Posted on 07/21/2014 11:58:26 AM PDT by Morgana
I never thought it would happen to me. Im technologically savvy, hyper-vigilant about parental controls, and frequently check the search and browser histories of my kids electronic devices. As a writer for LSN, Im more aware than most people of the filth thats out there and the harmful effects it can have on a developing brain (not to mention a developing soul). So thats why I was surprised and heartbroken the day I discovered my ten-year-old son had been watching hardcore pornography on his iPhone.
It was the first day of final exams. At the bus stop that morning, my son suddenly tossed me his phone. Hey, I forgot, I cant have this at school during testing week, he said. Can you go put it on the charger for me?
As I caught the device, I realized that it had been a couple of weeks since I had checked his searches. With a busy senior in the house cramming for her AP exams and getting ready for prom, a fourth-grader frantically trying to bring up his Geography score after a failed state capitals test, and a kindergartener whose math homework consists of the sort of activities that eat up an hour of your night (Make a cutout of your foot. Use it to measure every room in your house in feet. No, I did not make that up), it had simply slipped my mind.
And I really felt I had no reason to worry previous spot checks of his search history had turned up things like what is the worst tasting drink in the world, why are farts so awesome, and giant ship from star trek into darkness. This is a boy who blushes at the mere mention of the girl he likes, and who I was pretty sure was in danger of fainting the first time she grabbed his hand to hold. So, what I was expecting to find in his search history was a peek into the mind of an innocent and slightly geeky ten-year-old boy with an affinity for fart jokes.
What I found was a lot darker than that. As soon as I brought up the history, my stomach sank. The search terms told the story in stark, broken phrases most of which I cant even print here because theyre too explicit.
I dont know what I was thinking, he said, between gasping sobs. I wish I had never seen any of those things. I cant get them out of my head. I want them out of my head. I dont know what to do.
It all started innocently enough he apparently searched for an underwear mod for Minecraft, presumably because he thought it would be hilarious to see Steve walking around in his underpants. That seemingly innocuous search obviously brought up tangentially related results he wasnt prepared to see, and his search terms quickly shifted in a more disturbing direction. Naked people. Naked boys. Naked men. What is gay? The browser history was even worse search terms like that naturally led him straight to the bowels of the internet including a porn video that traumatized me just by reading the title. I didnt have the heart to watch it, but knowing my little boy probably had I was shattered.
My heart broke for him as I realized what must have been going on in his innocent young mind. It all started with a relatively innocent search, and his curiosity took him from there. Unfortunately it took him to places he never wanted to go, and he was left wondering about his own sexuality just because hed stumbled across some naked pictures on the internet.
When he got home, I sat him down and confronted him, gently, about what Id found. He instantly broke down in tears, heaving sobs of the kind I hadnt seen him cry since he was small enough to climb up onto my lap for comfort. At five feet-plus and 75 pounds, lap-sitting wasnt an option, so I just gathered him into my arms and held him until he was calm enough to speak. What he told me broke my heart all over again. Advertisement
I dont know what I was thinking, he said, between gasping sobs. I wish I had never seen any of those things. I cant get them out of my head. I want them out of my head. I dont know what to do.
We talked for a long time. I told him that what he had seen wasnt normal, wasnt real sexuality. I explained, for the first time, in explicit but appropriate terms, exactly what sex is and what it is for, and that its something God wants us to save for marriage so that all the babies who come from sex will have moms and dads to love them and raise them. I asked him if he thought he was gay. He said he didnt know. I pointed out that all his crushes have been on girls, and that seemed to reassure him. I told him it was normal to be curious about peoples bodies and about sex, but that if he ever has questions, he needs to ask me or his dad, not Siri or Google.
He begged me not to tell his father he was so sure he would be angry. I promised him he wouldnt be. (My husband has had his own struggles with pornography in the past, and I knew he, of all people, would be sympathetic while also being able to convey just how damaging porn can be. Later that evening, they went for a walk and had their own long talk. It seemed to help.)
I told him that he was absolutely not in trouble, but that I would be taking his phone away until I could figure out how to protect him from ever seeing those things again.
It turns out that in iOS7, you can block explicit searches, so I upgraded his software from iOS6 and activated the stricter parental controls. (He has an iPhone 4S and hadnt previously wanted to upgrade out of concerns about possible performance issues. That hasnt been a problem, FYI. iOS7 runs fine on the older device.) I also installed a new browser on the phone that sends me daily reports of every site hes visited, and double checked that his laptop computers safety controls were similarly up to snuff. (The laptop, surprisingly, has not been a problem it turns out its much easier to control what he can access there than it is on a phone.)
Finally, I told my son that for at least a little while, Id require him to be in the physical presence of a parent in order to use any internet-connected device, just so we can keep an eye on him and make sure hes safe. To my surprise, he was absolutely fine with that he seemed comforted, even.
The last thing I did was hand him a copy of The Boys Body Book. I explained that his body and feelings are about to start changing in big ways, and that the book would help him know what to expect. I told him we could read it together, or he could read it on his own, but that I would always be available to answer any question he has about sex or his feelings, and I will always tell him the truth, and hell never be in trouble for asking.
