# My 6-Year-Old Found Porn Pictures...HELP!!!



## tweetyful

I really need serious advice.... I am very embarrassed to share this information but I must be honest as it was my fault my 6-year son ran into 2 pages of porn advertisements. A few years ago, my husband and I were having problems in that department and I was searching for ways to help our relationship and get back some of that flame we shared. I ordered some catalogues for lingerie and toys to find something we would both enjoy. I never really got the chance to order anything but I put the catalogues on the bottom of my lingerie drawer and forgot about them...at the time we only had 1 son and he was only 2 or so and so I didn't worry he may find them.... years passed by and now I have 3 kids..... a 6-year-old son, a 4-year-old daughter and a 3-year-old boy. I figured the time had passed and I never ordered anything and so I took them out to throw them away and I did. Inside one of the catalogues was a sealed envelope from the company with little ads of porn movies and magazines that I hadn't looked at before. I opened it up and saw what it was and threw them out. I was very busy going through all my drawers and closets searching for clothing and items that the family had outgrown to donate. 

A few minutes later I stepped out of my room to throw some unusable items in the trash and I heard snipping of scissors. My kids love to cut up junk mail into tiny little pieces to make confetti and then they throw it away but I figured I'd better just check and make sure they are not cutting up clothing or curtains or bedding (as they have in the past). They all share a room; my daughter has a very lovely small white bed with a beautiful lace canopy/veil with ladybugs and the boys share a cool bunk bed. The top bunk has a real cool canopy with stars you can hide under and that's where I found all three just cutting away. Then I saw what they were cutting up...they had taken the porn filled papers from the trash to cut up. I was glad the pictures were very tiny and my children were not even paying attention to what they were holding as they were too busy cutting up the papers (or so I thought). I calmly grabbed the papers from them and I threw them out again and gave my children plain paper to cut up on the floor and I went about my business again. 

Later on that day I was fixing my oldest son's bed so that it looked neat and tidy so I was tucking the fitted sheet under the mattress well and tight. As I moved mattress I found two sheets of porn advertisements wedged in between the side board and the mattress. I realized then that he must have put them there himself, which meant he hid them from me, which meant he had time to look at those tiny pictures all by himself for some time. I panicked and I freaked out and my stomach turned and I did not know what to do or say and I was sooooooooooo embarrassed and ashamed of myself because I had introduced my baby to sex way before his time and perverted him and maybe even messed him up for life. I had all these terrible things going through my head. What do I do now? How could I have done this? to my own son? What do I say? How do I handle this situation? Will he ever forget what he saw? How much did he see? Do I take him and myself to a therapist??? 

I then asked him to come into my room and he knew right away what for.....he said he didn't take it and that his sister had given it to him to cut up. I said, "I know" and then I asked him to tell me what he saw and how he felt about it. He started crying and shaking saying he had done something bad and he did not want to tell me what he saw. I continued to ask and he continued to say the same thing over and over. I told him to have trust in me and that it was not something bad he did and that I would understand but he still refused to say anything. I then asked specific questions....."did you see naked ladies?, did you see their boobs? did you see naked men? did you see their wee-wee (penis)? what were they doing with their wee-wee?.....he refused to answer much except he did say yes to seeing naked ladies and their private parts..... I was afraid to traumatize him even more so I stopped the interrogation. I then explained how important it was to keep private parts to himself and now allow anyone to see or touch his body and that if something ever happened he had to come to me and trust me even if he felt embarrassed or ashamed and that I would help him and understand him. I told him he should never touch any girl or boy in their private parts or ask to see their private parts either. I tried to end the confrontation on a friendly note but I saw he still was terrified and I feel now the trust has been broken and his innocence has been stolen by me. I need advise and help please.....

I don't know if what I did was right or wrong.....I mean how I handled that situation. I know I should have never allowed those items anywhere near my kids and I am so terribly sorry this happened. I know that children are exposed to sex material at a young age, but not 6, I thought and hoped. I was thinking more like 9 or 10.


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## turnera

It's not the end of the world. I grew up sitting on my dad's lap reading Playboy with him; it didn't scar me. Because he handled it in a matter of fact way, i.e., that this was something that adults did, and kids just aren't ready for it yet - it comes with getting older and your body changing. So I accepted that answer and couldn't care less. I just kept looking for cartoons!

I would bring it up again, later, when you're busy working together on something, like making an art project or something. That way, you are both focused on something else, so you are not in the 'interrogation' body language, and you both have something else to look at while you talk, and you can bury yourself in the work if it gets uncomfortable. Then just start talking about what things are like for adults, how they do things differently than kids, they change, and part of the changes includes being together as man and woman. He needs to understand all that anyway. So this is just one more lesson you're giving him, just like you would talk about how a car works or something. Let him see YOU not get all twisted up about it, and he'll see that it's natural, what men and women do, and nothing to be ashamed of. Tell him that, when the time comes - and you want him to come to you when he starts getting to that point so you can help him navigate those waters - he'll start understanding more about that sort of thing. But for now, just know that kids do things one way, adults do other things, and that's how it should be. When he's ready to learn about adult things, he's welcome to come to you and ask about them, and you'll be glad to answer any questions (in an age-appropriate fashion).

The problem can occur when you try to tell them there's something wrong with it, or it's something you should hide or be ashamed of. As soon as you take the stigma off of it, they just shrug and move on to other things. But the minute you say 'stay away' or 'you can't see this' they'll be dying to get more of it.


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## tweetyful

It's been a while since your reply but I really wanted to thank you for your sound advice. I brought up the subject again in a matter-of-fact way while working on making a piñata with him. He got a bit uncomfortable at first, I can tell, but then as I continuted to explain and talk about how adults do things differently than children he became more at ease. I made sure he understood he had done nothing wrong and I asked him if he had any questions about what he had seen and he said "no". I explained that his body will grow and change into an adult body but very slowly and if he has any questions at all about anything, he can come to me. I will make every attempt to not freak out again in the future although I know it is easier said than done. Life throws some curved balls at us sometimes and I guess since he is my first-born it is harder because I am learning as he grows and things happen. Thank you very much again. I truly appreciate the advice and you sharing your experience with me.


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## turnera

Good job!


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## jasmine0247

I think that you did the right thing. The exact same situation happened in my home except that it was a whole magazine and my son is not scared by it... AT ALL. He is 6 as well. I think making nudity/sex a negative thing is not healthy. I think making a big deal about it makes it more exciting. My son is well aware that it's for adults that love each other and want a family. He is not interested in the sex part but he likes naked women very much. (He can't stand little girls though, he thinks they're annoying) He still wants to see beautiful women now.


I also don't think that coming across porn turns people into perverts. It's all about balance in this world. You don't want people to think sex is dirty or bad and definitely don't want them to think it's a casual unimportant event.


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## lovemywife4life520

Things like that happen. You didn't buy it for him, you didn't encourage him to look at it. The fact that he hid it from you shows that he knows you wouldn't have approved of him looking at the pictures. What he did was perfectly natural for a kid of his age.


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## Sothisisthemiddle

I'm sorry, but that is a fantastic story. The careful, worried mom's worst fear coming to life as ALL her children gleefully snip porn in their kid-tent. You will certainly laugh about that, one day.

As someone who's parents grew up in mid-century America, I regret that they had no idea what to do with sex and children. My wife and I were both, how do you say it... precocious. Horny kids. And we both, now, feel gyped because we had great engines of desire inside of us and we were each going through it alone. It hardly seems fair. Or healthy. So, now, we are trying to do it right. But that is a story for another thread. 

I just wanted to say that I love your story. And it sounds like you handled it quite well.


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