Trust and impulsive teenage difficult child's

gcvmom

Here we go again!
husband bravely allowd difficult child 1 to stay home alone and play a game on his (husband's) new laptop while the rest of us went to dinner tonight.

I happened to check my email on my phone while we were out, and I foud that I'd received some bizarre confirmation email from some live chat site, with some kind of gobbledy-gook name on the salutation line, using that same name as the user id and an obscene phrase for the password. By verifying the email address, I would have access to unlimited text chats and "snapshots".

So the red flags are waving and I'm realizing that difficult child 1 has probably been surfing porn while we were out. I immediately called him and asked what he was doing online. I should learn to be more subtle -- but this is a hot button of mine that really gets my blood boiling.

Of course, his first impulse is to lie to me. Which is essentially an ejection from the game anyway because his first transgression was already strikes one, two and three.

husband and I confirmed the porn sites when we got home and looked at the laptop's history. difficult child 1 is not savvy enough to know to delete that yet. I sent him to his room and asked if he had anything to tell me. Of course he gives me the "expected" hanging head, ashamed look with downcast eyes, "I'm an idiot, mom and I don't know why I keep making the same mistakes." I was just so mad -- I said no, you're not an idiot, you're a liar. Probably not the most constructive thing to say, but I am just furious enough to spit nails. And I proceeded to confiscate all his electronics and banned him from all computers, video games, etc. indefinitely.

I've talked about the porn with him before. And I've talked about the lying before. I think I need to go back to his old therapist because I just don't feel like I am reaching him. I KNOW it's natural curiosity. I KNOW it's normal for this age. But there is just SO much garbage out there, misinformation, and out and out freakish, scary stuff that he is in NO way equipped to process. Looking at Playboy's used to be one thing, but it's just in-your-face, over-the-top, uber hardcore stuff on the internet that is just NOT okay for a kid to be dealing with.

I've asked husband to put a password lock on his laptop from now on. It's just too dangerous to leave laying around with difficult child's in the house.
 

flutterby

Fly away!
Yeah, the stuff online is bad. I'm no prude and it makes me uncomfortable and, well, grossed out.

I would probably do more than a password. When you leave, take the keyboard and mouse with you if he's going to be home alone. If he has a PS3, take it too. They can get online with that. I believe with Xbox, they can only get on Xbox Live and not surf the web.

Completely disable web access on his cell phone if he has one. Even if you don't have a monthly plan for it, he can still use it by the minute.

The lying? That would push me over the edge, too.
 

gcvmom

Here we go again!
Yup, Heather, I took everything. His phone does not have internet, thankfully, and he will only get that back for times when I need to contact him (like the Homecoming dance tomorrow night).

Today was probably a bad day for me to run out of my medications AND start my period. :grrr:
 

susiestar

Roll With It
Maybe today was the RIGHT day to run out of medications and start your period.

Maybe this will be the time it gets through to him.

It would send me through the roof, esp if it has happened before.

Other than the loss of his electronics, what will his consequences be? The best therapist we ever had said to tie the problems to hard physical labor. Stuff they do not want to do. Work with him or sit and supervise from a lounge chair with a book and a glass of tea. Whatever works for you.

It is the hard labor that will be the deterrent AND will be what is remembered. NOT losing the electronics, though that needed to be taken away anyway. Maybe take him to do yard work for Children and Family Services, or something else. Even just having him dig a hole in the back yard and then fill it in and dig another one. Without the hard physical labor there is little that will ever penetrate his brain except for the hangdog "I know I messed up but I just need help" cruddola routine. You could also have him be your "personal slave" and do your every whim for a few days.

This kind of thing is so difficult. I am sorry.

Hugs,

Susie
 

gcvmom

Here we go again!
Good idea, Susie. I'll have to come up with plenty to keep him busy this weekend. I just dragged him out of bed to clean the litterbox in the garage. :devil: Tomorrow morning he is getting up early with me to go set up a sun shade at his lacrosse team booth for a school fundraiser and he's going to work in the booth for two hours. Then he has a soccer game. Then I think he can come home and thoroughly vacuum my truck and wash it before he gets to go to his dance tomorrow night. Sunday I think the windows will need washing and the walks will need sweeping, his room will need vacuuming, and his toilet, sink and floor will need cleaning as well. Mwah-hah-hah-hah-haaaaa!

