WORRIED ABOUT MY 20 YEAR OLD SON 26 February 2022 at 12:05PM in Marriage, relationships & families 10 replies 1.1K views

geek84

Good Morning

I am worried about my son and having sleepless nights.

I am worried that he may be going to some websites online which are not appropriate for him.

Is there any way I can check which sites he goes to?

Thanks

marcia_

geek84 said:

Good Morning

I am worried about my son and having sleepless nights.

I am worried that he may be going to some websites online which are not appropriate for him.

Is there any way I can check which sites he goes to?

Thanks

 At 20 he is an adult and can do what he wants. Unless illegal then you should report him to the relevant authority 

Martin_the_Unjust

Is there a particular reason why you are concerned about your adult child accessing websites you don’t approve of?

seven-day-weekend

Can we just answer the person's question and not be judgemental about  their motives?  We do not know the details of the situation.

(I can't, because I do not know the answer).

T.T.D

At 20 and you spying on your adult son because he is accessing what you deem to you inappropriate, as an adult if he peaked on your computer to discover your deepest and darkest sexual fantasies, or your looking at what he would inappropriate MSE posts about him, how would you feel? 

His search history is his search history, his actions are his actions, there needs to be a line drawn at some point and if you believe nothing illegal is happening then you should back off, but if you do feel he is at level that needs intervention because of Grooming or Viewing or storing illegal categories of child pornography, then you need to report it.

Bare in mind if you do go trawling his search history or PC/Phone regardless, you may find what your looking for and not necessarily what you want to see, what you see you can’t un-see, and may discover something he may never wanted you to discover whether legal or not. 

Are you prepared to breach his trust lose his respect, blur lines, and possibly lose love? 

Carrot007

seven-day-weekend said:

Can we just answer the person's question and not be judgemental about  their motives?  We do not know the details of the situation.

(I can't, because I do not know the answer).

I would not want to live in a world where bad things are encouraged by wilfull inaction. Finding out the whys is of paramount importance in a lot of things and just answering the question is not helping.

pickledonionspaceraider

I think the context of this, is important. Not knowing the details of the situation leaves us unable to give any type of meaningful answer.  It is a  'how long is a piece of string' type question - as there is no answer without more context

Is he is looking at pictures of *blue* websites - or if he looking at more sinister stuff -  such as going on the dark web and accessing materials such as joining terrorist organisations?   In my mind, these may be things that a parent of an adult, could be concerned about, but are poles apart and perhaps require a different response

So I ask, what type of sites are we talking here?
 

elsien

And if you are able to check what sites he’s going on, what will you do next?

If you’re going to try to find out, you need a plan A,B and C not only for what you find but also for any implications for your relationship.

As others have said, it depends on what your concerns are but there will be implications regardless that you need to be ready for.

In the likely event that your son’s technical skills are a lot higher than yours you might want to ask about the practicalities in the techie bit of the forum depending on how far you are willing to go. 

Marvel1

On the web browser CTRL + H

Only works of history is set up not to clear after closure and if not work if he opens the browser as incognito.

elsien

Marvel1 said:

On the web browser CTRL + H

If he’s looking up potentially dodgy sites then I’m presuming he’s also clearing his history. Maybe shouldn’t be making that presumption. 

pinkshoes

geek84 said:

I am worried that he may be going to some websites online which are not appropriate for him.

Is there any way I can check which sites he goes to?

Thanks

What do you mean "not appropriate for him"?

Are we talking about him watching p*rn or websites with an 18+ content (which isn't a total surprise for a 20 year old male), or are we talking about illegal stuff?

You can log into your broadband provider and put filters on the internet. We are with BT, so before 9pm we have child friendly filters on (so no p*rn, alcohol, violence etc...). I allow it after 9pm as otherwise some of the filters are annoying!