Too extreme?

[IrisP31]

A Friend of mine has an 11 year old son who is just beginning to find his sexuality and what not.

Well the other day she opened up the web browser and saw he had been looking up videos on google under the title "sexy boobies." She basically freaked. They aren't religious but she's making him go to church and confess and took away Tv and Internet for 3 weeks and is making him read the bible for an hour a day (these people don't even go to church...ever)

My son is only 8 but I feel like its almost a natural thing. I'd be mad if my son was the doing the same thing and I'd probably take away the computer for some time but this seems extreme...

What would you do?

[caitslaton]

That is a bit extreme since they never go to church...the poor kid is prolly scared of out his mind reading all that stuff in the bible and not understanding it...and dont get me wrong i would be pissed too...he would get his butt whipped and groundig def...and all the cool stuff would be taken away

[Crazy_Daze]

 I don't know if that really warrants a punishment. I think his father needs to have a sit down with the boy and explain about those women on the internet, and how to treat women and whatnot. Sex will be in his face for the rest of his life, it's everywhere, I think teaching their son to deal with it would be more effective than having him confess to something that is natural.

[Lorelai_Nicole]

I agree. To me, this would be a teaching moment, not a time for punishment. This is the perfect opportunity to open the lines of communication on women, sex, and even exploitation possibly. They've chosen instead to make him (probably) feel a) dirty or b) like a freak.

Quoting Crazy_Daze:

 I don't know if that really warrants a punishment. I think his father needs to have a sit down with the boy and explain about those women on the internet, and how to treat women and whatnot. Sex will be in his face for the rest of his life, it's everywhere, I think teaching their son to deal with it would be more effective than having him confess to something that is natural.

[JCC31]

Definitely, extreme in my opinion. I may have been a little shocked and had a sit down talk about why he was looking at that, where he was hearing that from to look it up, etc...and just be honest about all of what he is feeling...I wouldn't go to that extreme. I have 3 boys (5,7, & 8)...I have been very honest with them about everything about their bodies and all the "talks" we have had have been very open, honest and correct...started very early with this and actually the first things was to tell them the right names for their body parts....penis...no fancy terms, cute terms for it...so, that was the start of all the honesty and I tell them whatever they have questions about. So, for me this is too extreme. if more parents were just up front and honest it wouldn't be such a big deal.

[endurablemist]

I agree it is a teaching moment, and she went extreme. At one point or another every parent is going to go through something similar, and how we handle it effects who our child will grow up into.  Sex and hormones are natural things, I would never want my daughter to be ashamed of herself for being curious. But I also wouldn't want her to be looking at that stuff and if I saw it we would have a huge talk about it.

[Chymerra]

I feel that is very extreme.  I think I would take away my DS's computer for a week and have a talk with him about what is appropriate to look up on the Internet. 

[wakymom]

That's a bit overboard, imo. Have a serious talk, yes; a short term loss of internet, possibly (at least unsupervised use taken away); the whole Bible/confession thing, esp. since they don't normally go, extreme.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Rebekah8787]

If she keeps doing that he's going to have major problems growing up

[Christine0813]

I think it's a bit much. I see this kind of thing posted a lot on CM.

Why don't these parents have parental controls on the PC?

[JustaSM231]

I think I would freak at first.  But once I calmed down, I would think this is the opportunity to have a conversation with son about sex, sexuality, and bodies, including what is acceptable behavior with regards to the computer.  For a boy, being curious about a woman's body is natural.  What they do about it and how they view women is what I would be concerned with.  Obviously, I would be installing parental controls/blocks on the computer and daily checking up on the sites he is visiting.  Almost every single internet provider has this availble as part of the internet service and the customer service center can talk her through how to instal these if she is not great with computers.  I doubt that I would take away TV since that wasn't related to his "crime" in this instance, but definitely I would take away the computer for about 2 weeks.  This young man needs to be taught responsibility in using the computer and a 2 week grounding from it will go a long way to instill that lesson.  Reading the bible for an hour a day and church confession, I don't know.  An hour seems a bit long for that age.  I think showing him in the Bible how God expects us to be respectful of one another and treat each other as valuable and holy is not such a bad idea!  The church confession, I have no idea because I'm not Catholic and we don't have any kind of confession in our church.  We leave that to our personal relationship with God.