Oh here he comes, two minutes later. No WAY he got everything out of that box. "I got all that I could, mom." COW PIES! Get back in there and get it ALL!!!!

I knew I kept that bull whip for a reason...
 

klmno

Active Member
Puberty. When it hits a difficult child just look out. The only time I could be sure that mine hadn't accessed porn was when I took the keyboard and mouse with me in the car.
 
M

ML

Guest
Yes, hard work is a constructive consequence. These kids have too much time. Manster hasn't gotten to this stage yet but I'm sure it's a matter of time. He's still getting into game sites and I get occasional notifications of such. He even billed something to my cellphone and I'm still not sure how. Ugh.
 

gcvmom

Here we go again!
What's also incredible to me is that he gave MY email address when he tried to sign up for the live chat site!!! Hellooooo?!

He just cannot be left unsupervised when he's unmedicated (he'd taken his patch off shortly before we left). Period.

ML, difficult child 2 has similar impulses -- he at least shares the info with me, but he has not acted on them to the extent that difficult child 2 has, I think, in part, because he's seen the consequences of the indiscretions and he's been more receptive to my "talks" on the subject. easy child thinks they're both just gross :p

Well, we're off to work in the lacrosse booth at a fundraiser at school this morning. I hope I can keep from throttling him today!
 

klmno

Active Member
I'm finding this a little humurous in a sick way because my son has done all the things you are describing here- the PW, the chat, etc. He even used my credit card and name to try to order some weird porn from another country- I think it was a subscription to lesbian porn from Europe. Gee.... thanks, difficult child! When I called the credit card company to make sure it did not go thru, they were saying "Oh, so YOU didn't really WANT this?" LOL! Hmm...NO!!
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
Oh this brings back memories...lol.

I got my computer right as Cory was hitting this stage and boy was I in for a shock and I had to learn really fast how to attempt to keep ahead of him. I really didnt even know much about the internet when I got my computer. Cory forced me to learn fast. He found really icky sites.

One thing I can offer as something to hold on for...Cory doesnt even attempt to go to those sites anymore and hasnt in years. Once he started actually having some sort of a sex life, the porn issue became a non issue. Real women were much more interesting!
 

flutterby

Fly away!
Once he started actually having some sort of a sex life, the porn issue became a non issue. Real women were much more interesting!

Somehow, I don't think she's ready to think about that yet. :tongue:
 

mstang67chic

Going Green
Yeah, I'm with Heather on that one! :rofl:

As for the rest, well, you have to give them a chance now and then. It's up to them if they blow it or not. The chores sound like a great idea....but um....surely the chicken coop needs cleaned out by now doesn't it? :devil: Something else to consider when coming up with creative chores....I called our city building once when difficult child got in big trouble at school. We're a small town so the city building houses the mayor's office, city police, water department and a few other offices. It is a three story building and each floor has a set of restrooms as well as the two locker rooms for the police department. difficult child cleaned every single bathroom (all the toilets and the mirrors), both locker rooms and both entry ways to the building.

I've even been known to call owners of companies who had those big gravel trucks to see if they needed them washed. By hand. I'll call people I know who have horses or other livestock to see if they need stalls mucked out....I get down and dirty with my creativeness!

If you want more ideas..just let me know!!!
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
This post reminds me of something that happened before any of us knew there would be the internet or computers. My oldest sons were about twelve and neither acted like they were interested in girls or sex, at least around me.

One day they were in school and I was looking for something so I got down on the ground in their room to check under their bunk beds. There were a gazillion magazines jammed underneath the bed and I grabbed one. It was a very graphic girly magazine. As I pulled one out after the other, I found at least one hundred of them. I know some people get really upset at the porn thing, but I just sort of rolled my eyes. I was shocked to death, but I figured boys that age are curious and do look. Still, they knew better.

