Kid problem – wanna hear it?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

So, I went into my fourteen year old son’s room yesterday afternoon and he hastily chucked something into the closet and tried to act natural. I went into the closet and pulled out an iPad. When I asked him about it, he said that he had borrowed it from a friend.

I was upset about this because not too long ago, I found him with an iPhone which he said he had borrowed from a friend. Right around that time, my stepson’s iPhone went missing and the household was filled with suspicion for a while. (It was eventually determined that my son had not stolen the phone). A rule was made at that time that if my son (Paul) borrowed anything from his friends, especially expensive toys, he was to let us know about it immediately and then we wouldn’t have these situations.

Regarding the iPad, Paul said I had caught him with it some time ago and told him to return it to his friend, but he hadn’t had the chance yet because he only sees the kid at school, where it is not wise to bring your expensive toys. He had originally borrowed it while spending the night at the kid’s house. I said, “Fine. I’m going to take it now and I will return it to your friend’s mom. What’s their phone number?” Paul claims he has no phone number or other contact information, but he’ll find out in a week or so when school starts. (I am very dubious about all this, and plus if he spent the night at the kid’s house, I must have the mom’s phone number somewhere, right? This is still to be pursued.)

Anyhoo, I then took the iPad back to my room, where I spoke with my husband about this ongoing problem with stuff showing up in Paul’s room. My husband started fiddling with the iPad, and found the same thing that we found in the previous “friend’s iPhone situation”…porn. Now I’m upset about this too.

I am a reasonable mom, and I well understand that people like to look at pictures while they touch themselves. But see, back when I was a teen, long long ago, we found our porn in the woods or under our parent’s beds as nature intended. There wasn’t this universe of who-knows-what for impressionable little boys to frolic through.

I also understand that that is why Paul wants to have these i-Products, so that he can do his frolicking without me and his stepdad being able to monitor what sites he visits, as we do on his regular computer. I haven’t had any talks with him about porn per se, except to strongly imply that I know he’s looking at it.

So, that’s about the size of things…I don’t quite know what to say to the boy or what to do next, except send the iPad back whence it came.

2

If he stayed at the friend’s house, surely he can direct you to it, no? Pile him in the car and tell him you’re going right now.

3

Wow, what a mislead! I was thinking for a second that your son had stolen the iPad and you had an actual problem on your hands. If I were your husband, I would have been so relieved when I found the porn.

You’re lucky that your son is normal and healthy and not a sniveling maggot of a thief. Congratulations on presumably doing something right.

4

What kind of kid lends out his iPad for weeks? Does your kid have money? I would bet that he bought the iPad himself. If he doesn’t have money, I would check your credit card statements and try to pull a credit report on him.

Is the iPad a 3G model or is it WiFi? If it’s WiFi, you can shut him down at your router. If it’s 3G, I find it doubly hard to believe that a friend lent him the iPad. 3G costs money every month.

5

Wait a second, are we still assuming that the iPad is stolen? Because the OP seemed to mostly be concerned about the porn, leading me to believe that it wasn’t actually stolen.

If it’s stolen and has porn on it, and the OP is still more concerned about the latter than the former, then her value system is grossly and alarmingly distorted and I can see why her kid would resort to a life of crime to keep his perfectly normal behavior a secret from his bizarre parents.

6

I’m assuming she still thinks the iPad isn’t his (whether it is borrowed or stolen) based on this:

7

But if she knows where it came from, wouldn’t that imply it’s not stolen? Otherwise how would she be able to send it back? If they found out that it was stolen and know who the owner is why wouldn’t they have already returned it, and why would she have neglected to mention that massively important piece of information in the OP instead of getting sidetracked by some silly little thing like porn?

Edit: and yeah, of course it’s not his. But if it was legitimately borrowed then there’s no problem, but if it was stolen that’s a huge problem, so it’s a pretty important distinction.

8

Funny, but porn never really came up with my son. It sure is a different environment than when I was young and you had to sneak your peeks at Playboys and Penthouses.

