mecca
Superstar
- Joined
- Mar 13, 2017
- Messages
- 7,122
I don't think I'm being overly optimistic at all. I think I'm being pragmatic. There is adult content on the internet, there is also children's content. If you allow a child to go online when they are young, you are going to have to provide them with suitable children's content and block the adult content. Simply block the porn websites, it's unlikely that a young child will seek out a porn website before they become a horny teenager going through puberty... and if you block the websites, they are far less likely to view porn at a young age even if they actually really want to. Once they do become a horny teenager you can't expect them to never view porn. At that point you should basically talk to them one on one about it if you think they are going overboard with porn use... or maybe take away their device... this is what parents do. This stuff is basically what all parents (even before the internet) have to deal with.Your optimism knows no bounds. I appreciate that and remember being a boundless optimist as well. Somewhere along the line, and as it has been said, my optimism got mugged by a harsher reality, but I am not embittered by the event.
Teens are hard to control, that's just how it is... but eventually everyone makes it through this stage of life and matures into adulthood. A parent simply has to do their best... if their child rebels a bit, that's totally normal and they will still turn out okay. Like nothing bad is going to happen just because they saw a music video. You can't expect that your child will never see things that are inappropriate for their age but you can definitely minimize their exposure, especially when they are very young. Again, an 8 year old doesn't need their own internet accessible device, you can tell them to wait... they should grow up and mature a bit first.
A parent can't just give a little kid a computer and just let them do whatever they want on it. If your child is not mature enough to safely use a computer, then you should not give them one in the first place. If you do give a young person their own device, you have to make sure that you have properly informed them of the dangers, you have to make sure that you blocked unsafe content and provided your child with good content. They have to be mature enough that they actually understand these things. This is just basic parenting, you can't just let your child have free reign over everything... they can't just do whatever they want whenever they want to with no supervision or even guidance. A parent is supposed to teach and guide as well as regulate, and you can certainly do those things when you are introducing your child to the internet as well.
When your child becomes older and starts maturing, they won't even require as much supervision as a younger child in the first place so you should already be able to trust your child a bit more. And around this age is where the other methods I described would probably start to pay off, a 12 year old already knows right from wrong and they will be better and guiding their own actions. And even though you as a parent cannot constantly monitor your child, you can still have parental controls in place that would block any bad websites. You should have already explained to them how to safely navigate the internet, you should have told them what to do and what not to do. As I said, parents have to do the best that they can. Exposure to adult content won't be completely stopped but it can easily be minimized and as long as you raise your child right, they will be okay.All the best with trying to "supervise" a 12 year old boy, especially when he is thought to be playing video games with his school friends and you're a single mother, or two working parents who cannot afford a nanny, tutor or boarding school.
Adults today grew up with media as well, they may not have had the internet when they were young but there were still various forms of media like TV, movies, videogames, and music. The 12 year olds of the past were doing the same things as the 12 year olds today... hanging out, playing videogames with their friends, listening to songs... neither in the past or present are 12 year olds able to be supervised constantly. Children learn all kinds of things from their friends or their peers at school and you can't really expect to shelter them completely, it's not even necessary to do so. Back then, parents had to do their best to prevent their children from viewing adult media or growing up too fast and It's the same thing today just with a different technological medium. People always eventually get through these phases of new technology. Children growing up today aren't being scarred for life over the internet's existence, they are still growing up to be normal human beings. You just have to do your best to raise your child and know that you have taught them how to navigate this world well. Like I said, I grew up with access to the internet and I never got into scat porn... that's really not something that's common. I'm fine and nothing bad happened to me, or my brother or any of my peers... we all seem like good, normal people. The internet has so much more to offer then just porn and people utilize it for far more things that just viewing sexual content, and I would say that the youth are not the primary viewers of most sexual content. You can literally minimize your child to only be able to access educational children's websites if you really wanted to.
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