Would you call the mom?

[Anonymous]

OP, are you somewhat friendly with the host child's mother? If so, you might mention it to her. I know I'd want to know as the host.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I dont really think its a huge deal. 12 year olds look at porn. I can remember in the early 90s waiting for our AOL dial up to connect so we could type in "hard penis" in the search engine. We weren't pervy or "bad" or anything…just 12 and curious.

+1. I concur with this and would neither inform another parent nor wish to be informed myself. It is every parent's choice to monitor their child's use of technology as they choose, and if this was something the other child's mother wanted to know I would assume that she already knows. I wouldn't regard it as my business to monitor another child's actions or for another parent to monitor mine in this way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I dont really think its a huge deal. 12 year olds look at porn. I can remember in the early 90s waiting for our AOL dial up to connect so we could type in "hard penis" in the search engine. We weren't pervy or "bad" or anything…just 12 and curious.

+1. I concur with this and would neither inform another parent nor wish to be informed myself. It is every parent's choice to monitor their child's use of technology as they choose, and if this was something the other child's mother wanted to know I would assume that she already knows. I wouldn't regard it as my business to monitor another child's actions or for another parent to monitor mine in this way.

I completely disagree with the above two posts. OP, you should call the parent/s and share what happened. A poster on page 1 gave an excellent example of what to say.

[Anonymous]

Yes I would

[Anonymous]

Are you going to allow your daughter to go to sleepovers with this girl again?

[Anonymous]

I would mention it but ask the other mom to make sure it doesn't come out that your daughter is the one who ratted out her friend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: I would mention it but ask the other mom to make sure it doesn't come out that your daughter is the one who ratted out her friend.

Huh? You would call the mother of the girl who showed the porn to the other girls and ask that mother not to divulge who told her about it?

That seems really unrealistic.

[Anonymous]

Just looking at porn? Nope. Wouldn't tell. I wonder if some of those saying tell would call the mom if it was a boy.

You said she had been on the site before. If it's a forum or a chat site, I would absolutely tell.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I dont really think its a huge deal. 12 year olds look at porn. I can remember in the early 90s waiting for our AOL dial up to connect so we could type in "hard penis" in the search engine. We weren't pervy or "bad" or anything…just 12 and curious.

+1. I concur with this and would neither inform another parent nor wish to be informed myself. It is every parent's choice to monitor their child's use of technology as they choose, and if this was something the other child's mother wanted to know I would assume that she already knows. I wouldn't regard it as my business to monitor another child's actions or for another parent to monitor mine in this way.

Are you joking? Please tell me you're trolls. Things are different today than in the early 90s. Kids can easily see extremely violent and twisted things if they're let loose to google anything, and it's very easy to fall upon very disturbing, even traumatising things by accident, such as, for example, a 12 year old getting gang banged. As a society we've decided to completely abdicate responsibility for what children can see, and have no limits on what's out there, so parents have a huge responsibility to set limits and be very careful. Those of you being laissez faire about it maybe have no idea about what is out there and the impact it can have. And by the way, 90% of it is is completely degrading to women and girls. But hey, if you think it's cool for your pre-teen to watch girls or women who were probably sex-trafficked to get raped on video, go for it. If you think I'm exaggerating you're sticking your heads in the sand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I dont really think its a huge deal. 12 year olds look at porn. I can remember in the early 90s waiting for our AOL dial up to connect so we could type in "hard penis" in the search engine. We weren't pervy or "bad" or anything…just 12 and curious.

+1. I concur with this and would neither inform another parent nor wish to be informed myself. It is every parent's choice to monitor their child's use of technology as they choose, and if this was something the other child's mother wanted to know I would assume that she already knows. I wouldn't regard it as my business to monitor another child's actions or for another parent to monitor mine in this way.

Are you joking? Please tell me you're trolls. Things are different today than in the early 90s. Kids can easily see extremely violent and twisted things if they're let loose to google anything, and it's very easy to fall upon very disturbing, even traumatising things by accident, such as, for example, a 12 year old getting gang banged. As a society we've decided to completely abdicate responsibility for what children can see, and have no limits on what's out there, so parents have a huge responsibility to set limits and be very careful. Those of you being laissez faire about it maybe have no idea about what is out there and the impact it can have. And by the way, 90% of it is is completely degrading to women and girls. But hey, if you think it's cool for your pre-teen to watch girls or women who were probably sex-trafficked to get raped on video, go for it. If you think I'm exaggerating you're sticking your heads in the sand.

PP here. Let me clarify that I wasn't saying 90% of all porn is degrading to women; I was saying that 90% of what falls in the category of disturbing/traumatising/sick is, and a lot of porn is frankly violent. I look at porn and don't have a general problem with it. But I definitely have a problem with pre-teens watching porn and parents turning a blind eye, without making sure they're not looking at violent or disturbing content. There is a ton of research on the impacts that watching violent porn can have on children and teens (and adults by the way) so you shouldn't just be looking the other way in an attempt to be the cool parent or whatever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just looking at porn? Nope. Wouldn't tell. I wonder if some of those saying tell would call the mom if it was a boy.

