How To Explain to 15 Year Old Son how to Deal with this
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Anonymous
| This stuff is not for children. Why aren’t you monitoring your son’s online usage and putting parental controls up? |
Anonymous
OP’s son is 15, and in that scary and wonderful place between childhood and manhood. As much as we may want to forbid and control our way out of this kind of thing we can’t. This is the world our boys live in now, and the world they will live in at 18 and 21, when we have no control left at all. It takes practice to deal with the online world, just like any skill, and OP is right to ask how to help her son manage it, rather than asking how to control him. |
Anonymous
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My kid uses Discord and I sometimes go in to see what's happening. So far nothing like this (I don't think), but when I was in there once I tweaked the settings to try to prevent issues that might come up. Who knows if I did, but I do agree they need to figure out how to manage this to a degree, so I'm hoping he does.
To the poster who said this isn't for children--you're right. I wouldn't let a 9 year old on it. But 14, 15? Yes. I don't like Discord or any related communications platforms with people who are basically strangers it at all, but DS is a massive introvert who struggles to make friends, and online gaming has allowed him to connect with other people related to something they both/all enjoy. Especially in the past year, I can't see taking that away from him. And who knows what kind of crap he'd be hearing if he were around actual other teen boys right now, in person. Onlne he knows he's not supposed to share personal details, and that he needs to be guarded and disengage when anything feels off or uncomfortable. So I have faith and I hope it isn't misplaced. |
Anonymous
Yeah. Gay people don’t have sex with their parents. Honestly, it sounds like your family has some work to do on resilience. Your kid needs to learn not to let this stuff get to him, especially from strangers. And you shouldn’t need dcum to tell you how to help your kid on this. Tell him what ignorant strangers say isn’t about him, tell him to ignore it and spend his time on other things. They’re looking to get under his skin and it’s working. |
Anonymous
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OP, I have 16 and 13 year old sons so I know where this is coming from.
This is a perfect example of "garbage in, garbarge out" mentality. Why should you, I or any of us, allow our young kids to be exposed to this? This is the kind of thing that starts off slowly as a game and some back and forth, and quickly escalates to bullying, harassment and other inappropriate conduct that can literally affect his life. I'm not sure what my solution is; I bet my kids are into this kind of game and I don't even know it. But there is no way it's good for them, their development or their mental health. |
Anonymous
Y'all don't have teen boys, do you? |
Anonymous
I do and they don't care if someone calls them gay |
Anonymous
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What you described is pretty much the entire culture of discord.
What a female therapist will tell you is he should ignore it and if they don't stop he should try to let them know how it makes him feel inside. In reality, what he should do is respond with something like "you sure like thinking about dad's d*cks, are you missing your daddy's *politically incorrect slur about being guy here*" |
Anonymous
I guess we're lucky, but my teen boy went to schools and played on sports teams where that stuff was not allowed. As a middle school coach, I made clear to the boys I coached that homophobia and racism were not tolerated, and in the years I coached had one kid test the boundaries of that exactly twice (calling another boy in the team "gay" as an insult). After the second time, I spoke with his parents and he left the team. Responsible adults don't tolerate homophobia, racism or sexist behavior. It persists in teen boy culture because adults choose to allow it. This is not complicated. |
Anonymous
Yes, it is ridiculous that it is considered an insult. However, as a lesbian, I would be very irritated if someone kept repeatedly insisting that I was straight. It's just annoying. |
Anonymous
That seems like an exaggeration. I have access to my son's ipad, and most of his back and forth is with kids he already knows and is about video games. There were one or two instances where someone he did not know cursed at him or said something about sex, but he did not respond and the person gave up. |
Anonymous
NP. What do you mean? Yes, "gay" is a factual term and often used as such, but it can also be used as a slur. Like queer. I agree that a child should be raised so that they don't feel insulted if someone genuinely thinks they are gay, but obviously it was being used as an insult. Just like recently my child was told repeated that he "sounded like a girl" on his headset. Girl is not a bad word, and no one in our family hates girls, but obviously the other kids were using the term to make fun of him. Is the insult misogynistic? Yes. Is my son misogynistic for not appreciating the intent to insult? No. Does he sit around worrying that he sounds like a girl? No. Did he block those kids and move on to another group of players? Yes. |
Anonymous
| Help him to build his tolerance and ability to ignore vile internet behavior by having him post in the MCPS forum. |
Anonymous
I definitely know of people who still use "gay" as an insult. I'm not endorsing that usage, but I'm sure that in this case it wasn't a compliment or statement of fact. |
Anonymous
Underrated post. |