oh boh - 6yr old found on inappropriate websites!

[lizzie]

i generally let my 6yr old girl have free access to the web ... she has always just looked up her favorite games (or i help her) and she plays away - generally horse games or photographs of horses as she is horse obsessed. i think it is important for her to be techno savvy in this day and age and don't generally have a problem with it.

obviously i monitor by either being in the living room or ducking my head in now and then for a look.

well, this morning i found her hiding in her lounge room cubby watching "you tube" movies of horses (and i'm hoping "not" people) having a good old - er - romp.

when i looked see what search words she put in, they were "funny horses" and the history showed a couple of other sites that showed similar videos (not just you tube). one of the sites had a heading up about 3 people and a horse having sex, but fortunately no video.

because she was hiding, she obviously knew what she was watching was wrong ... when i asked her why she was watching them she clammed right up. i explained to her that it was okay to be curious, but when horses have sex it is a private thing between the horses and that we shouldn't be watching them on the computer - and that the people who video them are silly - but she just continued to glare into the distance.

i thought about banning "you tube" but it does have some good stuff on it from time to time that i am interested in - and it wasn't the only site.

this bringing up kids is hard work.

 

[skater]

Maybe get something like Netnanny, so that it will filter out all unwanted material. You should be able to still view things like You Tube, just not the videos that she shouldn't be watching.

 

[Perp]

lizzie, if it's any consolation, my sons had a much more extreme incident about a year ago, when they were 7. (But hey, that had googled "naked ladies having sex". ) I sought some advice from an acquaintance who's a parenting author and has done a great job with her 4 children. She said the important thing was to not make it too big a deal, or associate guilt with sex, or curiosity about sex. Sometimes, as in my boys' case, there were some particular things that they didn't know, but wanted to know, so we had an age-appropriate discussion, and I reassured them that it was natural to be curious, and they could ask whatever they wanted. I'd rather show them a picture of a naked lady in a science book than have them view hard core porn.

And I put net filtering software on the computer. It doesn't block entire sites, it filters more intelligently, so it wouldn't block all of youtube, but it would block any youtube clips that are tagged with inappropriate words. A few filters that are recommended can be found here.

My boys don't seem to have been damaged, and they have gone on to ask lots of questions, so I'm glad they're now coming to me for information rather than googling in private.

Good luck resolving it; many other parents have been through the same thing!

 

[heathgt350]

youtube doesn't (or shouldn't) have porn on it, however there are porn variants of it (or so I've heard ) which she may have accessed accidentally.

There are programs available such as net nanny and others that can be used to filter web content. I suggest you get one of these. I'll definitely be getting one of these before my daughter starts using the internet.

I'm not sure how you can explain those videos to her in a way that will allow her to look at horses in the same way again, however I advise you to get net nanny ASAP as there are a lot of other innocent search key words that will bring back porn.

You may also want to check your search filter in google. Go to google, click on settings in the top right hand corner. Click on Search Settings, scroll down to Safesearch filtering. Set it to Strict Filtering.

This alone may exclude any porn from search results.

 

[nhb74]

hmmm she is 6 years old.. She shouldn't be surfing the internet on her own. Anything could pop up anytime. Type in funny horse into google with the safety filter turned off and see what you get. Letting kids on the internet in the living room while you watch what they are doing is the only way in my opinion.

Andrew

 

[lizzie]

okay - netnanny purchased. although i will have a chat tonight with her about "self filtering" if she comes across anything inappropriate ... in other words ... if she see's anything that she wouldn't feel comfortable having mum or dad watch with her, then she needs to log out. i think she'll also have to put on "for kids" at the end of each search, ie, "funny horse videos for kids".

 

[Perp]

I'm not sure how you can explain those videos to her in a way that will allow her to look at horses in the same way again

After my sons saw some really extreme porn, I had a similar concern. My friend (the parenting author) said that in some ways, really extreme/bizarre stuff can be less damaging than "more straightforward" stuff, because kids really have no context to put it in. Whilst one naked man and one naked woman having sex really can't be "interpreted" (though can be described as a "cuddle" ), bizarre stuff could be interpreted in all sorts of ways, and you may be able to give it a non-sexual connotation.

