appropriately in another parents eyes, right or wrong. Some handle it well, others don't.

No one wrote the "Parenting Handbook" and there will be many, many things you will just have to wing it, and deal with as things as they arise.

[mftnchn]

The kid could also get you in a lot of trouble if he goes to the wrong porn site. I would make sure his parents know and whenever he visits from now on I would lock up the keyboard and mouse and tell the boys to either play outside or find a board game.

[mftnchn]

I don't mean to be an alarmist, but honestly, I am alarmed. This could just be curiosity, but it could very well be much more than that. In my opinion it has to be carefully looked into.

It is obvious to me that this boy is familiar with porn, it isn't likely that he figured this out in the few minutes he had access to your computer. He is also willing to look at the porn in a risky situation where you are looking in regularly, another red flag. Also if your blocker IS working, he has figured out how to get around it. There are many blocking programs that are easy to get around according to a computer expert I discussed this with. This boy's behavior is more than curiosity in my opinion. If he is masturbating around this, he is already into sexual addiction. The fact that this child appears to have some other acting out, is another red flag.

So the question in my mind is how did he get involved with this and how involved is he? There is a very real possibility that he is not only viewing porn, but that he has some sexual experience likely traumatic. If he has been sexually abused, then all the children playing with him are at risk. He may not intend to hurt them, but children will often repeat what has happened to them with other children. Believe me, this can happen right under your nose, it only takes a couple minutes of unsupervised time. He has already been exposing your child to porn, so the boundary is crossed...you don't know how far yet.

I think I would do this:

-talk to the boy directly. I would try to deal first with my anger and see this child as a possible victim. I'd try to join with him and invite him to share with you how he first got involved in seeing this stuff. Talk about what you found and that this indicates a really problem and a danger to him, and that it also indicates he might have had something scary happen to him before. Ask him if he has ever had any experience that made him uncomfortable sexually. If you do this in a caring way, this child just might disclose to you that he was sexually abused. Normally I'd say that the parents should do this. But you have the opening and the right because he is in your home engaging in this behavior. And you don't know what the parents will say or do.

-talk to your son and this boy directly. Explain what you found and that this is dangerous to them, and that because of that you will need to talk to his parents. Explain that you know this will be hard, and that it might make them feel awkward as friends. Talk about how friends look out for each other, and choose to do the hard thing when someone else might get hurt. Explain that you care about this boy and that you'll need to make some clear rules for when he visits so that he and others will be safe. You probably also need to talk about sexual boundaries.

-talk with your son privately. Explore carefully to see if there is any indication that some sexual touching has occurred. Explore with him what he has seen, and what he felt about it. KNOW that most children don't disclose and often will deny (especially if you are upset).

-follow through with talking to the boys parent's about what you discovered. If indicated you can also make a call to the local CPS authority to report what you have learned.

Yes, there are likely to be problems with the parents. Remember that how you handle this is a model for your son, who is having to deal with his friend. It is also a message about standing up for what is right. Hopefully they will take it seriously.

It could be helpful for you to get advice from an expert.

Best wishes, this is a hard situation.

[Lisa]

I have been an advocate for the prevention and victims of child sexual abuse for many years. I know a little bit about the subject.

A twelve year old little boy looking at some porn on a computer does not make him a victim of sexual abuse nor a perpetrator. It is very typical of the age and exploring is natural.

Questioning a child that is not your own about inappropriate touching should not be done. If need be, it should left to professional and/or the proper legal authorities.

As in all situations, always keep the line of communications open at your home.

[debmidge]

Oftentimes parents who have lax attitudes about porn have it in their

homes as well, and while they might try to keep it away from their kids

the kids know what is going on. So while the parents may watch it,

the kid feels it's OK and even a curosity which the kid can't access at

home. So he'll take the risk of accessing it elsewhere. And also kids

swap these websites with each other...so they are knowledgable of them.

It's difficult to talk the parents who have lax attitudes - a friend of mine

recently tried to speak to the parents of a young lady who who keeps throwing herself

at all the older guys who know her older daughter. She's made quite a reputation for herself.

