Addressing a Problem
My wish is for you to be good and healthy. I want to talk to you about a problem I have with Boston. You should be careful with your children who are the same age and generation as this 12-year-old due to a behavior that I observed in him yesterday.
Boston's Odd Behavior
Recently, Boston has been acting oddly. Most of the time, he would lock himself in his room and avoid interacting with his peers like he once did. Initially, I thought that this young boy had realized the importance of education and was spending most of his hours conducting research or doing his homework. On Friday evening I came home unannounced and decided to surprise Boston in his bedroom. I was perplexed to find him red-handed streaming pornography through his computer. When I checked his download and browser history, I became more shocked as I saw that he has been downloading these inappropriate contents over the past few weeks. The boy has since kept mum and is still shocked that I found out the media that he has been exposed to. He admitted to spending the most time watching pornography and said that he figured out about the dirty content through a group of friends who have also been watching the same.
Access to Pornographic Material
The access to pornographic material is prevalent among underage students (Buthelezi & Shongwe, 2013). The rise in the number of children accessing these materials can be attributed to technological advancement. Most children have access to technological gadgets such as phones that have the capability of accessing the internet, computers, laptops, tablets and I Pads. Laxity among parents is also a motivating factor to this behavior. It has also been noted that children begin watching pornography at a younger age than before due to curiosity.
Steps to Address the Issue
There are different steps that one can take when he or she realizes that the child has been obsessed with watching adult content (Martellozzo et al., 2016). The first action taken was to confiscate the computer that the child had been using all along and other telecommunication devices. The rationale behind confiscating this gadget was that the child could not access the internet from anywhere. Secondly, I scheduled a discussion forum with the 12-year-old to discuss the repercussions of the actions that he conducted over the past weeks. I explained to him the meaning of the content he watched and told him the essence of pornography. Sex is for married individuals who have a purpose in life. The assumption that the actors of pornography portray can never be right in life. Therefore, the things that he was watching are not real. Thirdly, I urged him to focus on educational matters as that was the only means of him being successful in his life. I also had to change the Wi-Fi settings to detect and automatically disable access to sites with adult content. Lastly, I punished him by giving him some chores that he was to do for one month.
Conclusion and Call to Action
In conclusion, the rot in the internet world is impacting negatively on our children. Therefore, parental guidance is necessary (Pratt & Fernandes, 2015). Our children need to get sex education at an early age. Learning institutions and parents should unite and combat this issue. The Wi-Fi used at home should be programmed to ensure that children do not access some forbidden websites. Take care and have a good one. I hope that we will meet soon.
Yours Loving friend
XXXXXXXX
References
Buthelezi, N., & Shongwe, M., (2013). Internet Use Ethics at the University of Zululand. Local and global issues in research in Humanities and Social Sciences, 153.
Martellozzo, E., Monaghan, A., Adler, J. R., Davids, J., Horvath, M. A., & Leyva, R. (2016). An examination of the impact of online pornography on children and young people: 15 June 2016.
Pratt, R. & Fernandes, C. (2015). How Pornography May Distort Risk Assessment of Children and Adolescents Who Sexually Harm. Children Australia, 40(03), 232-241. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/cha.2015.28