I gathered all the mags together and hauled them to a local dumpster and threw them away. When they came home I said, calmly, "When you look under your bed, you'll find your magazines missing"---two boyish faces turned beet red, "And I never want to see them in this house again."

One of the kids blurted out, "We got them from J...his br-brother gave them to us...they weren't ours..." blah, blah, blah.

I just repeated that mags like that aren't allowed in OUR house. Daddy didn't have any and he's an adult. They certainly can't.

I never did find any, but I imagine they still looked at magazines. They had friends whose fathers probably had them and I"m sure the kids brought them out and the boys looked.

I just wanted everyone to remember that the internet makes it more "in-your-face" to find our kids are looking at porn, however pre-teen boys (and girls) watching porn in any way they can isn't new.

I don't think it's limited to difficult children. However difficult children ARE far more likely to be in-your-face about it and not sneaky and lie when caught.
 

mstang67chic

Going Green
I agree....I've found things in difficult child's room over the years also. But I think the thing about the internet is that you can find things there that are so far beyond the ....for lack of a better word..."traditional". (By that I mean like Playboy) Some of the stuff on there is just plain nasty. Granted, there were/are magazines with that stuff too but those were either more hidden or not as many people had them as the Playboy type stuff. And, it's just so much more accessible online to where almost anyone can get to it.

I'm not saying kids sneaking their dad's Playboys are right but there's a big difference between the pictures in PB than the pictures and videos available online. difficult child once looked stuff up online and locked my computer. When I found it, a site similar to you tube but with porn was up. Just the still shots of the videos made me cringe and I'm far from a prude. It just wasn't the kind of stuff I would want my kid, difficult child or not, seeing. When husband and I found PB pages in difficult child's room, we cleaned them out and had a talk with him but behind closed doors had an amusing discussion about how it happened a little earlier than we anticipated. We weren't looking forward to it when it happened but we expected it. Know what I mean?? But again...the stuff online? Wow. I'm all for freedom of speech but it amazes me sometimes that some of this stuff is legal.
 

Wiped Out

Well-Known Member
Staff member
I love the keeping him busy with chores. As far as I can tell the only benefit to difficult child not being able to read yet is that he can't get onto any porn sites! He'd have to ask husband or me to spell the site's name!
 

MyFriendKita

Active Member
I agree that the porn they can find on the internet goes way beyond what they usually can find in print. We went through this with my son, and some of what he had accessed was truly sick (and I think I'm fairly open minded as well). My experience was a lot like Janet's. Everything I know about computer security I learned from trying to keep my son off of the computer or off of sites he had no business being on. I was never able to trust him with the computer. We had him set up with his own restricted screen name on AOL, but he still got around it. The best luck I had was with Cybersitter (a software package). With it, we were able to lock him out of not only porn sites, but any content we didn't want to allow. We could block chat, auction sites, anything we thought might be a problem. That worked for about a year. He still goes to porn sites, but he's an adult now, so it's no longer my business.
 

GoingNorth

Crazy Cat Lady
Speaking as someone who worked in the 'adult entertainment' industry on more than one occasion, I can assure you that what you can find on the internet these days is NOT more hardcore than what you could find years and years ago. Let alone what you can find today.

The only difference is that you are supposed to provide proof of age before buying a 'dirty' magazine and the internet is wide open (literally in this case, I guess...)
 

MyFriendKita

Active Member
I'm not talking about "dirty," I'm talking about violent and sadistic. Although I guess some movies these days are about that bad, just not as graphic as what you can view online.
 

graceupongrace

New Member
I have so been there done that with difficult child and porn. Once I get over the "ewwww factor" I remind him that this is not an appropriate way to think of women or of sex. And I will not allow it in my house, period. That applies to both online stuff and magazines. Oh, and 900 numbers. I had to block them from my phone after receiving a phone bill with hundreds of dollars in 900-number calls. :sick:
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
Ummmmm...heather and mustang....her son is 15! My son was "investigating porn" at 12. He stopped searching for it at 15/16 because he became sexually active around then so agewise...not so far off! Im sure he isnt the youngest here.
 
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