I recently found that my seven years old son visited one adult website. When I asked him and he said his friend told him this website to see naked women. I know this will come sooner or later just didn't expect it to be this early. Our computer is password protected but we do allow him to play computer games during the weekends that is the time he used to browse this website. We have blocked this particular website. But I know there are a lot more out there. Beyond controling the access, I feel I should so more. I told him this is not appropriate for his age. Could the moms who have experience dealing with this help me?
Thanks for all the moms who responded. I will make sure I block inappropriate websites and also watch him when he uses internet. More importantly, I will get the books several moms recommended and start the "birds and bees talk".
We had a situation similar to this as well. Make sure there are parental controls on the computer so he can only go to kid friendly websites anything else would need a password.
You need to get a blocker that blocks anything that is close to objectionable. Also some software that monitors every move that your child makes on line. We did not have this problem but my girl friend did and she downloaded a program for www.focusonthefamily.com Not really sure what it was called but it worked great. Wish I could help more.
The bad thing about it is they are influenced greatly by schooling buddies. Most professionals are saying to start the birds and the bees talk around 7-8 years old. Just for the simple fact that kids are starting out earlier and earlier every generation. I mean come on we have 10 yr olds out there that are having babies. I'm guilty, I haven't started talking to my girls about this yet and no I'm not ready either, but I'd rather them hear it from me than to find out about it through school. Since your son has already found the site on the internet, did you by chance explain the situation to him (Not in great detail, but vaguely). This might not FEEL like it is appropriate for his age, but in all reality it is. The only thing I can suggest is when he's online, to either sit there with him till he understands that he can't go to those sites EVER again, or if he gets on one of those sites again, ground him from the computer.
I haven't tried it, but if you have Comcast I know that they are offering a free trial of Kidzui, which is a "kid safe" browser. http://kidzui.comcast.net/
I am interested to see what other answers you get because this is something we need to think about as our kids do more school research and might happen onto sites that are either inappropriate or that install attack software.
Check with your internet provider, many offer parental controls. Also don't let him use the computer in a room by himself. He will be less apt to go to these sites if he knows someone will see what he is doing.
When my stepdaughter was seven we had an incident where she was curious about boy parts and saw something inappropriate.
So, we satisfied her curiosity and gave her sex education. We used the book "Where Did I Come From" and also the video of the same name (checked out from the library). We watched it together, answered all her questions and talked about how you're only supposed to be naked for sex, which is done with your husband or wife. We talked about how movies, TV and songs will show things that don't encourage people to love one another.
She hasn't had any curiosity since we had the talk. She looked at the drawings of the naked people in the book and really has had no desire to see anything inappropriate since.
Sometimes if you fill the vacuum with good data you can head off the curiosity.
This exact thing happened to me while my son (then 8) was at a friend's house. So don't think that because you are blocking them at your house he won't see them again. My best advice is to open the communication now. The site my son saw was RAW and explicit. He learned way more than any child should know. What we did was really take the opportunity to talk with him about what info he had and how sharing that might make him "cool" with his friends but his friends parents would NOT find it so cool. We told him that his friends' parents would not allow him to play with their children any longer if he started sharing what he knew. Make sure you don't make it sound BAD (just that he is too young) or he won't talk about it with you. In hindsight it was not as awful as I originally thought because it opened the door for us to start discussing this with him. What I found was the car was the best way to talk to him. He didn't have to look me in the eye and it was uninterrupted time. Good luck!
Besides doing what you can to prevent his access to these sites explain to him why they are harmful.
They were a little older, about 12, when I told my sons that I wanted them to have loving, healthy relationships and pornography portrayed a distorted idea of real female and male bodies and sexual activity. I explained that it was normal to be curious about naked bodies but these images were disrespectful and addictive. It was also helpful to warn them that the computer keeps a history of all sites that are visited.
I've heard great things about besecure.com. I plan to use them, actually will be visiting there next!
D.