You can just tell them - depending on the child and their interests and level of understanding - that it was "somebody with a really strange sense of humour making a silly movie with special effects", "not real, just a not very funny joke of some adults", or "some adults aren't very clever and film stupid things", "I don't understand it either, I think it's crazy", or something like that, and usually that'll be enough to make them forget about it. They're used to seeing all sorts of bizarre special effects in movies, and if you can liken to this to an adult version of "silly movies", they'll usually simply move on with no interest in it, because they didn't "get" it, and didn't relate it to sex.

If, however, you talk about it excessively, or give them the sex talk when they may not have even had any idea that it was sexual (which they may not have - they don't necessarily equate nudity or handcuffs or blindfolds or being naked with animals etc with sex, remember), you can create a problem where there wasn't one.

Follow your intuition about your child. Give them the most benign/straightforward explanation and try and move on. If they don't seem to buy it, try a different approach. But as soon as they seem to have moved on, it's best that we try to do the same, and it'll probably be completely forgotten.

 

[heathgt350]

Hi Lizzie,

Another suggestion that I've just thought of is to write your own homepage for your computer that only has safe sites on it. That way your six year old wouldn't have access to google and other potentially dangerous areas.

I'm not sure if you are HTML savy, but if you copy the code below and put it into a text file (in notepad), save it as homepage.html. Then open it up in internet explorer, go to the tools menu > internet options > Use Current page as homepage. Every time you open up Internet Explorer the safe page will come up.

<title>Lizzie's homepage</title>


[url=http://www.youtube.com]You Tube[/url]
[url=http://www.somersoft.com]Somersoft[/url]
[url=http://www.theage.com.au]The Age[/url]

To add extra links all you need to do is copy and past one of the lines starting with and ending with (these are paragraph tags).

Add an entry for each of her game websites and other sites you are happy for her to visit. Turn off the google toolbar if you have that on.

 

[neil100]

Hi Lizzie,

Another suggestion that I've just thought of is to write your own homepage for your computer that only has safe sites on it. That way your six year old wouldn't have access to google and other potentially dangerous areas.

I'm not sure if you are HTML savy, but if you copy the code below and put it into a text file (in notepad), save it as homepage.html. Then open it up in internet explorer, go to the tools menu > internet options > Use Current page as homepage. Every time you open up Internet Explorer the safe page will come up.

<title>Lizzie's homepage</title>


[url=http://www.youtube.com]You Tube[/url]
[url=http://www.somersoft.com]Somersoft[/url]
[url=http://www.theage.com.au]The Age[/url]

To add extra links all you need to do is copy and past one of the lines starting with and ending with (these are paragraph tags).

Add an entry for each of her game websites and other sites you are happy for her to visit. Turn off the google toolbar if you have that on.

This might help a little, but the trouble is sites (like you-tube etc) often have other links on the site that then lead off to other sites. Or, you often find little google search boxes on other web-sites.

I have had similar issues. My son and daughter were watching some "Land before time" clips on youtube. Gradually, the links to other "related" material start getting clicked and gradually these links start shifting towards more unsuitable clips.

Neil

 

[ianvestor]

i think she'll also have to put on "for kids" at the end of each search, ie, "funny horse videos for kids".

That's great, as long as she doesn't misspell 'for' or things could get a whole lot worse.

 

[RumpledElf]

I'm glad mine is still firmly in "EWW BOY GERMS" mode. Or shouts out "EWWW! THEY SAID SEXY!!!!" at the top of her lungs every time the word comes up in a regular TV commercial.

She doesn't have access to the internet at home. She seems to have zero interest in computers except for typing up stories about princesses. She's almost 9.

 

[Casserole Dish]

Oh man this is all so hard isn't it? Parenting in this age is akin to torture, and every bags us and has opinions on how to do it better. Don't get me started... I'll stick to the topic...

