8yr old encountered pornography

[fulltimemommy02]

This is my very first post, but I have been reading posts and topics on here for quite a while and am hoping I could get some parenting advice myself.

I was out of town last weekend and while I was gone my DH let our 8yr old son on the computer to play his sports games. I am usually right there to monitor what and where he was going. My DH thought that if he was 3 feet away on the couch watching tv that would be effective enough.
So upon my return home, I get on to do a history search and come across some questionable searches. After fighting with my hubby /: accusing him of it, the light bulb came on that it might have come from my innocent baby boy (not really a baby, but my first born non-the-less) Anyways, after a rigorous drill session DS admitted it was him. I had to log on and clicked on the sites to see what he saw. It was nausiating!!! Althought they were just pictures, it left NOTHING to the imagination. He confessed that he clicked on a pop up that said “videos” although I think his initial inquiry was innocent, what popped up enlighted his intellect to type in a few more searches.

I am now at a loss and cant seem to stop crying when the images he saw pop into my mind. I guess I am wondering if I need to give the “birds and the beez” talk now, or if that would just scandalize him more thinking that mommy and daddy do something remotely similar to that. Im so confused. He said he had never seen that stuff before or was never told to do the search. He is hometaught, so I have apretty good grip on what he WAS exposed to. I am just freaking out on what to do and any help would be great.
Thanks

 

[purplesunshine]

First of all, don’t panic.

At eight most children are very curious. He has shown you that is time to talk about sexuality to him. He sought this out. He may not have been attracted to the sexuality even but what males and females look like naked. There’s nothing wrong with that, although porn is a poor teacher of that.

In some ways Dad needs to sort this out and have a man to man with him. This is not how you treat women, etc…encourage him to examine anatomy books of males (and females if you feel that he is curious). At eight my friends and I discussed homosexual acts…not because we’d seen them but because we were discussing how certain parts “fit”. My parents would of been mortified. At 13 they thought they were teaching me stuff I didn’t know. (And I was partially home-taught)

You may not have to go as far as explaining sex itself but I’d start with an honest and frank discussion about male and female bodies. If he asks about sex than follow him into the conversation.

 

[jmcrae]

It needs to be explained to him in clear language that in real life, it is never acceptable for men and women to treat each other in the way that he saw portraying in those pictures and videos. People are not objects.

Also explain to him that the pictures were most likely posed, and that someone went in afterwards and edited the pictures, since most likely some of what he saw was actually physically impossible.

Explain to him that there are people out there who have nothing better to do with their time, and lack the intelligence to find any better kind of entertainment than pictures like that, but that you hope he is busy with more intellectual and more healthy pursuits than looking at those sort of pictures. That you understand that he came across them by accident, and that he was curious, but that smart, good, busy people like him don’t spend much time on junk like that.

Make sure that any questions he has about what he saw are answered truthfully, in an unemotional, matter of fact way. If you don’t know, just say so. Some things are just impossible to understand.

 

[micahmike]

I wouldn’t worry or cry about it (not because it is no big deal, but because worrying and crying are not productive and this really isn’t the end of the world).

It sounds like your son saw some pictures of naked people, nothing more. I suspect, from living in a home with an adult man and an adult woman, he knows what grownups look like naked. He likely knows, or has at least some knowledge of the sex act. He’s curious and healthy. Talk to him about men and women, talk to him about respect, talk to him about where babies come from. This is early, likely earlier than you planned, but he is only 2 or 3 short years from the time when his peers WILL be exposing him to this stuff, if they aren’t already. I remember being a sheltered 10ish year old boy, exploring the woods by my house with my pals the way 10 year old boys do and stumbling upon someone’s cache of dirty magazines. It happened back then when pornography was relatively rare, it will certailny happen to your boy again, especially in this porn-soaked culture.

Talk to him about it. Be open and honset and do your best not to appear uncomfortable - lest you make him feel like he can’t aproach you about these issues in the future. Do not yell at him or dicipline him (as he was likely curious and not certain that what he was doing was all that wrong).

 

[RachelKH]

i have a friend whose son was also homeschooled, very protected from all outside influences, but got into porn at that age and is totally addicted and had to be removed from the home due to his trying to do the things he saw with his own younger siblings – don’t for one second relax your vigilance now! he needs to be set straight in how wrong porn is, how distorted the images he saw were, what proper behavior is, how to control his impulses and not get caught in this. get a very good filter and make the computer totally off limits unless he is on it WITH you or your dh and allow no unsupervised time at all. if you have those images in your mind, realize they are permanently in his mind too. i hope others come on with good helpful resources for you. god bless you.

 

[jwashu]

He just saw pictures, unless they were some kind of bondage or fetish porn they were probably just people having sex in different positions (and/or oral sex would be my guess).

At 8 I asked my parents what the truth about babies and sex was and they told me. My best friend and I had planned it so that we would both ask the same night and verify later if one of us was lied too… luckily both our sets of parents were honest.

It definitely didn’t scare us and in fact I believe helped because we never had to really on peers and when others said what they thought, we were confident we knew the truth but at the request of our parents neither of us shared that with our peers until after “the video” in 5th grade

I would just tell him, explain to him, as others have suggested, go through some anatomy books etc… use the time to talk about life as much if not more than sex itself. Talk about babies, being married all that kind of stuff to get him thinking less about the pictures and more about the new and greater information he has been given.

