Saw my 9 year old son’s search history on an iPad..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:BTW I have two boys and they both were searching for this kind of thing at age 9 - it's just the point where these things start to get talked about in school, so I think it's normal. And yes as others have said have a talk with your son about sex/body topics. Don't avoid this. This is also a normal conversation. And I'd let him keep the iPad but just say he doesn't need to search for those things.

Thank you. I deleted safari and told him that I saw this and I'm not angry, but that everything he does on an iPad at home or school can be seen by others, so he has to be aware of that when he searches for something, and most of the internet isn't ok for kids. but what do I say about body/sex? I don't know what to add there.

[Anonymous]

Agree with the poster who said this can be pretty normal curiosity at this age. I remember being horrified when my sister told me my nephew was googling “Katy Perry’s boobs” around that age… and then sure enough 4 years later my own 10 year old had his own questionable searches. Address it but don’t freak out.

[Anonymous]

OP, it's time to begin the conversation that will occur over years, about why searching for these terms exploits women who get labeled this way, and how the way people behave is so much more important than how they look, and it's nobody's place to label people based on their looks. This conversation will morph into talking about porn, but 9 is not the time for that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are your sure it’s not your husband’s search history?

Alright that got a laugh from me.

[Anonymous]

Main thing is to make kids aware they can become registered sex offenders and felons by taking/sending pics of themselves to other kids.

The laws are such that even a kid taking a provocative non nude pic of themselves and sending it to a gf/bf could have them be in possession of child porn and become RSO's the rest of their lives.

[Anonymous]

My DD was on the receiving end of behavior from boys who clearly started with an innocent “butts and boobs” search that escalated inadvertently into explicit results and pornography. The things we had to report at school were really upsetting even to me as an adult. The boys’ discussions of sexual acts and things that were clearly from pornography were happening in a casual way (in front of teachers or at lunch tables) that showed the boys didn’t really grasp how far they’d gone. This started in 3rd grade and continued in 4th. We actually changed schools to get away with it and were relieved when we heard later about some really dangerous and illegal phone/text stuff that came after that.

Boys and girls need to be talked through this way younger than you think. The other parents at school were in denial until it was too late.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why does he have a browser on the iPad?

This. Not sure why you decided it was a good idea to put a browser on there, LOL!

[Anonymous]

You need to, at the very least, severely restrict time, and it is extremely critical that your kid uses the device in a place you can see him use it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can remove/restrict Safari and only allow them to use apps that you have to approve

How to restrict safari?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:BTW I have two boys and they both were searching for this kind of thing at age 9 - it's just the point where these things start to get talked about in school, so I think it's normal. And yes as others have said have a talk with your son about sex/body topics. Don't avoid this. This is also a normal conversation. And I'd let him keep the iPad but just say he doesn't need to search for those things.

Thank you. I deleted safari and told him that I saw this and I'm not angry, but that everything he does on an iPad at home or school can be seen by others, so he has to be aware of that when he searches for something, and most of the internet isn't ok for kids. but what do I say about body/sex? I don't know what to add there.

I would add that the reason it's important not to look at those kinds of things on the internet is it's not real and not how people live their lives. And while most people understand that, for some people, the images can get stuck in their head and they think this is what adults do and want all the time and it's not. You can remind him that (hopefully) he sees mommy and daddy, and uncle Larlo and aunt Larla in healthy happy relationships, and they are not doing lots of the crazy things it looks like people on the internet are doing.

[Anonymous]

Definitely your pervert husband

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:BTW I have two boys and they both were searching for this kind of thing at age 9 - it's just the point where these things start to get talked about in school, so I think it's normal. And yes as others have said have a talk with your son about sex/body topics. Don't avoid this. This is also a normal conversation. And I'd let him keep the iPad but just say he doesn't need to search for those things.

Thank you. I deleted safari and told him that I saw this and I'm not angry, but that everything he does on an iPad at home or school can be seen by others, so he has to be aware of that when he searches for something, and most of the internet isn't ok for kids. but what do I say about body/sex? I don't know what to add there.

Talk to him about sex, but more generally, make sure he knows that he can come to you -- not the internet -- when he has questions about sex and bodies.

[Anonymous]

Normal

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are your sure it’s not your husband’s search history?

That is completely a 9 yo’s vernacular. Grown men wouldn’t use those search terms.

[Anonymous]

When my 10 year old nephew was visiting us my husband set him up on the TV to watch minecraft videos or whatever nonsense kids did to entertain themselves in 2019. Walked out of the room to make dinner and came back to him typing "boobs" into the search bar - honestly it was kind of charming how basic the search (and desire) was, but of course the algorithm will break a kid's brain if you let it so we kept an adult in the room going forward.