Why does an 8 year old boy make sexual remarks on women?

Tigress

Let me see even my husband even noticed that our 9 year old sons friend who's 8 makes remarks about women in a movie or in a magazine.
He would say things like WOW shes sexy and Wow shes's yummy and all that kinda of thing and boobys are HMMmmmmmm and what ever, shes a babe!!

My son slept over last Sat night and in the car next day my son started giggling that his friend showed him the babes on Sky Adult channel 910 last night. He said they came accross the channel when flicking. This can happen easily hence my Mother finding the adds when she babysat 2 years ago for me and from channel 101 she went backwards on the remote and there they were all the Adult adds.

Since sky have Rate 18 content in alot of there advertising and especailly alot of it in recent years, with the texting stuff and porn after 10 on some of the reg channles, me and my hubby decided to put a parental control on Adult channels or any channel after a certain hour that we thought would not be suitable right now for our kids age 9 down to 1 year.

Tell me should I approach the boys Mum on his behaviour? or do I just leave it be? There will be plenty of time in their teens and later to oggle the way this 8 year old does I think its a little premature for his age group.

Ayla

I appreciate the fact that you're taking note of the behaviour of your son's friends, and I completely agree that the age of 8 is way too young to be making such comments.

I think you're doing a good thing by restricting your TV and taking measures to ensure your son isn't being too affected by his friend's statements.

Unfortunately, regarding actually approaching the friend's parents about his behaviour...chances are that this child is learning the behaviour from somewhere, and it may be within his own home. Perhaps he's hearing older males making similiar comments and is encouraged (or at least not discouraged) from copying them. Therefore, if you were to approach the parents, they may get highly offended, thinking you're criticizing their parenting methods.

That said it may not be a bad idea, if you frequently talk to them anyway, to drop some hints that their son is saying these things. But again, if he's saying them to your son, chances are the parents have heard him say them as well.

I think the best course of action is to educate your son and explain that what his friend is saying is not appropriate. You can't necessarily control what your son hears/sees when you're not around, but you can teach him to think for himself and not allow himself to get "sucked into" such behaviour.