My Child's Obsession

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My six year old son has AS and is obsessed with trains, that isn't a problem, in fact we love and encourage his love for trains. The problem is, he is also obsessed with ladies behinds. This obsession is very troubling. No magazines, ads, women's catalogs can be left out because he will sit there and just stare at them.

My son loves YouTube, which was fine for the train obsession, he learned very young how to browse for what he wanted to watch. But because he can do this, we have caught him browsing for "Ladies Butts" on YouTube, which has caused us to take away his computer time completely. Don't get me wrong we monitor his computer searching and time, but the moment we walk away for a glass of water or bathroom, he is on "Ladies Butts"! !! He will get extremely upset and throw major fits because he is not allowed to look at this.

I am at a loss on what to do, should I talk with his doctor about this or am I over reacting? Is anyone else going through this type of obsessive behavior with inappropriate behavior? Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Aloha from Hawaii,
Katherine

I don't think you should take away the computer for looking at ladies butts online. Seems kind of like a minor issue. At least it isn't something dangerous.

Instead of withholding the magazines, ads, etc. give him some scissors and let him make a collage. That seems safe to me. There is no telling what he will find on youtube.

That being said (and not to make light of your situation) I am totally tempted to search for "ladies's butts" on youtube.

So here I am sitting a computer in a public library and I go to "google images" and type in "ladies butts" and up popped a whole screen of images. yikes.

I would think that if that's the worst thing he does you're lucky. It doesn't seem like a big deal to me. It could be a lot worse. As my father would have said, " Boys will be boys." Ever think of asking him what he likes about them?

More insightful, perhaps, would be to ask him what got him interested in ladies' butts in the first place....


And now... Off to youtube...

Since he is so young I don't find it as alarming. I think the collage idea is a good one. Searching for things like that on the internet is a very bad idea because it can lead to other websites.

Maybe purchase parental programming for the computer -- I'm sure there is something out there where you can block anything with those terms. Computers are overall good, I wouldn't want to see them taken away completely.

I guess it depends on how long he has had this fixation and how often it's on his mind.

Children are naturally curious and most kids are fascinated by naked people. My mother used to have a lot of art books, which off course have nude paintings and statues, and occasionally my cousins would flip through it and snicker and "boobies" and "wieners" and so on. And also those National Geographics with nude tribesmen and women were a big hit with them too.

Of course that does not mean it should be ok for children to look at a Playboy or anything like that.

Now I have a question -- how are you reacting when your son shows an interest in such? Did you laugh at first? Get angry? I don't know enough about people's intentions to say anything specific, but perhaps the way you are treating and reacting to it is a factor in your son's interest. I know children like to do things they aren't supposed to be doing sometimes, or he might like the attention or reaction that he gets from it.

You could set the computer so that there are different users. If your son signs on as user then you can have "parental blocks" on his searches. I have a friend who did this when her four year old typed in HOT W. He was looking for Hot Wheels, but got Hot Women.

I agree with Alex that merely looking at women's butts is fairly innocuous. It is more likely to cause an issue with him if you cause him to feel shame over it. Perhaps just letting him get an eyeful for a while will allow him to drop the obsession. You may even ask him if he has questions about the topic, as this may help him get his fill of information and he can move on to something else. I would only be worried if he is acting out and in the sense of wanting to touch them or talk about them in mixed company.

What I have found works with some of my son's obsessions is to just let him indulge in it to some degree, and then say ok, now we are all done with __________ for now. I think the more of a big deal you make of it, the more they are going to want it.

My son is obsessed with car makes and models and churches. But, one of his other obsessions that seems to come and go is bathrooms. Whenever we go places, that is the first thing that he wants to do. This started right after he was potty trained at 4 yrs. old, so I thought it was related to that. So, I was hesitant not to take him right away to the bathroom. Well now, I know that sometimes he has just gone to the bathroom, and we will get somewhere and that is what he wants to do. Yesterday we went to a festival with all types of things for kids to do, and what was he interested in????------The portalets!! ! LOL. But instead of making a big deal, we just took him and let him check it out, and then he was over it.

I think that would be a good idea to ask him why he is interested in ladie's butts, but try not to make a big deal of it. But, if he starts to try to touch ladies when you are out, then you will definitely have to talk to him about that!

Good luck!

Thanks for all the great advice. I do think I was stressing out about this more than I should. When he first starting obsessing over the "ladies butts" I thought it was okay and even a natural thing that kids go through. But it then turned into the "I just want to watch them shake their butts mom...please" that when I wasn't sure how to handle that.

I did ask him what was so interesting about "lady butts" his explanation was very simple..."the lady butts are so nice to look at", other than saying okay that's nice...what do you say to that response, to a six year old?

My husband and I laugh privately about this...more so I think because we are a little shocked and really...it is kind of funny when you watch his innocent face try to explain this fascination to you. I am just a little worried that this will carry over to school. But I guess we are overreacting about his computer time, he loves watching trains and I shouldn't take that away.

Honestly, I was laughing about it myself! I would just try to not make a big deal, and see what happens. Now if he really does start to make comments at school or in public or try to touch a ladie's butt, LOL! then you will need to sit down and have a talk about it and set some boundaries.

One other thing I thought about was that my son likes to smell things, and lately he has gotten into smelling mine and my husband's faces ? He will come up to me and smell my shirt too. So, I have told him, it is okay to do this to mom and dad, but not to other people, okay? And so far, it hasn't been an issue.

It is really interesting what they choose to obsess on. My son has had many obsessions that have been short lived, or that come and go. You just never know what is going to come up! I guess it keeps things interesting.

I think it's normal for little boys to go through phases related to body parts like that. When my brother was your son's age, he put "naked lady" on his Christmas List!

I think it's perfectly normal for boys your son's age to be interested even a little "obsessed" with wanting to see certain body parts of the opposite sex. My son loved "boobs" so we didn't pay him a lot of attention, and his teacher did mention it to me (not terribly concerned, but just to "touch base" and let me know) but it began to fade a little and he moved on to the next "obsession". I do agree though that he should keep the computer, but with parental controls. Good luck. lol.