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I looked at my son's laptop and noticed he deleted browsing history on particular days.
Before I approach him about it, I would like to know what he was looking at. Is there a way to recover/read deleted history? |
| Porn. He was looking at porn. Why do you want to know |
| haha omg, yes, he was most likely looking at porn. You know him best, so unless you have some serious concerns (drugs, violence, whatever) i wouldn't push him too much. Maybe even say its normal to be curious and you just want to make sure he stays out of trouble. |
| I don't think so unless you were already running parental controls. There's any number of things he could have been looking at, but most likely porn. Not sure how old he is, but unless he's very young that's not too unusual. I'd leave it alone if he were my kid, but then we never had a policy of checking their internet history. |
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OP here.
He is 14. Yes, I'm pretty sure it was porn. I just wanted to make sure it wasn't anything too disturbing. The father is not in the picture and my son doesn't really have any male role models in his life. |
| Do not embarrass him and say anything. You have no right to know what type of porn he is looking at nor is it okay for you to dictate what kind of porn he can look at. Let this go, helicopter mom. Even if dad was around, this isn't a battle for either of you to engage in. Don't mess with his head and make him feel bad or uncomfortable. |
| At 14 they're not looking at disturbing porn..usually, I would imagine. Sorry about the no father/role model situation, that is tough. But I'm sure you're doing a great job teaching him how to respect women and be a good man someday so don't worry. It's normal behavior I think |
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OP here.
I'm not a helicopter mom. I did have a talk with him a few months ago about porn/sex trafficking, etc. I'm just a little worried. |
Honestly, even if it was "disturbing" porn... as someone who has looked at quite a lot of that especially in my older teens (15+) and early 20s, he'll probably be fine. Actual knowledge and values about sex will come from mainly the parents and what kids learn in sex ed, but fantasy is fantasy, and I think most people of an age to be interested in such things can recognize that. Most likely any discussion you try to have with him about his porn choices would only be tremendously awkward and not do much good. |
OP here. Yes, I guess you're right. I'm just a little worried. There was an article about a boy who looked at porn and got in huge trouble, because the link he clicked on had an underage girl. |
| Oh god, drop it OP. |
| He could be using best practices and frequntly deleting history and cookies for security reasons. |
Porn will adversely affect his future relationships with women. Best to have a talk with him soonest. |
| When you say that you want to make sure he wasn't looking at a "anything too disturbing", I hope you don't mean that you are going to try to talk to him about what kind of porn he was watching. That is going beyond the pale, even for the normal helicopter mom standard. It will mortify him, and he won't ever forget it. Don't do that. |
That's an odd blanket statement to make. I don't think it's true in general. I never say never, because I suppose there are circumstances under which that could happen, but really I think you're being rather alarmist. Talk to kids about sex -values, safety, responsibility- but not about but not about this. I couldn't imagine a more mortifying conversation for a teen. |