I’d be more concerned with the “borrowing” of the iPad and iPhone. Just off the cuff, I always figured when there was an option, it rarely hurt to go with honest and open communication. (And if you want to teach him a lesson, I can imagine little more painful to a teenage boy than having to have an honest discussion with his mom about porn!) :stuck_out_tongue:

Did you look at what he was viewing? Because I could imagine talking to him about the different types of porn. If it is just naked people doing consensual acts, I could imagine telling him it is no big deal and that I was more concerned with the borrowing of the technology and then lying about it. If it seems to be more violent or actions you consider less - um - appropriate for a teen, then take the conversation in that direction. This is (IMO) one of the reasons to have kids use the household computer with no privacy settings. Basically, if you wanted to, you could look at whatever they were doing.

I’d make a bigger deal out of the (apparent) lying and hiding stuff from you. Whether these events are sufficient, I’d let him know that those are the sorts of behaviors that I would interpret as giving up any rights to privacy in his room.

9

She doesn’t know where it came from but she wants to return it to wherever it came from because she is under the mistaken belief that getting rid of the iPad will somehow solve the porn problem.

10

Seems to me you have two issues here. Okay, three. First, and the most worrisome and least worrisome all rolled into one is that he’s not following The Rules Of The House. Most worrisome because that makes it hard to live with someone, but also least because it’s such a staggeringly normal thing for a 14 year old to do. How you handle it depends on your parenting philosophy, and I’m not convinced any one is much more right than another. You can go the authoritarian route and outright forbid it, perhaps ground him and have him return the iPad under your watchful eye. You can go permissive and just let it keep happening, since it’s going to happen anyhow and really what punishment will teach him is how to get better at hiding it, not stopping it. Or you can go authoritative and explain to him that you’re responsible for the welfare of these expensive electronics while they’re in his possession and under your roof, and that therefore you need to be informed when they come into his possession. You can even require him to pay you a deposit when he’s borrowing someone’s iPad, so you know you can replace it if it’s damaged or lost. Or you can refuse the responsibility for them while he’s demonstrating that he’s not reliable, and the only way to do that in a real legal sense is to forbid them entering your home. Thus, he’s not to borrow anything else for, say 6 months, while he earns enough to secure future lendings from breakage or loss. This is sort of a “grounding”, but it arises logically from his behavior and your liability. It’s a real world consequence, in other words.

Second problem is his fishy story. Frankly, I’d be wondering if it was “borrowed” at all. Would you lend someone your iPad who didn’t know you well enough to have your phone number or email? I wouldn’t. Especially over winter break, when you could be playing with it yourself for two weeks of no school? Of course, kids are dumb, they don’t understand the value of this stuff, they often lend it out like you or I would lend out a Barbie doll or CD. So it’s possible he has this iPad with permission, but that’s sending up a lot of red flags for me. I’m not sure how to handle that suspicion, to be honest.

Third problem is the porn. Which, I’m sorry to have to say this: get over it, Mom. :wink: Yeah, we got our porn the old fashioned way, but this is the way it happens now. I suggest a talk with him (maybe your husband can do it so it’s not sooooooo mortifying) about computer viruses and phishing and the like, so the conversation isn’t remotely touching “porn is bad…mmmm’kay?” but focused on internet/computer safety. As someone who’s desktop was killed (several times, and finally for keeps) because of malware picked up from shady internet porn sites, believe me, this isn’t a small lesson. The older male figure in his life “accidentally” dropping a post-it note with a few safe porn URLs on his desk might help him out, youknowwhatI’msaying?

11

I’d be far more concerned that my child stole somebody’s $500 electronic device than that he was whacking it to porn, but I’m also not a parent.

12

Yeah, we’re still not clear on whether it was stolen or legitimately borrowed because of the OP’s weird sidetrack with the porn - and as far as I’m concerned that’s the only issue here and it’s an enormous one.

