I am at a loss as to what to do...
I just this morning found my eight year old son has been looking up pornographic videos on his iPad (please no judgement or calls about his use of iPad).
When I asked him how he found these things and why he was watching them he said that when he is at his Dad and Step mothers that they watch these kind of things whilst my son (8) and his two step sisters (5 & 2) are present.
I guess I am at a loss as to what to do? How do I deal with this? He is only eight I just want to keep him safe...he also told me that when he last visited them that they argued basically non stop. How do I deal with this?
5 Replies
You need to change the settings of his ipad so he cant access those type of videos.
Oh dear! Maybe curiosity? Although i dont agree watching it around kids. Can you bring it up with the other parent? Talk to your son about whats appropriate and not appropriate for him to be looking up. Explain that its only for adults. Maybe a threat of if I catch you looking at this stuff again you will lose your ipad for x amount of time until I feel I can trust you etc. I banned my 7 yr old for a week from his device because he was watching non age appropriate things on you tube and made him use it in front of me when he got it back. He didn't like it but so far its worked 😂 Its hard when its at the other house as we dont always have control on what happens. Im not sure if you can, but do Ipads have parental control things on them so you can block that sort of thing? Good luck mumma xx
ring child protection in your state ASAP. Do not return your son to his dads until this is resolved. Your son needs protecting and so does his step siblings.
Yes kids of a young age are curious and will type in sex terms and stumble upon porn etc if settings aren't set at a high level, but what your son has disclosed is incredibly inappropriate (adults watching porn in front of children is often seen as grooming).
Go do a cyber safety course and get educated on how to protect your son from porn in your home. You don't want him upping the game as he becomes desensitised to what he is watching, before he is ready.
Good luck.
Before you go in guns blazing, have a chat to your sons Dad.
It may have been that they were watching these things when they thought the kids were sleeping or some other rational explanation..
Is it possible that your son said that because he knew he was in trouble?
My son and his friend were caught looking up stuff like this on the friends iPad, the friend said some pretty wild stuff to get out of trouble because he knew it was wrong. It turns out they learned about this from their classmates.
Also, he is 8. Curiosity is normal at that age but you need to impress upon him how in appropriate this is and set up some new rules for the iPad
And again, talk to other parents first, things like this can blow out of proportion so quickly
Before sh*t hits the fan, speak to the other parent to gauge what happened etc. Kids can very very sneaky and smart. It could be that yes, they did watch some naughty videos without realizing that kids could see history etc. It could also be that he is curious, that other (may be slightly older) kids at school were talking about it and he wanted to have a look.
We've been in a situation where my stepson, out of fear, told us a whopper of a story. Seriously bad stuff that he thought, as a 10yo, would be better than telling us the truth. He could have ruined his mum's life but didn't want to tell his father or I the truth. Just check first before you go cray cray on your ex.