My Son Saw Sexually Explicit Material Online -- What Should I Do?

Dear Susan,

My son saw a pornographic video on the Internet when he was at his friend's house and he finally told me about it. How should I handle it?


Signed,
Mom of exposed son

Dear Mom,

Raising kids in today's technology-saturated times presents unprecedented challenges. One of the risks that parents face is that even with precautions, it's difficult to ensure that our children will not be exposed to highly inappropriate images and videos.

Some parents dismiss the impact on their children of stumbling upon pornographic sites, suggesting that it's as harmless as discovering daddy's Playboy under the bed when they were young.

But when a child comes across extremely graphic images or videos online, it can be both stimulating and upsetting. It's one thing to see a picture of a naked woman in a magazine, and something else altogether to view some of the sexual videos-often replete with demeaning and degrading dialogue that are on the web.

Kids are naturally curious about sex and want to find out more about it, but as parents, we want their exposure to be gentle, gradual and developmentally appropriate. What your son saw was probably far more than he was ready for. Not only that, it may have been confusing to watch interactions that came across as anything but gentle and loving, which is what we want our children to associate with sex between two caring, consenting adults.

The most important thing you can do is to make sure your son feels safe to tell you what he saw, how he felt about it, and what questions it raised for him. Listen calmly, and let him know you're not mad, and that you're glad he came to you to help him make sense of what he saw.

Try to find out whether the exposure happened by accident, or whether he and/or his friend, went to the Internet to find out more about sex. Let him know that it is normal to be interested and curious, and offer to answer his questions honestly, and to give him age-appropriate books and materials that will give him more information.

For some children, the exposure they have to online pornography can be deeply disturbing. An unexpected encounter with highly provocative sexual material crosses boundaries and compromises innocence. Your son may need comfort and reassurance, having been thrown into the deep end, so to speak, before knowing how to swim. As stimulating as it can be for kids to see graphic sexual material, it can also be overwhelming and even frightening.

Keep the lines of communication with your son open for the coming weeks and months, watching for indications that he may need additional help coming to terms with what he has seen.

All parents should have appropriate filters installed on computers, ensuring that those who care for their children does, as well. While it's impossible to prevent kids from online sexual material if they're determined to find it, it's important to supervise children's online activity, while providing age-appropriate information to satisfy their natural interest in knowing more about sex.

Yours in parenting support,
Susan

Parent Coach, Susan Stiffelman, is a licensed and practicing psychotherapist and marriage and family therapist. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in developmental psychology and a Master of Arts in clinical psychology. Her book, Parenting Without Power Struggles, is available on Amazon. Sign up to get Susan's free parenting newsletter.

Comments

[robertaruth]

12:27 PM on 08/27/2011

How old is this boy? Doesn't this AdviceMama think that's important to know when you're giving advice? Anyway, my unsolicited and unpaid advice is, depending on the boy's age, If you can't just ignore it, then the worst thing you can do it to overreact and make a big deal about it.

No degree in child psychology, just someone who had two younger brothers and raised a well-adjusted son.

[aerofanbig]

11:20 AM on 08/27/2011

over reaction, typical of America these days. Guess what, he's going to see more porn, and there isn't anything you can do about it. I somehow doubt these kids were watching the extreme hardcore or fetish type stuff, truly violent and disturbing porn has to be sought out, kids don't know how or where. They probably clicked on a link from their email spam box. More then likely, anything they saw is the same stuff my generation saw in dads night stand in his stack of hidden hustler's. its natural, he IS going to explore, you can't keep his curious male nature in check lady. Not to mention, kids are going through puberty WAAAAY earlier now then even just a decade ago, todays 10 year old boy is yesterdays 15 year old boy. You can't change that, so roll with it as best as possible.

[Jesse Custer2]

12:50 AM on 08/17/2011

just start him out on hentai, the tentacle stuff is great... he'll be aight XD

[Manuel Labor]

07:19 AM on 08/16/2011

"I believe that sex is one of the most beautiful, wholesome and natural things that money can buy"
- Steve Martin

[James Peron]

05:06 AM on 08/16/2011

I find it odd that anyone would dare offer advice without first learning the age of the son involved. There is a lot of difference between someone 9 years old and someone 15 years old.