I would also suggest downloading a copy of K9 www1.k9webprotection.com/ it’s free and it works very well. We have 3 desktop and 2 laptops at the house plus our work laptops when we bring them home and 4 boys (7, 5, 3 and 1), 3 of whom can all use the Internet and a PC very well. My oldest is always searching for rare SuperHero Squad guys he collects and often runs into popups… although I’m usually less than a foot from him on my system I’m not always in there… K9 helps me feel a little more secure.

Joe

 

[flyingfish]

This is my very first post, but I have been reading posts and topics on here for quite a while and am hoping I could get some parenting advice myself.

I was out of town last weekend and while I was gone my DH let our 8yr old son on the computer to play his sports games. I am usually right there to monitor what and where he was going. My DH thought that if he was 3 feet away on the couch watching tv that would be effective enough.
So upon my return home, I get on to do a history search and come across some questionable searches. After fighting with my hubby /: accusing him of it, the light bulb came on that it might have come from my innocent baby boy (not really a baby, but my first born non-the-less) Anyways, after a rigorous drill session DS admitted it was him. I had to log on and clicked on the sites to see what he saw. It was nausiating!!! Althought they were just pictures, it left NOTHING to the imagination. He confessed that he clicked on a pop up that said “videos” although I think his initial inquiry was innocent, what popped up enlighted his intellect to type in a few more searches.

I am now at a loss and cant seem to stop crying when the images he saw pop into my mind. I guess I am wondering if I need to give the “birds and the beez” talk now, or if that would just scandalize him more thinking that mommy and daddy do something remotely similar to that. Im so confused. He said he had never seen that stuff before or was never told to do the search. He is hometaught, so I have apretty good grip on what he WAS exposed to. I am just freaking out on what to do and any help would be great.
Thanks

Why don’t you ask him what he knows, and whether his friends look and talk about pornography. By the way, if he deliberately searched for sex pictures he probably knows far more about it than the “birds and the bees” talk would teach him.

What kinds of things did he type into the search box? That would probably reveal to you how much he knows as well.

 

[fulltimemommy02]

Thanks everyone for your (name removed by moderator)ut.

I have already asked if he had questions and of course said no. I explained to him how those images were very bad and he tearfully agreed. I know everybody thinks their kids are innocent, but this is a kid who thought up until a few weeks ago (literally) that Bat Man was real, and had to be explained that cartoons arent real. lol

His search was simply “A nakid girl” (spelled that way too) and “A girls boobs”. But the very first link was what he clicked on and it was all the info he needed and more. So it has taken me a few days to realize he wasnt searching for such explicit info. As a few of you had suggested he was curious, and got more than he bargained for.

Thanks again for all your (name removed by moderator)ut, it is greatly appreciated. This parenting stuff REALLY sucks sometimes…and I have 4 more under him

 

[ComputerGeek25]

Thanks everyone for your (name removed by moderator)ut.

I have already asked if he had questions and of course said no. I explained to him how those images were very bad and he tearfully agreed. I know everybody thinks their kids are innocent, but this is a kid who thought up until a few weeks ago (literally) that Bat Man was real, and had to be explained that cartoons arent real. lol

His search was simply “A nakid girl” (spelled that way too) and “A girls boobs”. But the very first link was what he clicked on and it was all the info he needed and more. So it has taken me a few days to realize he wasnt searching for such explicit info. As a few of you had suggested he was curious, and got more than he bargained for.

Thanks again for all your (name removed by moderator)ut, it is greatly appreciated. This parenting stuff REALLY sucks sometimes…and I have 4 more under him

I wouldn’t be overly harsh on him at this point. It sounds like he innocently found some smut on the Internet - which can happen by accident easily enough to us adults even. And I bet an 8 year old doesn’t know how to seperate the wheat from the chaff and what he found probably sparked some curiosity.

I would say, as others have suggested, that you can use this as a “teaching moment” - that people shouldn’t be looking at these pictures or videos. But, there are people out there with nothing better to do.

 

[Ceil-1]

My dear ftm,

The exact same thing happened with my son at the same age. The only difference is that the history included the f-word-which I didn’t even know he knew, much less what it was about.

I could not bring myself to click to the sites, but I can imagine what he saw, and if I had seen them, I probably would have had a breakdown.

He was old enough for confession, so we made sure he went. Then we went. We put a heavy-duty filter on the computer. Now, I pray and fast for graces.

Unfortunately, he struggles with porn, now (19 years old). It’s a real burden for him. He’s been gaga over girls since that time. Perhaps it started before that. No doubt he was influenced by older boys around him. It goes from the eyes and ears, into the heart. it is burned on the brain, and cannot be erased.

I have taught my sons that a girl and her innocence belongs to God, and that they have no right to take it. If they take it, either in thought, word, or deed, they have stolen from God Himself, and will pay dearly for it. That a girl is not an object to be used, but a precious daughter of God. They must committ to the girl, and get the blessing from the Church to have her.

My children have also been taught theology of the body which teaches transcendence over our base tendencies.

Pray to the Blessed Mother for special graces to overcome this.