You said she had been on the site before. If it's a forum or a chat site, I would absolutely tell.

This.

[Anonymous]

I would want you to call me! Wouldn't you want to know?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As much as I would want to know if it were my daughter, I would probably keep my mouth shut. We had a situation backfire on my son. Another kid's bad behavior led my son to be ousted from the group. I was not involved, except through what my son told me. Before I said anything I would make damned sure my daughter wouldn't pay for me "doing the right thing"

NP here. OP, this response seems to assume that your daughter might be shut out by her friends for "tattling" if you report this to the parent. Yes, it could happen, but I totally disagree that you should do nothing at all. Please tell the other parent. And then your DD should stop seeing the kid who had the porn. I will get blasted on here by the "let them work it out themselves" crowd that is on DCUM, but no, you need to step in and ensure your DD does not have sleepovers that involve this girl and also doesn't see her to hang out after school etc.

I am not saying this is some horrid kid. Nope. She's not the villain. But she does have horrible judgment and made her friend, your DD, unsettled and uncomfortable--and friends don't do that. And as the adult, you are never obliged to let your own child continue seeing another child who does what this kid did. (again, not popular ot say here on DCUM, but I draw the line at porn being casually shown around.) This may be pure curiosity on the girl's part, but it clearly upset and unsettled your child. I would not make some huge "you're no longer friends with her" announcement; just start having your child be too busy to see her. If they share friends, your girl needs to start seeing the others in that circle in other settings, or all of them only if an adult is around.

Please listen to the posts seconding the excellent PP who gave you a simple, clear script for how to bring this up to the other parent. Please do not wait too long to do this. And ask clearly that the parent not tell the girl which of the others at the sleepover reported this to a parent.

Porn warps people's expectations about sex and relationships and can make girls feel they have to behave like women they see in porn in order to get boys to pay attention to them. It's so readily available that girls as young as yours are now getting exposed to it just in the way your daughter has. While a few minutes of porn to an aghast group of girls obviously doesn't mean they're now all warped for life, it was a warning sign that this one girl needs some adults to scrub her media and then keep much better tabs on what she's doing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I dont really think its a huge deal. 12 year olds look at porn. I can remember in the early 90s waiting for our AOL dial up to connect so we could type in "hard penis" in the search engine. We weren't pervy or "bad" or anything…just 12 and curious.

+1. I concur with this and would neither inform another parent nor wish to be informed myself. It is every parent's choice to monitor their child's use of technology as they choose, and if this was something the other child's mother wanted to know I would assume that she already knows. I wouldn't regard it as my business to monitor another child's actions or for another parent to monitor mine in this way[b].

It ceased to be "another child's actions" when the girl showed it to OP's daughter and others.

And you're naïve to assume that the parent already knows (and therefore approves, since the porn was still on the phone, right?). Many parents don't monitor kids' technology use.

When you were a kid in the early 90s, hardcore porn was not instantly available to anyone, anytime, with no dial-up time to connect. You're acting nostalgic about being curious. What kids can access now is not just the penis pictures you found, but far more explicit. If you're comfortable with a 12-year-old's curiosity ending up with her or him viewing sex acts of any nature at all, fine for you, but maybe OP isn't OK with that. Maybe the girl at the sleepover only showed some penis pictures, but I doubt it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I dont really think its a huge deal. 12 year olds look at porn. I can remember in the early 90s waiting for our AOL dial up to connect so we could type in "hard penis" in the search engine. We weren't pervy or "bad" or anything…just 12 and curious.

+1. I concur with this and would neither inform another parent nor wish to be informed myself. It is every parent's choice to monitor their child's use of technology as they choose, and if this was something the other child's mother wanted to know I would assume that she already knows. I wouldn't regard it as my business to monitor another child's actions or for another parent to monitor mine in this way[b].

It ceased to be "another child's actions" when the girl showed it to OP's daughter and others.

And you're naïve to assume that the parent already knows (and therefore approves, since the porn was still on the phone, right?). Many parents don't monitor kids' technology use.

When you were a kid in the early 90s, hardcore porn was not instantly available to anyone, anytime, with no dial-up time to connect. You're acting nostalgic about being curious. What kids can access now is not just the penis pictures you found, but far more explicit. If you're comfortable with a 12-year-old's curiosity ending up with her or him viewing sex acts of any nature at all, fine for you, but maybe OP isn't OK with that. Maybe the girl at the sleepover only showed some penis pictures, but I doubt it.

Conflated two posts in my reply but the point stands. Both are naïve posts, one for thinking parents adequately monitor media (and for being gutless about telling a parent if a kid has porn), and the other for acting like kids are actually seeking out still pictures.