Is the site simply pics of naked women, men, or porno? There are some truly gross things out there that could really be bad for kids to see. Your daughter’s reaction was appropriate and healthy for a child- basically, yuck, I’m not comfortable. I am more concerned by a 10 year old who wants to explore porn sites. Why so much interest in sex at her age? Kids may have some curiosity of what the future holds for their bodies but elementary school age kids are generally repelled by, and not comfortable with sex itself, unless they have been exposed to it somehow- prior viewing of porno, sex, or molestation.

In any event, we enjoy it when other parents tell us, “Your child was well-behaved.” We need other parents to share information that will protect our children from harm. Be tactful, but if they can’t take it they will be unable to protect their daughter from this and future risks.
Please let us know how it went.

A relative of mine (very close) recently had the parent of his youngest boy handle a similar situation in just the same way. His son came clean with him immediately. He was the only child of 5 involved in an incident who did tell the truth to his parents.

The wise handling of the incident by the other boys’ parents defused a potentially painful situation, gave the boy the chance to salvage something by doing the right thing and owning up to their misbehavior, and taught them all a great lesson. I recently watched his kids.

They are teens and were utterly delightful company. I can’t help but believe from my own experience that kids pay far more attention to how we *act* than to anything we say in life. I am 48, and have never forgotten the day my Dad went back into a store to pay for a 19 cent package of frozen spinach at the bottom of our grocery cart.

The lesson has stayed with me, always. I was never prouder, and to this day I worship my Dad.

I could not agree more.

So often in life we try to shield our children from potentially painful experiences instead of realizing that often they are the best of what the education industry likes to call ‘teachable moments’: opportunities to grow, and to grow stronger. A child doesn’t develop character by taking the easy path, nor by having the right thing done *for* her, but by learning that it is best to do the right thing early with the loving guidance and support of her parents.

This is what I tried to do with my sons.I don’t claim I was always successful or always wise, but that was the general idea, at least. I think I will try to write about this tomorrow - it’s an interesting subject. Thanks, Ymar

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What about seeing if you can coach your daughter through handling this herself. Let her know that the end goal must be “parents are notified of the behavior” and see if she can come up with an acceptable way to do it. You can always backstop her if she doesn’t want to come up with anything.

Perhaps she could:
1. Try to convince the kid that she has to tell her parents (unlikely since you judge this friend to be low quality)
2. Talk to other friends to see if they can come up with a way to get porn-girl to talk.
3. Brinkmanship: she can ask the parents and porn girl to sit down and say that she has something she needs to say. She can then give porn-girl a chance to tell her parents before she does.

Little-BW might not want to do any of those. But it is not that often that you get such a nicely packaged morals lesson that you can hand to your kid.

Good luck. Let us know how it goes.
Joe

That really depends upon whether the child is willing to have her own secrets released as well. If they strikes through gossip, then who knows what her peers will make of her own activities that was tattled upon?

The best way to avoid warfare is to communicate that if they conduct a first strike upon you, you will launch everything you have back at them.

I really understand this - my daughter was a problem child in that she cared _way_ too much what other kids thought about her…but…
they’re only 10 years old! What is that…5th grade? 4th? Assume porn child goes to school and spreads it around that your daughter got her into trouble…is she really going to tell her friends that your daughter ratted her out for surfing _porn_ sites? If she does, and if the other kids then give your daughter a hard time, you really _do_ have a problem! But it’s not just that one girl…
If you go through with telling the parents, I think I’d probably talk to their teacher as well…just to see how things are going at school, and maybe give _them_ a heads up.
Schools are more aware of these things, often, than parents are, and I think schools need to help parents by making them aware of the problems and if possible the ways to keep track of what their kids are doing as well as how to keep a lid on it.

Such times we live in.