Have you ever caught your child surfing porn?

yep. he was mortified to be caught. I didn’t react, just told him to get off the computer. Later on I had a conversation with him about how porn distorted sex.

He was more embarrassed when his mom confronted him after checking his browser history.

Nope, but I’m sure it’ll happen some day (he’s only 8). I’m not sure how I would respond at this point. I hope that I or my husband can address it calmly with him.

I really don’t know what I would say. I know I would want to address watching out for getting a computer virus, especially if he was on my or my husband’s computer. I also think I would want to talk about how there is a time and place for everything. Other than that, I’m not really sure what I would say about the porn specifically. I think it may depend on his age.

GQ! It definitely gives me things to think about for whenever it does come up (if it does).

I got caught by my mother. She waited for a quiet time, made some nachos and sat down for a nice chat with me about whether I had questions about what I’d seen. She told me curiosity was natural but not to get a distorted vision from overload. She was great about removing the shame and it helped me have a pretty healthy attitude about sex.

My dad caught me once when I was like 16 and put parental blocks on the computer so I couldn’t anymore. I think this was a completely passive-aggressive thing for him to do (he never talked to me about it) and was the wrong approach. I personally think that if your kid isn’t too young to be looking at that kind of thing (I think it’s up to you to decide how young is too young) then it’s not a bad thing, provided that it’s not taking over his/her life.

Man, I just can’t stop reading this question as “Have you ever caught (blank) surfing child porn?

Im glad I was brought up in an era of simply stealing my friends big brothers playboy.
Porn in general was a right of passage but some of the crap that pops up on the net seems a dark path.
Ive got another 7 years to plan how to handle that situation with my kids

My family dad has weird filters and blocks all over the place that I’ve managed to avoid since I first started being allowed to play on the computer unsupervised (I was about 4 when that started).

I’m pretty sure that my dad can see everything I do/have done on my computer(s). Knowing that has yet to stop me from watching porn. I’m very picky about the girls in porn, so I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t mind. Assuming this since he has never said anything about my computer usage except for my partaking in illegal downloads in DDoS attacks.

Yes I have. I simply told him that It’s normal to be curious about it, but there is nothing “normal” about the porn sites you find online. I asked him not to do it again on the family PC because I wouldn’t want his younger brother seeing it. He hasn’t since, but he has a smart phone I’m sure he explores there.

I just have to trust that I’ve taught him well and he knows right from wrong.

@JustJessica You might want to have a talk with him about using the smartphone too. If he sends an image to another student he can get into trouble with the school. At least tell him not to share sites or pictures. There were just 2 jr. high students suspended in my neighborhood for that reason.

@Blueroses I’ve already covered that with him also. They had a couple cases locally, and some kids sharing such images are now having to register as sex offenders… Scary!

@JustJessica What were they charged with? And isn’t that just the dumbest thing ever? Not quite the same thing as the 45 year old man preying on 8 year olds, aka the reason for the registry in the first place.

@papayalily It’s true though. That was a big debate here. I even went to the parent meeting at the school and I don’t have children but I wanted to hear the justification. The boys could have been charged with trafficking pornography to minors, even being minors themselves. Luckily, sane minds prevailed and they were not criminally charged.

@Blueroses I think if it was my kid that had to register, I’d just move them to a new country. I mean, their life is ruined – the can’t continue school, they’ll never get a job, most places have zoning laws that will force them to literally live under a bridge…