Not feeling so bad today

Some follow-up on yesterday's emotional post.


It is funny, the twists that life takes with kids. As I said yesterday, I set up separate accounts for our boys on our Mac. I didn't tell them why (David did tell our oldest later privately). But they were so excited. To have your own password, be able to organise your desktop etc. – to them it seemed almost like they'd been given their own private computer! I guess they do this at school (the passwords, etc.), so it seemed familiar. A few kinks to work out, especially for our older son, but it seems to be okay at this point.


On Facebook Jean pointed out how important it was not to just rely on filters, but to teach our kids about self-control, internet safety etc. And she is so right, especially as they get older and need to use the internet more and more. She pointed us to this website, which seems to be a very helpful place to spend some time browsing.


During our usual individual Bible time with the kids, David spent some time talking privately to our son about what I'd discovered. Our son was speechless with embarrassment for a time. It turns out he was curious, had some questions. And what do you do these days when you have a question? You Google. Unfortunately when you Google things about women's bodies you find yourself in some very bad places. We've been teaching him, so he knew that what he'd been looking at wasn't great. 


It was interesting to me that after they'd had a chat (and my husband revealed that he would be teaching our son and the rest of the boys in his class in Sex Ed early next year!), our son was very happy, buoyant even. Like a burden had been lifted from his shoulders. David answered some questions he had and will continue to keep that door open. He also pointed out that the internet isn't a good place to find out this kind of information, that people who make websites about these things aren't thinking about doing things that please God.


So now I'm left to sort out the kinks in the filter that prevents our boys from doing things that they  need to do for school. And to keep educating my self and being more proactive about educating our boys about these things.


Why I felt embarrassed to admit this yesterday, was because this has been coming, we knew it. I'm just sorry we didn't do something about it earlier. And I felt sick because it reminded me, yet again, of how heavy this burden of parenting really is, praise the Lord that we share it with him in our house! It has been good to get it out in the open, though, because we all face it. And all of us parents are dealing with new stuff, it just wasn't like this when we were kids. Let's face it, video stores and the internet didn't even exist when I was in Primary School (US=elementary)! 


But for now I need to focus myself on some editing, some Bible study preparation, and the Australian Christmas presentation I'm doing for the Grade 1s this afternoon.