Would you call the mom?

[Anonymous]

If anyone called me with such information, I would politely say "thank you" and that would be the end of it. My DS tells me about lots of stuff that going on in school (sex, drugs, fights). We talk. I also talk to other moms, but only if they are my friends and I know that they will not have inadequate reaction. I would never tell a parent that I don't know well as I might be putting the child in a bad position. I am much more concerned about adult reaction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I treat my son and daughter the same way, thanks, and I WOULD want to know, and WOULD tell the host parents. If it gets my children ousted from the group, too bad. I can't believe some of you think watching porn at 12 is OK.

I've read most of the posts. I missed something. Where do you see anyone say porn at 12 is ok?

[Anonymous]

If this was DS looking at porn at 12, everyone would say it's normal. It's a double standard. Let it go.

[Anonymous]

I remember such shenanigans (and even experimentation) during sleepovers as a young tween girl. Some of the best memories of my life. I swear you Puritans want to rob your kids of everything.

I think a better idea is to have a long thorough talk about sex, pleasure, puberty, masturbation, porn, etc. such that perhaps, after you've made your position to DD clear, she might elect to say to her friends, "No thanks, I don't feel like watching that stuff" and encourage them? to do something els

[Anonymous]

Ugh, this is such a complicated topic. "Normal" porn, ok, perhaps it's not SUCH a big deal, but the porn industry basically hates women. I would want to shield my kids and all other kids from exposure until as late as humanly possible; in fact, I wish no one could see some of the awful stuff that dominates the industry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I'm the poster you comment on. Your response is very naive. Kids by middle school spend most of their days away from their parents and most social interaction is at school. You don't control who your child is friends with. You certainly can't control who your child's friends are friends with.

if someone called me with that "script" I would hang up and tell my child I prefer that mom's kid not be at our home anymore. I don't want to deal with the drama. If you cannot handle this wait until you see what is coming down the road. Sexuality is a personal topic and you cannot impose your standards onto others. Work on communication with your child and the rest of these things will be ok.

[Anonymous]

I don't know if this puts things in context for any of you, but my nephew was caught looking at "porn" (that's all I know) on a phone at school. He is 13.

The school confiscated the phone (this is in Europe where we are supposedly more "relaxed" than you guys in the US....) and ALL the boys who looked at it, were suspended from their private school for an entire week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't know if this puts things in context for any of you, but my nephew was caught looking at "porn" (that's all I know) on a phone at school. He is 13.

The school confiscated the phone (this is in Europe where we are supposedly more "relaxed" than you guys in the US....) and ALL the boys who looked at it, were suspended from their private school for an entire week.

irrelevant completely different issues . Private home v. school-phones get confiscated at school all the time. Do most of you have toddlers??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

+1 to both of your posts.

I am not anti-porn at all but some of the stuff that is out there is just way too much for a pre-teen to take in. It's too much for me!

Looking at a Playboy/Playgirl is one thing, but some of the images and videos online are not the same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If DD reported this to me, I would call the other mother. I would start by saying, "I'm sharing this information with you because I would want someone to do the same for me. My daughter reported that the girls were looking at a pornography site on your daughter's phone at Larla's party last night. I don't know whether this is true of not. I just know that if my child was watching pornography, whether on her own phone or someone else's, I would want to know."

OP, if you haven't done anything yet, please follow this.

+1

Excellent and easy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know if this puts things in context for any of you, but my nephew was caught looking at "porn" (that's all I know) on a phone at school. He is 13.

The school confiscated the phone (this is in Europe where we are supposedly more "relaxed" than you guys in the US....) and ALL the boys who looked at it, were suspended from their private school for an entire week.

irrelevant completely different issues . Private home v. school-phones get confiscated at school all the time. Do most of you have toddlers??

I would say the contrary - its entirely relevant. The school reaction is a community / social reaction. If they act that strongly, so should the parents of the kids involved in this case. It doesn't matter if they were at a sleep over or a field day, its about their age, accessibility and what is and is not appropriate material.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

+1 to both of your posts.

I am not anti-porn at all but some of the stuff that is out there is just way too much for a pre-teen to take in. It's too much for me!

Looking at a Playboy/Playgirl is one thing, but some of the images and videos online are not the same.

Well, to be fair, we don't know what kind of porn the kids were looking at. It might have been pictures of naked people or it could have been images of a violent gang rape. It could have been pictures posted on a chat forum and the girl could have been chatting with whoever posted those pictures. It could have been video of a classmate taken without the classmate's knowledge or consent.

I think that Op should get the facts from her daughter as to what exactly this kid was showing them. And if it was truly disturbing stuff react accordingly - first thing would be to limit your daughter's contact with that kid. But if it was (more likely) an instance of a tween snickering over pictures of random naked body parts and whatnot....and showing the images to her friends for shock value. That's a bit different. Inappropriate, yes. But also not unheard of for that age. Take the opportunity to talk about resisting peer pressure, how to handle herself in uncomfortable situations, etc.

The one thing that you do not want to do is overreact, fly off the handle. As other have mentioned - Op's daughter did not have to tell her mom any of this. Op's #1 priority should be in keeping that line of communication open between herself and her daughter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know if this puts things in context for any of you, but my nephew was caught looking at "porn" (that's all I know) on a phone at school. He is 13.

The school confiscated the phone (this is in Europe where we are supposedly more "relaxed" than you guys in the US....) and ALL the boys who looked at it, were suspended from their private school for an entire week.

irrelevant completely different issues . Private home v. school-phones get confiscated at school all the time. Do most of you have toddlers??

I would say the contrary - its entirely relevant. The school reaction is a community / social reaction. If they act that strongly, so should the parents of the kids involved in this case. It doesn't matter if they were at a sleep over or a field day, its about their age, accessibility and what is and is not appropriate material.

you are missing the point here, your poor kid... The school has to overreact..parents can use some sense. I will say it again-you DO NOT KNOW WHAT THEY WERE LOOKING AT. Relax.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know if this puts things in context for any of you, but my nephew was caught looking at "porn" (that's all I know) on a phone at school. He is 13.

The school confiscated the phone (this is in Europe where we are supposedly more "relaxed" than you guys in the US....) and ALL the boys who looked at it, were suspended from their private school for an entire week.

irrelevant completely different issues . Private home v. school-phones get confiscated at school all the time. Do most of you have toddlers??

I would say the contrary - its entirely relevant. The school reaction is a community / social reaction. If they act that strongly, so should the parents of the kids involved in this case. It doesn't matter if they were at a sleep over or a field day, its about their age, accessibility and what is and is not appropriate material.

That's the reason my friends and I never said anything to parents. Always covered for each other and denied/downplayed everything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know if this puts things in context for any of you, but my nephew was caught looking at "porn" (that's all I know) on a phone at school. He is 13.

The school confiscated the phone (this is in Europe where we are supposedly more "relaxed" than you guys in the US....) and ALL the boys who looked at it, were suspended from their private school for an entire week.

irrelevant completely different issues . Private home v. school-phones get confiscated at school all the time. Do most of you have toddlers??

I would say the contrary - its entirely relevant. The school reaction is a community / social reaction. If they act that strongly, so should the parents of the kids involved in this case. It doesn't matter if they were at a sleep over or a field day, its about their age, accessibility and what is and is not appropriate material.

That's the reason my friends and I never said anything to parents. Always covered for each other and denied/downplayed everything.

Yep.