The school nurse had her annual "talk" with the 5th graders last week. My son says he has no further questions, but I still want my husband to sit down with him. The little guy also informed me that Grandpa(my dad) has talked to him too. I'd really like to know what was said there because sometimes my dad can be a little extreme. My son has made it pretty clear that he doesn't want to discuss this stuff with me. I have for the last few years thrown in tidbits here and there and always remind the kids they can ask me anything and I will give them a straight answer. Hubby needs to get off his duff though and really talk to our son.

A growing up situation this morning: my son says "Mom I need some new jeans." I'm thinking "Yeah, his are getting pretty worn in the knees." He then begins to tell me how they need to have these certain legs and fading in these certain areas. My boy has become fashion conscious!

Hi JHB--ahhh spring has sprung hasn't it . I had something similar with my 10 year old and I'll tell you what I did. I saw a site on the computer with very well endowed women and I knew it was my little guy (probably something he'd heard on the bus). So in front of him I called my hubby and asked if he knew anything about such and such a site. Well he immediately flushed and followed me around like a puppy dog. Then I asked him in a non confrontational way if he'd been to the site. His declarations of innocence could be heard up the block--so I dropped it and allowed him to regroup. The next day, he and I were out on the porch and I said "Look blah blah blah...I know you were on the site so it isn't necessary to lie to me about it. I understand that your curious and honestly you being interested in girls and their bodies is EXACTLY what God wanted. But those kind of sites are not appropriate to visit and I don't want you to do it again." I stopped there for that time and he admitted that he'd been to the site and said he wouldn't go there again. Even got to the point where he said "OKAAAAYYY MOOMMMMMM--I get it". So that night as I tucked him into bed I said "You know...many of those women are women that don't think they have any other way to be valuable to men and they sell themselves on sites like that. Or there may be someone taking advantage of them or they may be so poor that they have no other way to survive. But whatever their reasons, it's demeaning to women and although I know you're curious, we can find better ways for you to learn about things than some creepy site on the internet". Now how do I know this is what I said--BECAUSE I REHEARSED IT LIKE A MILLION TIMES. It proved a very nice segway actually into the S-X talk we had last night....we'd been talking about hormones and things and so I gathered that all together. Dad started the ball rolling but I think it was too hard for son to talk to him about it so I went to the next level about things.
So I hope this helps. I think for me the focus was on not overreacting and letting him know his curiousity was a healthy part of growing up but the venue was inappropriate for us as a family.
d

Mykidsmom -
I know - isn't it wild? You started this thread 6 years ago! And it's still going strong. I do wish they'd break it up and not have it be one continuous thread. You and I have both been here soooo long. Definitely veterans.

As far as evolving, I'm much more involved now in strategic planning committees for my district and two campus sites. But I still visit these Boards fairly often.

I'm still a member (barely) of my middle school PTO and a more active member of my high school PTA - where I chair one commitee and have volunteered to help with the audit this summer. But my parent group leadership days are definitely - and thankfully - over!

Nominations are in process and they ever-so-hopefully approached me. But my focus is elsewhere. Some of my commitee work has scaled down and I've been asked to serve on the Board of our district's educational foundation. So I think that's where I'll spend my time.

4089 posts.......OHMG!

WOW!

Boy JHB, not sure what to offer besides hide your bottles of lotion! Okay, not really that funny. My ten years old has been studying a book of the human body until I realized what page he was memorizing! Didn't remember seeing male and female pages when his older sister needed the book for health class.

We had a problem with our oldest checking out a few band web sites and not working on any school work but knew every word of every song from this band. My husband tried the parental control thing only to have her outsmart him (of course in this case it helps to be smarter than the kid) and I did by unplugging the internet connection in a really odd place, the tower. THere used to be a phone jack into the tower, now it's in a control box of some sort but still it works just the same. Any way SHE WAS SO MAD, I was so happy! Once she pulled herself up to a "C" she gained limited access. Her "B" earned a t-shirt and the "A" still eludes her but I have promised tickets to their next show.

I have missed this board so much!! I am honestly truely ready to step down from the PTO Prez thing. Just am done. Right now I've got a 4th grade teacher trying to make school supply kits manditory. We are 45% free adn reduced lunches, not huge but $65 and up is crazy to demand at registration for school supplies. Long story short, Admin is agreeing with me that this won't work, but this teacher won't hear of it AND wants to work in Admin this fall! I'm looking into a solution that suits everyone and will share but man, all 5 of mine will be in school and the thought of $75 x 5 for school supplies (that's not including high school fees, lunch money, ids, PE clothes, their uniforms, etc!) is more than my checkbook can handle!

For those of you that have been here as long as me, today is my youngest birthday. Zoe was born on this day at 11:45 or so 8 pounds even and very overdue! I had had a rough last few weeks and this board was my sanity. SO for you my friends their is cake and ice cream (both homemade!) on the table! So, a toast! To every Mom and Dad, new and well seasoned, keep it fun, keep it light, do it right and keep your kids' love in you sight- but always be your kids parent!

JHB-My husband does personal IT work on the side. He ALWAYS has someone else's computer at our house cleaning it up, fixing it, or whatever. Recently he repaired the computer for his cousin who has two teenage boys and he found some very specific searches, I assume, similar to what you found. He cleared everything out and he suggested his cousin do exactly what your husband mentioned. He never said what he found just made a nice suggestion. We have pretty strong parental controls in place and when the kids attempt a site they shouldn't, it sends us a notice. As a mom, I would probably make sure my husband had a development talk with him to make sure that I had covered my bases.