The girl's mother took high insult to my friend when suggesting that the daughter

not place herself in situation of being alone around young men who are too old for her

(guys who are out of high school). The mother actually encourages her to wear flimsy clothing and flirt to "catch a boyfriend." The girl has developed a reputation according to the older

daughter, even by today's standards - so it must be bad.

My friend does not know how else to tell this woman - what else can you say?

So it's difficult to keep your kids away from kids who

have been exposed to porn/sex/improper stuff at an early age and some parents

just seem to be too naive to be able to monitor this stuff.

[fedora]

thanks for the responses.

so here is some background on this boy. We live on a dirt road in the country, thirty minutes from our tiny town. This boy lives thirty minutes PAST me. They have no phone, no satellite tv, and no internet. He is definately not exposed to those things often at all. He is not an expert, just an obnoxious curious pubescent 12 year old who saw a rare oppurtunity and took it. There is no indications that he has had any sexual experience at all.

Our office has the only computer in it. I have settings to block nudity. they don't work. The wide doorway is open and does not shut. I let these kids play the computer because they are poor country kids who don't get to enjoy technology much, they play outside most of the time.

The kids were playing hide and seek and the kid who was the seeker would get on the computer for a few minutes while the other kids hid. He was not sitting at the computer for long stretches by himself. He was quickly visiting sites and then getting off them. Still not okay with me at all. He found them easily. He went to google and typed in porn and also porn video. Tons of site come up and he clicked on them. I had my computer history to look at so I know he went to about 15 sites and could not have looked at any of them for real long due to the length of time he had available. Some were fairly harmless, some were HORRIBLE. THANK GOD, my son was not even coming down to the computer. He was hiding the whole time. So he did not see any of it and did not know what was going on exactly.

So I asked the other boy here (14 and he has almost lived was us at times) about his usage on the computer and he totally told on the 12 year old.

I asked the 12 year old about it and said he should be honest with me. He admitted to looking at some sites. I told him I understood his curiousity but what upset me is he knew better , I felt taken advantage of, it was inappropriate and illegal. I told him he should enjoy being a kid, that once he crossed over into adult things there was no going back. I explained how his actions affected my whole family and my son's friends due to the fact that I will not be able to let them use my computer without going through the time and energy to restrict access. I also explained that I felt like he was a fine kid and that my son wanted to be friends with him. BUT that I would not let my son be friends with him if he was a bad influence- that meant no sneaking to look at porn, no calling his friends bad names, and no joking about his friends being horny. He listened and agreed and said he understood.

I would have DIED of embarrassement if I was him. He spent the whole weekend with us,and things were fine after that, but no more computer.

I have not decided if I will tell his dad, though I probably will. His dad is very very old. I don't see his mom though she lives on the same land with them(they are not together anymore though)

curlyfries, kudos to your daughter, what a brave girl to tell you about her friends.

[Lisa]

Sounds like you handled the situation very well.

[fedora]

thank you,

When I was telling him that I understood his curiosity, I told him that I found my dad's porn video when I was 12 and I watched it. I told him it was shocking and in many ways I wished I had not. He kind of chuckled and said he knew what I meant.

I wanted him to know that I did not think he was a bad or disgusting person and that is why I told him about me finding my dad's video. But I did emphasize it was inappropriate for a child his age and illegal and would not be tolerated at my home. I also told him I knew that boys that age could be obnoxious, he laughed and said yes, and I said that does not mean you have to be.

so I told my mom about all this. I told her about finding my dad's video and one magazine when I was 12 and watching it. I said the worst part is how I got my more advanced friend(13 and very into boys) and showed it to her. My mom said she would have to get on to my dad for me finding his video(she claims no memory of this video...hmmm). We both laughed then, because that was 21 years ago and makes no difference now.

I would totally want to know if my kid did this, or smoked, or acted inappropriately. I would never think my kid would never misbehave. I know other parents are not like that though. And it could even endanger some kids if their parents found out about their mistakes.

I think his parents would totally believe me, and would probably talk to him. I think it would be okay, so I will probably talk to them about it.