I have always been very open with my 9 year old, and a couple of years ago she learned how babies are made and all that. After her questions were answered with the help of an anatomy book and some kid-focused books from the library, the topic was dropped. She did express embarrassment several times when we were watching nature shows that showed mating.
Well, she's been playing with my ipod touch and I assumed she was just playing games that I had downloaded. I went to use the browser, which I almost never use, and found 3 pages of anime porn. I could see the path-- started with regular cartoons on youtube and then that was followed by 3 pages of the cartoon porn including one page of men-on-men. We have already talked about how some people prefer to be with someone of their own gender and our family is okay with that-- so that idea is not foreign to her. But I really did not want her to have images of people (straight or gay, cartoon or not) having sex at her age.
This morning I took her aside and asked her what she's been watching on my ipod. She said cartoons. I said, were they cartoons that were meant for grown-ups? Her face got very very dark and she looked like she was going to cry. I said she was not in trouble, I know she was just curious and that's fine. But I said if you have questions about anything at all, please ask me, and try not to look at things not meant for kids. I again said she was not in trouble, and I loved her very much. I told her when I was her age I found a book showing that stuff because they didn't have internet yet. I said stuff like she was looking at was not real, and not good for kids to look at or think about. And that even some adults (like her parents) don't like to look at stuff like that.
She continued to be embarrassed and I let it go after a hug that she did not return. I'm not sure what to do next. Obviously put a password protect on the browser, but what else? How can I handle this to build trust and discourage this, while showing her that I trust her to make the right decisions?
Well, she's been playing with my ipod touch and I assumed she was just playing games that I had downloaded. I went to use the browser, which I almost never use, and found 3 pages of anime porn. I could see the path-- started with regular cartoons on youtube and then that was followed by 3 pages of the cartoon porn including one page of men-on-men. We have already talked about how some people prefer to be with someone of their own gender and our family is okay with that-- so that idea is not foreign to her. But I really did not want her to have images of people (straight or gay, cartoon or not) having sex at her age.
This morning I took her aside and asked her what she's been watching on my ipod. She said cartoons. I said, were they cartoons that were meant for grown-ups? Her face got very very dark and she looked like she was going to cry. I said she was not in trouble, I know she was just curious and that's fine. But I said if you have questions about anything at all, please ask me, and try not to look at things not meant for kids. I again said she was not in trouble, and I loved her very much. I told her when I was her age I found a book showing that stuff because they didn't have internet yet. I said stuff like she was looking at was not real, and not good for kids to look at or think about. And that even some adults (like her parents) don't like to look at stuff like that.
She continued to be embarrassed and I let it go after a hug that she did not return. I'm not sure what to do next. Obviously put a password protect on the browser, but what else? How can I handle this to build trust and discourage this, while showing her that I trust her to make the right decisions?
You handled that so well Mama. 
That's what I meant. Besides the fact that they were cartoons, even regular porn is staged and not real (just like movies are not real).