[Steelsil]

02:04 AM on 08/16/2011

TV sitcoms are more salacious than adult movies were 40 years ago.  Most generations of children lived in the same room as their parents, and many do today in some countries, so I wouldn't worry too much.

[zjin]

10:11 PM on 08/15/2011

Ahem. Are you sure the boy just "stumbled" upon the porn and didn't seek it out? Like most adult-themed fantasy today, whether pornographic or not, be sure he knows the distinction between cruelty and loving. And fantasy and reality. Modern entertainment themes often don't seem to distinguish between the good and the bad or real and unreal these days.

As long as kids learn to address anger constructively rather than spin it inward as self-hate or outward as hatred of others, and as long as they value and care for other people, they be able to tell for themselves what is good and what is bad when they see it.

[logicdog]

09:47 PM on 08/15/2011

This is a lot simpler than some people make it out to be. The best defense you have against the ways of the world is yourself. Be a parent that your kids trust enough to come to if they are confronted by something that they don't understand or that disturbs them, even if it seems embarrassing. You don't have to be a "good buddy", but you DO have to be their faithful guide through youth. Preferably someone who doesn't pre-judge them, or who adopts punishment over explanation, or who goes hysterical as the bindings of innocence gradually drop away from them.

You've got a better chance at getting well-adjusted kids if you're the "trusted sage" instead of the cop on the beat.

[socraticus]

06:43 PM on 08/15/2011

It's hard, I realize, to be a parent. That is why I have always been VERY careful. On the one hand, pretending that porn can't have a negative effect on a kid is naive. For example, combine the already misogynistic nature of certain types of music with youth culture(s) that like that music with porn that depicts male sexuality as women-are-usable-things-there-for-my-penis'-pleasure and you get a ton of boys who don't think twice about treating women as mere objects. Don't think so? Ask the freshman women at Yale about how frats harass them and the school just gave up because the probelm was SO pervasive. I LOVE EROTICA, but I am an adult and I grew up in a household where my mom and dad were 100% equal. I had a feminist aunt who taught me well, and to this day I am a pro-feminist man. The problem with MOST porn that I have is not sexual explicitness, it is the objectification of women threefold. It pretends female beauty is objective, it robs women of their full subjectivity, and of course it treats them as mere objects. I love porn that celebrates carnal pleasures without sexism. The problem is there's too much of the other stuff and it teaches boys all the wrong things.

[Alexis Kasperavicius]

12:39 PM on 08/16/2011

"...pretending that porn can't have a negative effect on a kid is naive." - except that, no matter how much the bible banging, religious right has tried, no studies show any effect.

In other countries porn is openly displayed in shop windows on the street and the crime is a fraction of what it is in the US. Also, since Internet porn has been widely available, sexually related crime has plummeted by almost 50% in the US.

Face it, porn doesn't do anything. In fact it helps relieve sexual tension. However, freaking out over it and becoming a draconian parent just might have the opposite effect.

[socraticus]

03:41 PM on 08/18/2011

I'm a few days late here, but oh well.
I'm assuming you picked up on the fact that I'm far from being a bible-thumping right winger who freaks out at anything nude or sexual - in fact I'm a pretty active naturist and I, like you think it's funny how the other side automatically thinks that anything nude is sexual, and anything sexual is dirty. I'm aware of countries with more liberal attitudes about nudity and sex as well. I'm aware of the fact that it is next to impossible to establish a causal link between porn and any negative outcomes, just because of the nature of such an enterprise. However, I would still maintain that akin to a well rounded classical music listener being more complete musically than one who listetnds ONLY to hip-hop, a kid who explores misogyny-free erotica and not misogyny-laden porn will be better of sexually for the simple reason that he was exposed to egalitarian erotica.

