Hi IMS please help me!
Miss 7 and a half has been searching porn! I'm mortified and want to cry! Where am I going so wrong? We're a very quiet family and she will of never seen anything from me I dislike pda from my partner, she has to have an iPad for school and i thought I'd turned on all restrictions but apparently not, what do I do now?
she's googled girl kissing boy parts and I really have no clue how to handle what we do now but she's obviously seen everything on the internet now..
please give me advice
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8 Replies
You ask her why she searched. Usually it's old fashioned curiosity about playground gossip.
As much as most of try and protect our kids there are always kids at school who don't. Kids pick up snippets of adult convos and discuss it amongst themselves etc.
If it's curiousity let her know that it's ok to have questions about this stuff, but that she should come to you and ask about it first.
Also let her know there will be a new rule of iPad/device use only in the family areas now. Even the most innocent looking YouTube video can have adult content. I caught a child I was babysitting watching a puppet show where they were making rape jokes. At least because I was in the room I could have a conversation about why it was not okay to watch, why it wasn't funny etc. He thought it was a kids show because it was puppets.
PS there is nothing new about being curious at that age. When I was your daughters age (I'm in my 40s) we looked up sex terms in the dictionary.
At seven I was doing the exact same thing, but instead of the Internet, it was with dictionaries, thesauruses and encyclopaedias.
My friends and I would all have a giggle about the definitions of "sex", "penis", "vagina" etc.
this was just before the Internet took off (mid 90's.)
The thing these days is, kids are using google instead of the dictionary.
You can type something simple and innocent in the search bar, and porn pops up. So she may have innocently stumbled across it.
She may have just heard about it in the playground and googled.
Many reasons why these things could happen.
I wouldn't panic..talk to her about why she Googled it and maybe needs an age appropriate talk on sex ed...she has more than likely heard something from other kids!! Been there with my 7 yr old who hangs with older kids in our street...hopefully that's all it is...good luck!
Ok, I know this is really unsettling when you find out that your child has been searching inappropriate things online but just take a sec to breathe (which I expect you've calmed down a bit by now as you posted 5 days ago lol), she wasn't intentionally searching porn. It's probably just note likely that she's was googling a term shes heard about somewhere (most likely at school).
Just talk to her about it and let her know it's OK to be curious and next time she can ask you or talk to you about anything like this. Obviously, probably worth tightening up the settings on any devices you have and investing in programs that block inappropriate content. Probably set up some new rules for internet usage would be a good idea also.
Please don't panic and think your child's being sexually assaulted or groomed like some people are suggesting, this is really quite common.
Thank you! I certainly do not think she's being groomed Or assaulted 🙈 she knows very well they're her privates for her eyes only and to tell me otherwise, we've spoken openly about where babies come from (not so much detail wise but more or less) but when her baby sister was born she was curious how she got out haha, she's a very Very inquisitive child, we had a chat and she said she'd looked up something completely not related and it kind of popped up in videos and she decided to take a look and wondered more what they were doing so she kept looking more and more, thanks for not making me feel like a shit mum! Your supportive words are so greatly appreciated!
Kids are curious about their bodies. You only have to talk to other parents to realise some kids are more curious than others.
You being not into pda etc is probably why she has not asked you about touching and body stuff.
This is a great opportunity for you to educate your darling daughter. Part of the conversation I would be explaining is that those are our private parts and your are the only person aloud to touch your own- when you are cleaning, going to the toilet etc and these things happen in private areas.. toilet bathroom etc. I would use this info to educate and maybe to find out what sparked the curiosity. Stop blaming yourself as its not your fault.. kids are curious little people :)
Does her school run the "SAFE" school programme and if so, that could be where she's got the ideas for these searches. Goofle: Your teaching our kids what?!