This weeks post is a little bittersweet. It is also embarrassing. No one wants to admit that they didn’t protect the computer enough to protect their child, but I feel I should share our story. When this happened, I clambered the internet to figure out how to deal with it. So here goes… My daughter gets up quite early, before the rest of the house most days. She likes to get on the computer and go to sites like PBS kids, Friv.com and Club Penguin. She isn’t allowed on YouTube, but I have not sworn her off Google. The only times she ever went on google was to research “How to make a bow,” or “Dress up Games.” This was where she fell down the rabbit hole so-to-speak. I will add that she is seven but very intelligent. Anyone have one of those kids? Seems like they left childhood at 5? Yeah, that’s my daughter. I took for granted that she would stay on the sites we had talked about. I had not childproofed my computer because I never needed to. She was always very responsible. I knew that it should happen soon, I just had not figured it out yet. I have a MAC and FYI, it’s the easiest thing in the world…to bad I didn’t know it earlier. Go to your system preferences, parental controls, unlock it and then add user for your child they have to log into. You can actually pre-determine all the sites they can go to.
So she had gone to a girl dress up site and was playing for what looked like awhile (based on the history) and then she clicked on an anime cartoon at the bottom. It was an adult porn site but with Japanese cartoons. Well, this then lead her to another and another and pretty soon my daughter had fallen into the trap. She then in her 7 year old brain, wanted to know what she was looking at. So she started typing in phrases. I will spare you but they were questions about what she was seeing. My husband and I were heartbroken and so sad, yet equally disappointed in ourselves. He discoverd this had happened when he came downstairs in the morning and she was trying to frantically close the computer. Then when he asked to see what she was looking at she burst into tears and started saying “I didn’t do it, they all popped up on me.” That was true to an extent until she was curious and started clicking away from site to site. I was working a big event and had left quite early so I was receiving all this information via text. As you can imagine I was so frazzled because I couldn’t be there. He didn’t get mad at her, but he didn’t know how to deal with it right then so he asked her calmly to go to her room and they didn’t discuss it anymore that day.
The next day… B and I didn’t know when the right time to talk to her would be but I knew it would present itself. We talked about how to handle it and what we were going to say. We agreed not to make her feel bad or punish her, but that she needed to understand that it was not appropriate for little eyes nor was it something that everyone does. I compared it to hamburger. Yes, hamburger. I said this exact thing “You know where hamburgers come from?” She says “Yes, cows.” I said “You like cows right?” she said “Yeah, they are cute and kinda messy but cute.” I said “Okay well I know you know that they have to kill a cow to make a hamburger but we would never want to watch that. We would never want to see those kind of pictures.” She said “No that’s gross.” That is when I then tried to explain that there are things on the internet that we are not always meant to see. In this case it was things with peoples bodies. She is too young to even enter the world of birds and bees talk right now or explaining about sex, so I didn’t go there . We talked about protecting your body and that privates are private and so on. We struggled through it but she seemed to be okay. She didn’t really ask anything but we left it open that if she ever wanted to know, we were there and that she didn’t need to be embarrassed, that google is not always the best place for answers. It was probably one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life but a lesson was learned, mostly for us. Never take for granted the internet. I am sure that there are parents out there that will reprimand us for not protecting the computer sooner, but I am willing to bet there are more parents like us than there are not. Head the warning, protect your kids from the moment they show interest in the internet.
Okay so on a lighter note (because parenting is all about day to day life) we got to see our little man on the big screen. I am 29 weeks today and he is perfectly normal and healthy. In fact he is so normal is is in the 54 percentile for growth. Totally average and while I have to carry him around…happy with that number. He weighs just under 3 pounds and I have gained just over 20. I found a website that called my fat gain as an “energy source” for the baby. I am totally okay with that. I am a walking energy source. (It makes me feel better okay?) He does have an affliction for his feet. He was caught sucking on his toes. Odd right? We laughed a lot.
To wrap up this totally tangent post, I will leave you with a few Bieber images from his show on Sunday. He puts on a good show and is quite the performer. I did get clocked in the head by a 12 year old who was trying to get to him when he reached down from the stage. That is not the fun part of my job. But here are some Bieber images for you and your nutty pre-teens. Enjoy!
Bridgette is married working mom of 2 kids under the age of 7 and expecting her 3rd this fall. The adventures and laughs never stop in this family, but she’s here to tell you that even the perfect picture has its flaws. Starting a new photography company all while managing her 6 year old daughter, 5 year old son and a very understanding husband.
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Thank you!!!! I just found out that my 7 year old found a porn site on an old phone. we thought we did a great job of protecting our computers but she got on wi-fu through the old phone that we thought she was just using for games. I threw up!!!! I have been beating myself up with guilt and visions of therapy in her future.