All this pearl clutching is ridiculous. I have three teenagers and I remember I went to a middle school sex talk where they told us that whatever you think your kids have done or seen - that was two years ago. Meaning even if you have the best parental controls in the world on your devices, the minute your kid leaves home they are exposed to open laptops, phones and computers at other people's houses.

While I agree it's not ideal for kids to see porn at 9 or 10 years old, this is the reality of the world we live in. Porn is degrading and can create unrealistic and violent ideas about sex. The solution is to TALK TO YOUR KIDS- and way earlier than you think you need to. (I also feel like this puritanical hatred of sex is strange while no one worries about taking 5th graders to R movies where people's heads get shot off not to mention video games... ahem. But that is a discussion for another day.)

My kids recently told me by age 12 they had seen it all. That is with controls on their phones and on all our devices. Kids are curious about sex. The kid that showed porn to friends is not an axe murderer. I disagree about expulsion as the proper response in this situation, and know of several similar instances at our big three school where the kid was most definitely not expelled. Again- education, frank discussion, and staying calm is probably the best ways to keep your kids with a healthy view of sex. Because you can't put the genie back in the bottle.

My view is that tech should really stay out of kids hands for as long as possible. There are a lot of "dumb" phone options that just offer calling and texting. These young kids are often confused and disturbed by what they see. And easy access to porn is creating an addicted class of teens and adults alike who have unrealistic views about sex and relationships. I feel sorry for the kids exposed to this at too young of an age. Parents, get your kids dumb phones. And also keep them off social media for as long as possible. And talk to them over and over about how what they do online will never disappear.

Anonymous wrote:If a primary school boy was given a large new iPhone without any web restrictions and was using it to introduce and look at pornography with classmates. And one of those classmate's parents found out and turned the boy into school administrators, how would the school punish the child? Apparently this had been going on since the start of this school year and has totally warped the minds of the boys. These are only 9 and 10 years old.

Parents can report things to school administration but they cannot turn a boy into a school administrator unless he has the proper qualifications.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You say it's pornography, but even lawmakers in this country can't decide what is pornography and what isn't. It should be handled on a case by case basis.

There is a vast difference between Playboy type pictures and (I don't want to get too explicit, use your imagination)

Pornographic video websites. The most popular ones. I'm not going to name them here. Anyone can pull them up on any smartphone if there are no work or parental restrictions on the browser.

How would a kid that young pay for that?

There are free porn sites with very graphic video of all persuasions as close as a google search with no restrictions on who accesses them. No paying involved.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You say it's pornography, but even lawmakers in this country can't decide what is pornography and what isn't. It should be handled on a case by case basis.

There is a vast difference between Playboy type pictures and (I don't want to get too explicit, use your imagination)

Pornographic video websites. The most popular ones. I'm not going to name them here. Anyone can pull them up on any smartphone if there are no work or parental restrictions on the browser.

How would a kid that young pay for that?

They are free

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You say it's pornography, but even lawmakers in this country can't decide what is pornography and what isn't. It should be handled on a case by case basis.

There is a vast difference between Playboy type pictures and (I don't want to get too explicit, use your imagination)

Pornographic video websites. The most popular ones. I'm not going to name them here. Anyone can pull them up on any smartphone if there are no work or parental restrictions on the browser.

How would a kid that young pay for that?

Everyone, stop worrying what the school will or will not do. You are the parents and you need to be more on a hair trigger than the school. Ultimately, it is your children and it is your job.

Anonymous wrote:You say it's pornography, but even lawmakers in this country can't decide what is pornography and what isn't. It should be handled on a case by case basis.

There is a vast difference between Playboy type pictures and (I don't want to get too explicit, use your imagination)

I agree. It's the same for all offenses with a wide range of severity: sexual assault, for example.

In these cases, the larger public never knows exactly what happened, and therefore, gets very upset because it can fill it the blanks with whatever it wants.

At our non DC private, the consequence was a brief suspension and the child was kicked off that team where the incident happened (at practices). The kids were 1-3 years older than your situation OP. The child sailed off to 9th grade at a well regarded private high school.

This is happening every day in schools all over the country.

Expel and off to juvie.

That family should be out. Sorry.

Give me a break. No expulsion. 10 or 11 is when it happened with my kids (now in 20s). Stuff like this happens. They aren't ruined for life, they all just need to have a talk with a trusted adult about what sex/love is, and what it is not. About how pornography is exploitive. About how the reason its meant for adults is because they are mature enough to process what they are seeing (sometimes). And it is NOT meant for children because we don't want them to get a mixed up sense of what love and sex is.

And, every one of the kids exposed to this, WATCHING IT, knew it was the wrong thing to do and any one of them could have said something sooner - like when it first happened. So they aren't all so innocent either.

I remember hearing my 12 year old tell the kid next to him on a bus (field trip, I was sitting behind him) that he didn't think what they were looking at was appropriate and they should watch something else, so it can and does happen

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If a primary school boy was given a large new iPhone without any web restrictions and was using it to introduce and look at pornography with classmates. And one of those classmate's parents found out and turned the boy into school administrators, how would the school punish the child? Apparently this had been going on since the start of this school year and has totally warped the minds of the boys. These are only 9 and 10 years old.

If this happened during school, and if the school didn't expel the student, I would leave the school (and initiate a lawsuit if they threatened to keep me on the hook for tuition payments); I might even leave the school regardless of whether they expelled the offending student. Schools step into the role of primary guardian of our children during school hours, and if they were so incompetent as to be allowing 9 year-old boys to be engaging in this activity during school hours for over two months, my trust in the school would be shattered.

Obviously the boy made a mistake, which is to be expected of children; however, the parents are at fault for giving their child a phone without any restrictions, and those type of careless parents should not be welcome in any decent private school.

I can't decide if this is sarcastic, or hopelessly naive. Regardless, LOL at the notions that you get to dictate how schools punish other kids, or that private school kids, and their parents are somehow paragons of virtue. Good stuff, PP.

I read it more like: if the school I am at is both so lenient and has so little understanding of the likely consequences of cell phones in the hands of ten year olds, I should leave and find one that takes these issues more seriously.

Some of my kids' school's parents might be dumb enough to give their children unfettered access to cell phones, but the cultural moires here help protect them from their own folly.

I doubt our school would expel. Suspension, restrictions, no phone.