(yeah yeah, that’s what she said :p)

13

I do believe the iPad was borrowed from his friend. That did turn out to be the case with the iPhone (different friend). However, I bet Friend’s mom doesn’t know about it. And one other thing, the screen is cracked. Paul claims it was that way when he got it.

The porn is not really the thrust (ha!) of the problem. But it does explain his motivation for wanting to borrow these things. And then there’s the security issue, and then there’s my sad Mom-feelings about the whole business. As I said, I haven’t tried to talk to him about it yet.

14

I know kids are dumb and all, but who lends someone an iPad for weeks on end? Especially since this kid has a proven track record of stealing Apple devices AND claims he has no way of contacting his “friend”…I think it’s fair to say he’s stealing shit.

Edit: Simul-posted with the one right above me. Oopsie.

15

That’s not the impression you gave in the OP. If the porn isn’t the issue, then what is exactly? The fact that he was trying to keep it from you? You admitted yourself that you have porn-blocking filters at your house so you’ve sent a clear message of disapproval about porn - how exactly did you expect that would magically turn into an environment of open, honest communication? Is it because it came from the Internet and not the woods? How the hell does that matter?

I’m really not seeing the issue here at all, and you seem to be pretty confused about it yourself.

16

This may be a weird question, but would it be possible to call the police and read the serial # of the iPad off to them? I know when my iPod was stolen a few years back, they absolutely took down the serial # from my packaging so they could keep an eye out if it turned up.

Of course, I don’t know if they said that to calm my hysterical ass down, or because they actually do have a database.

Shoot, it might be enough just to tell your son that you’re GOING to call the police and have them run the serial #. If my mom did that to me when I was a kid, I’d be spilling like Chunk with his hand over the blender before she could even reach for the phone.

Additionally, as the mother of a 16 yr old boy I can safely tell you that they WILL look at porn. They will look at crazier porn than you or I did. They may even enjoy some of it (though much of what he searches for may be due to nothing more than morbid curiosity) but they will likely grow up relatively normal anyway. In our house, we have these rules governing porn:
[ul]
[li]You use your OWN computer for that stuff.[/li][li]If your computer contracts a virus, tough. It’s on you to fix it or you just won’t have a workable computer.[/li][/ul]

17

Our conversation with our son was “if you look at that stuff on your computer, it will become infected with a virus and then you won’t have a computer. Don’t look at it on ours either. We have no issues with you looking at porn, but do it the old fashioned way, with printed material…”

18

Sounds like the kid went to his buddy and said something like ‘my mom monitors our home computer, won’t let me watch porn. Lend me your broken ipad, help a bud out … ?’

I can totally see that.

To my mind, stealing stuff is a huge problem - finding a way to watch porn so that mom doesn’t find out, not a huge problem. Pretty well every adolesent boy in history has done the latter. :wink:

I bet caveboy Ogg tried to hide what later archaeologists would call “fertility figurines” under his bedroll by his side of the fire, whistling nonchalantly, when cave momma Ogg wandered by unexpectedly … :smiley:

19

Sigh…let me try to explain this better.

The real problem is that Paul is not being trustworthy. I don’t think he’s a thief, but he’s definitely lying or at least being deceitful. My plan is to find the kid’s mom and return the kid’s property, then tell Paul that I don’t want him borrowing expensive things from his friends anymore.

I am okay with Paul looking at porn (although as a mom, it does make me sad that he’s not my innocent little baby anymore). I understand it. However, I was wondering…is there like, a talk that you are supposed to have with kids about this stuff? No one had a talk with me, but then, I didn’t get caught either.

As far as viruses and computer security and whatnot, that’s my husband’s domain. He was pissed last night because he doesn’t want stuff connected to the network without him knowing about it. This was discussed with Paul during the last episode, but he still broke the rule.

20

Doesn’t the iPad have its owners information on it? My iPhone certainly does (and even if it didn’t it has contacts for “Mom” and such.)