Its been a little over two months now, and all is well. Hes gradually earned access back to his devices, although, I still require him to be in a public area while using them. I doubt hell go looking again for naked people for a long, long time. Advertisement
That doesnt mean I wont keep constant vigilance, though. Ive learned my lesson.
For a good introduction to keeping kids safe online, check out How to Childproof the Internet at PCWorld.
Note: Abby Moore is a pseudonym for a LifeSiteNews writer who wishes to protect her family's anonymity.
You grossly over-estimate Laz.
The boy is obviously not old enough to have a smart phone. If he was he would have deleted his search history! I believe this story is one of those moral fables some writers like to print. Yes, it might have happened, but the way it is described it is overly dramatic and moralistic. I call BS on this story, but I do agree that porn is a terrible thing for children to get involved with.
If I were his mother, I’d be looking into his friendships and associations with adults to see if he’s being groomed by an older male.
An interest in farting is normal for young boys. Sexual prurience is not.
Once upon a time there was whitehouse.com, but, alas, it's no longer the useful joke that it would be these days. According to the Wikipedia, "Many schoolchildren in the late 1990s inadvertently saw adult content via the website."
:-) Learn from my mistake.
I’m not whining about anybody. I don’t see a problem with giving your kid a smartphone. If you can afford it, and you can lock it down to keep them from getting to stuff you’d rather not go for it. As Americans we aren’t limited to “need” we can also do “want”, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
This is even more insidious, imho--more insidious than the fact there is porn on the web.
Now some person at the school has a scalable map of your house, nitwit.
Is that really any of their business?
At least 'flip' the floor plan, if you don't just make one up.
People are mined for more information than they know, and it starts in the schools.
Well finally something we can agree on. Americans are not and no need to be limited to “wants” and there’s nothing wrong with that.
However....I’m not in favor of giving children too much “stuff” I think it’s good and healthy to want. I used to tell my kids when they got the “i wants” : It’s good to want. ha!
“If I were his mother, Id be looking into his friendships and associations with adults to see if hes being groomed by an older male.If I were his mother, Id be looking into his friendships and associations with adults to see if hes being groomed by an older male.
An interest in farting is normal for young boys. Sexual prurience is not.”
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Why is it that it seems you and I are the only two on this thread that seems to get that?
We had a seven year old searching for “naked girls” on one of our phones. I don’t know what inspired his searches, but I am guessing older siblings. I also think some of his classmates at the time may have played a part. :(
Years ago, our second oldest daughter was caught searching for things she shouldn’t. She didn’t know there were security settings tracking her. I don’t know what inspired her either. We have found that our children know many ways around parental controls. When our oldest sons were in high school, they learned lots of evasion techniques. :(
I think precocious sexual talk and presentation has become so common among children that not everyone realizes it isn’t natural.
There are many negative influences out there.
The American Library Ass. socialists will coach children in ways to circumvent web screening.
NASA 2076 flies an Apollo 13.2 mission. All onboard are forever drifting in space because their iphones are unable to connect to google.
When I was that age, we didn’t have iPhones to watch porn. Instead, we joined the Boy Scouts and volunteered for the paper recycling drive because we all knew that burried withn a few of those perfectly stacked and twined bundles of newspapers and magazines, we would find old issues of Playboy, Penthouse, and Huslter.
I agree that smart phones are probably what we want our kids to have, though maybe 12 or 13. My 11 year old doesn’t have one yet.
I was little a long time ago, before anything more electronic than really cool stereo systems. Phones had curly wire attached to them. But I also was exposed to really raunchy porn at about the age of 9 or 10. I was a shy little girl and not seeking anything. We were playing at my little friend’s house in her parents’ bedroom and she told me her dad had a stack of nasty magazines under the Good Housekeeping type ones in the large magazine basket. She went to the bottom and pulled out a stack and gave me one. The article - yes, an article - I turned to was about a film where people were naked and slicing each other with razor blades. There were a few photos. It was so awful it made me feel nauseous and I shoved it back into the pile. I never liked that dad ever again and wondered about the mom. I also wondered if stuff like that would one day not be scary. Ha ha ha, it’s still scary to me now as a middle aged adult!! I’ve never heard of that practice since that day!
But I lived a very normal life. Kids do get exposed to weird things. It’s not ok but you cannot prevent it.
they are not assumptions.
1. nature exists, can be discussed dispassionately, and is a baseline for our existence.
2. the woman has obvious emotional issues with sex online. and iphones. and internet. and religious beliefs. those are not assumptions— she documents them in her article. as such they are fair game for discussion.
3. I do not frequent DU. I am more of an alt.politics.clinton.whitewater reader. i have on fr since 1998 or so. DU was launched in 2001. i see you have been on fr since 2005. do you know what you are talking about??
???
It’s just natural, isn’t that what you were saying? Shouldn’t parents “educate” these kids “properly”? instead of trying to protect them which you find so laughable and mockable?
perhaps this will be highly controversial to you, but sex is (gasp— the horror! the horror!) natural. being uptight about a penis or vagina or a picture of a penis or vagina makes as much sense as being uptight about a picture of a nose or a foot.
I think the woman’s concern when dissected rationally is at least part luddite.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.