[johnyonkle]

01:37 AM on 08/15/2011

Keep your kid off the internet for one thing. He should be outside faving fun, playing with matches and making water balloons, peeing on a ant hill, not watching other peoples fun on the monitor. If he saw something bad..... big deal, ignore it and he will move on. He is going to see bad stuff all his life anyway, this is just his first creepy eye witness... there will be more later. Heck in a year or two his buddys will be showing him Dads Playboy books hidden in the closet anyway, how do you think boys figure this stuff out? By just doing life. But I am sure parents today would think he is tarnished for life, if he does not see a shrink and talk about this so much it never goes away, give him some pills, said he got ADD OCD ADHD from this, and make him a over weight kid like the rest of the kids in school. Whne he gets slow in school, you can blame it all on hte internet!

[michaele11111]

01:28 PM on 08/14/2011

what should you do? Not take it too seriously and ask the child if they want to discuss it. Or you could call Michelle Bachmann and ask her for help!

[jenswan70]

12:17 PM on 08/14/2011

The first thing to do is not overreact. Ask the child to tell you what he saw and to explain to you what he thinks it means. Your next step would depend on how close or far off his version of events was.

The next most important thing is to not be judgmental - you're version of sick and disgusting may not be the same as anyone else's. If your child liked what he saw, you've just told him that he is a sick and disgusting person. Sex between two consenting adults is never vile, disgusting, demeaning or wrong as long as it is what they both want.

Explain what he saw at his level of understanding.

Then you need to let the parents of the friend know what the kids are doing at their house. They probably don't know.

[jonclong]

03:45 PM on 08/14/2011

I support all but your 2nd statement. A responsibility of the parent is to instill a sense of right and wrong in their children. If the kid doesn't agree, he/she can do what they want after they're adults. If you don't develop character in your kids, someone else will (just look at the tone of most of the posts on this site). Also, it's a good thing to learn how to check the cache files on your computer. That way, when you sit down to talk to the kids, you already know the answer to the questions you're asking them. Your last statement in your post is a must!

[jenswan70]

06:53 PM on 08/14/2011

Who are we to judge what is right or wrong about another person's sex life? Personally, I find the mere idea of sex with a woman repulsive but that doesn't make it wrong, just not right for me.

Just because you or I might not want to do it doesn't mean that the act is wrong.

[richardag]

10:07 AM on 08/14/2011

I suggest worrying less about exposure to sex and a lot more about exposure to gratuitous violence which is much more damaging.

[wtf2009]

04:18 PM on 08/15/2011

AMEN.

[halideion]

06:57 PM on 08/20/2011

Human Trafficking is violence, and human products supply the porn industry. A lot of porn is violent. And for those of you who think I'm making this up, here's a quote from the FBI's website (I guess you're going to claim that I made up the FBI too)

"They are trapped in lives of misery—often beaten, starved, and forced to work as prostitutes or to take grueling jobs as migrant, domestic, restaurant, or factory workers with little or no pay. We’re working hard to stop human trafficking—not only because of the personal and psychological toll it takes on society, but also because it facilitates the illegal movement of immigrants across borders and provides a ready source of income for organized crime groups and even terrorists."

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/civilrights/human_trafficking

Ah, but you'll say "It's not just prostitution; they're forced into other labor too." Ok, that makes it perfectly fine. If you don't think women forced into slavery aren't raped, you're kidding yourselves. And I work to rescue these people. Before you impugn my experience, I invite you to spend a weekend working with me.

[aerofanbig]

11:08 AM on 08/27/2011

Wow, you must stick to the creepy porn then! The porn MOST of us consume is RAN by the women, they are the stars who make the big bucks, not the men. Its also only violent if you SEEK out violent porn. 100% without a doubt the women in mainstream porn are there by their own choice, and are making 6 figures if they want. Yes, there is some straight f-ed up stuff on the net, but thats really a minority of whats out there

[pepper1311]

09:58 AM on 08/14/2011

He looks very happy in this picture.

[JLeamer]

09:04 AM on 08/14/2011

I stopped listening to this woman's advice video the second I heard her use the term "birds and the bees"...how can anyone take a person seriously who perpetuates this kind of Puritan denial?

I guess when you consider a natural act, urge and curiosity (which this woman's child obviously HAS & will continue to have), when you consider it a "violation", "inappropriate" or the killer of innocence, then it is the PARENT who has a problem!