This is a post for fathers, but anyone else can chime in too ! I'm 32 and have a 3 1/2 year old son. I know it's early, but I'm thinking about how I'm going to talk to him about sex. I want to give him the wisdom that I didn't have when I was growing up, how to talk to girls, how to treat women, how to deal with exposure to explicit material. With the Internet, smartphones and social media there is just so much more explicit material out there, and sooooo many more genres and terminology I have never even heard of (I had my imagination and the occasional catalog that would come to the house, and that was it! Haha), and I keep hearing that kids are getting exposed to explicit and deviant material at an increasingly younger age. So as a father it is my conviction that I need to reach my son on this topic before anyone or anything else does ... I'm sure I'm not the first. Anyone care to weigh in ??
Well, I'm not a father, but here is my take on the situation: I was first exposed to pornography when I was 11, and that was from self exposure. However, that would have been in 2006, a while ago now. When I was a kid, we only really had access to dumb phones. The most advanced kind of phone for example was the flip phone type. However now, not only with the ease of access of electronic devices (smart phones, tablets etc), but also the age at which kids are being exposed to these devices (by their parents), explicit material is much easier to access. I would say that you have the most influence over your son in his prepubescent years. Therefore, it is your decision as to whether you allow him access to this technology and therefore the potential for this material. If you do decide that you want to expose him to this technology, then I would recommend installing a blocker on these devices (K9 Web Protection is good for PCs, otherwise you could do it through your ISP). And there really is no robust way of blocking porn on smart phones. As for giving him the birds and the bees talk, I would say to wait until he's old enough to understand, but not too old that he's already been exposed to it. Perhaps when he's 8 years old for example? It is unlikely that he would actively search for explicitly material before puberty, but who knows really... Just my two cents. Like I said, I'm not a father, but this is my personal experience on the subject.
Having been in high tech for 20 years I am an adamant opponent of exposing children to technology. They can catch up when they are adults. I didn't have/need it growing up and I see no advantage to them having it.... only disadvantages. I send my kids to a private school and they just decided it would be so great for the kids to have tablets... I am thunderstruck with how dumb everyone is about technology. This stuff from the early 90's "Technology is the future and our kids should learn young" is something everyone somehow believes... as if everything worked out all peachy these last 25 years... I don't get it.... but yeah I need to start fighting this battle and putting out the arguments and making my case... for the moment I come on way to strong... For instance I am totally comfortable getting in other parents faces telling them that if exposing kids to technology is fine they may as well legalize pedophelia... no? so you care more about their rectums than their minds?... yeah not making any friends... or convincing anyone much ...breath in.... breath out..... breath in.... breath out I agreed with everything you said... but seriously how likely is it they will type in words like butt? I'd say 100%. For sure when I was young we looked up 'bad' words in the dictionary and checked out bare breasted primitive folk in national geographic... we had a giggle and as expected got boring pretty fast... that same curiosity leads somewhere else these days...