I think I have looked at a total of 4 clips from You Tube. I'd have no qualms banning You Tube. But thats me. It's something I can live quite happily without.

I was looking at Ebay around Mother's Day and they had a big banner up "Kids! Some Mother's Day gift ideas!" and a lot of the pics included the sexier lingerie that gets sold on Ebay. It's really hard to escape it.

I'm going to sit next to my kids when they use the internet, I'm not planning on them being on it too much. i know that's a big call but there is SO much stuff they just don't need to deal with until they are bigger.

 

[mrsdawnrazor]

And there was me worrying that my 8 year old son has been banned from playing with the kids next door for putting cherry tomatoes under the wheels of their car in the garage

Gotta love parenting

 

[mja]

Hi lizzie,

I wouldn't have bothered purchasing Netnanny. It doesn't capture everything, but let us know how you go! It has been around a long time.

Youtube has a sign in feature. Set him up with an account and make sure the account has his actual birth year. All the explicit, adult oriented videos will then be filtered, but I'm sure some inappropriate stuff will make it through.

Windows has some pretty lax parental controls. There are so many ways to circumvent security. I doubt if they'll be much better in Windows 7.

On the other hand, I love Macs. I only have a 3 week old boy, so I don't have this problem just yet, but when he gets old enough - he's going to be using a Mac.

Apple Macs have the *Best* Parental Controls out there. You can limit certain websites that can be viewed. You can hide profanity in the dictionary. You can limit who the child can email and chat to. You can set time limits on weekdays and different limits on weekends and prevent access during "bedtime". You can also log all activities for review later.

All of this is built into the entire operating system and can't be circumvented by a 6 year old. It's a bit extreme to throw the PC in the bin and buy a Mac though (and Mac's are more expensive than PC's). Just something to consider...

 

[Strannik]

ah the marvels of bringing up kids....

my personal opinion that the best thing a parent could do is teach his kids how a) not to get PC infected with the viruses when looking at such stuff
b) not to give away personal details like phone numbers, names age etc...

if you want to police their internet usage and block inappropriate sites - get a parental control software, there's plenty on the net and it costs the same as a carton of beer.

 

[lizzie]

net nanny is on - but does slow things down a little as it searches thru each site before bringing it up.

we had a little "on the backstep" chat about how she should put "for kids" after viewing requests, and that bringing up in appropriate sites happens to everyone and that if she does so she should leave the site immediately, and that she shouldn't be looking at anything on the internet that she wouldn't feel comfortable looking at with mum and dad.

it all got thru (so far). i think she was so mortified at being caught yesterday that the lesson was well learnt - and we just had to set some hindsite groundrules.

issue over - for this time.

 

[Lily House]

Hi Lizzie,

My kids are aged 5 and 9 and love getting on the internet.
I have a favourites folder marked with their names, and all their favourite game sites are saved in this folder. When they are playing on the net, they know they are ONLY allowed to play with the sites that have been saved for them. These are ones that my husband and I have checked out and know are okay.

They also know they are not to give any information out when on the net. They can use their first name when playing a game, but are NEVER to type their full names, or phone number or address.

YouTube is not saved in their folder. We, too, enjoy funny videos on YouTube, but I feel they really do need adult supervision when watching them, as there is a fair bit of unsuitable viewing for young children. My girls love funny animal sites - where the little kitten chases the big mean dog off, that sort of thing. But we too, have seen some "funny pets" videos that are inappropriate. My feeling is YouTube needs adult supervision at all times.

Perhaps you could set up a favourites folder for your daughter too? She will feel special that she has her name on it, just for her, and you could choose appropriate sites together. You could save her favourite horse sites, and other children's game sites (Barbie, Little Pets etc), and give her the trust to choose whatever she likes - as long as only from her folder. My girls respect the trust I give them with these, and I'm sure your daughter would too.


Caroline

 

[ianvestor]

You could save her favourite horse sites

And definitely, DEFINITELY make sure your kids can spell.

 

[tess85]

That pic is GOLD!

 

[Lily House]

LOL ianvestor.