Posted on 07/21/2014 11:58:26 AM PDT by Morgana
I never thought it would happen to me. I’m 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, I’m more aware than most people of the filth that’s out there and the harmful effects it can have on a developing brain (not to mention a developing soul). So that’s 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 can’t 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 can’t even print here because they’re too explicit.
“I don’t know what I was thinking,” he said, between gasping sobs. “I wish I had never seen any of those things. I can’t get them out of my head. I want them out of my head. I don’t 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 wasn’t 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 didn’t 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 he’d stumbled across some naked pictures on the internet.
When he got home, I sat him down and confronted him, gently, about what I’d found. He instantly broke down in tears, heaving sobs of the kind I hadn’t 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 wasn’t 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 don’t know what I was thinking,” he said, between gasping sobs. “I wish I had never seen any of those things. I can’t get them out of my head. I want them out of my head. I don’t know what to do.”
We talked for a long time. I told him that what he had seen wasn’t normal, wasn’t real sexuality. I explained, for the first time, in explicit but appropriate terms, exactly what sex is and what it is for, and that it’s 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 didn’t 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 people’s 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 wouldn’t 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 hadn’t previously wanted to upgrade out of concerns about possible performance issues. That hasn’t 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 he’s visited, and double checked that his laptop computer’s safety controls were similarly up to snuff. (The laptop, surprisingly, has not been a problem – it turns out it’s 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, I’d 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 he’s 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 Boy’s 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 he’ll never be in trouble for asking.
It’s been a little over two months now, and all is well. He’s gradually earned access back to his devices, although, I still require him to be in a public area while using them. I doubt he’ll go looking again for naked people for a long, long time. Advertisement
That doesn’t mean I won’t keep constant vigilance, though. I’ve 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 had a Sears catalog? I was so poor when I was growing up that my parents had more children so I would have something to play with.
And yet old timers still thought you were given too much
I didn’t claim anything definite. I’m just suggesting that it may be the case. I’m just doubting that 10yo’s without some inclinations combine gay and naked searches in that way at the same time.
“Yes, but it was the 80’s already”
—
It does make a difference,doesn’t it?
My post was ridiculous.
.
You don’t have to look for them. A single wrong keystroke and boom!
Imagine you are a teen who was just diagnosed with MS, and you Google teen.ms instead of teen+ms
You will very likely see a porn site as one of the top returns at the search engine.
It would be worse if it was today I guess.
“What’s a Google?” would get a kid ostracised very fast I guess
lol
I was the middle kid of 5 myself
Different stuff, for one thing 2 out of those 3 kids can’t even legally own.
No the parent gave the child a smartphone. Which can include, depending on how you set it up, access to a lot of stuff, good and bad. They were smart enough to check history periodically, but not smart enough to block access. Now they’ve blocked access. So now, according to your new nuanced position, it’s OK that the kid has a smart phone. And yet your original post, reading from the top, was “what child needs a smartphone?” If you were ACTUALLY talking about parental responsibility in that first post you’d have asked “what parent doesn’t block porn on any internet device their child can get to”. But that wasn’t your question. Reading from the top parental responsibility wasn’t your first complaint.
I’m sure.
It wasn’t as bad as....
“Why do you want an Optimus Prime for Christmas? There is nothing wrong with new socks and underwear”
I’ve seen some of the sites which ask you if you are over 18. Yes or no. Then you click the appropriate box. If a child clicks that he is over 18 , then he will have access to the pornography site.
You have got to be kidding.
I still think it is ridiculous for a 10-year old to have a “smart”phone. I do not think it is good parenting.
Oh, I agree with that. My poor mother, who is in her 80s, likes The Golden Girls TV show. She did a search on the internet for “Golden Girls” and accidentally clicked through to a porn site. But if there is a history of multiple sites on the kid’s phone, its probably evidence that he didn’t just happen upon the sites by mistake.
My kids know that every electronic device in the house — except mine — will be smashed instantly upon discovering any untoward search (and not replaced for years). Done it before, for other reasons. Do have all the parental controls available.
Most of my coworkers their kids have smartphones. It’s the economic bracket we’re in. And they’re nicely locked down, because we’re paid to understand that stuff.
You could be right but thats how those places work. I’ve seen it happen. The pornographers target sites that are frequented by kids. The kid tyes in something innocent and get some edgy responses. The kid clicks on one of those borderline links and is taken one step further. In 4 or 5 clicks they kid is in the gutter where the sleaze purveyors want them.
Yep. Big difference between the Playboy Dad had stuffed in his sock drawer, and the hardcore stuff that's about 3 mouse clicks away.
I recently put an internet filter on my computer. I'm not *too* worried about WBill Jr - yet - but I'd like to keep him from tripping over anything inadvertently.
I installed it, typed in "Playboy.com" to test....and went right to the site. "Hmmmm.", I thought, and tried "Hustler.com". Holy cow, talk about an eyefull.
Turned out that it was a problem with the way that the filtering software was installed .... but man, things have changed since I was 14 or so.
and they TRY to attract children. There are now sites that have animated porn using characters from “Frozen” and “The Simpsons” and everything else you can think of.
You would think the copyright owners would be able to do something about it.
Ha! I still get crap from my co-workers, years later, on this. "Experts-exchange" is an excellent technical website, lots of good IT advice, and I spend a lot of time on it.
However, ONCE...ONE TIME!! I left out the hyphen....taking me to "ExpertSexChange", which as you can imagine, is a totally different site. :-)
It wasn't 10 minutes before the internet guy wandered over to my office....."So, WBill....anything that you'd like to talk about?" ha ha ha.
lol
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.