Somebody

I know that there are to be no masks related to a church activity. That is stated in Handbook 2 and has been for as along as I can remember. Is there any other policy that I am not aware of that would effect a church sponsered Halloween activity as outlined below? I've been looking and have not been able to find anything so far. In our ward this year, for the children's halloween activity they were told to wear their costumes. However, the week of the activity it was added "as a reminder" that there be no masks, no face paint and no (toy) weapons. (In the "announcement" it was mentioned that this was "just like the local school" which I thought was odd as well.) The mask part I get (it's always been that way) but the other two kinda surprised our family. We ended up not going because our children had already gotten their costumes before the notice on no (toy) weapons or face paint. This announcement basically gutted our kid's costumes and we were not in a position to come up with something new on quick notice. We knew our kids would feel uncomfortable and left out if they went without costumes (they already couldn't eat much of the food because of gluten issues, to throw the costume thing on top of that... didn't leave much) so we just made other plans for our kids that afternoon and moved on. However, my hubby (who is on the ward counsel) has been getting comments from other ward members in regard to the no toy weapons or facepaint thing. Seems we were not the only ones who already had their kid's costumes for whom this was a problem. My husband would like to bring this up in ward counsel, about how it was handled, where this came from and the feedback he has had. He's very busy this week and has asked me to help him out by seeing if I could find out any further information on church policy and how it might relate to this situation before he goes on Sunday, so he can be better prepared on how to present the concerns and questions that have been raised. I wasn't having any luck finding anything other than masks, so thought I might ask here just in case I've missed something. Would I be correct in guessing that there is not a church policy banning toy weapons and facepaint for an activity such as a Primary Halloween Party? Thanks! :)

I know this is a rather sensitive subject, but I don't know where to go at the moment and it's nice to go somewhere where you are anonymous as you try to get a perspective on some things. I've had a bit of a "surprise" this morning, and I'm not sure what to do. My 12yr old son has always been the kind to turn his head, look away when something/someone is really unmodest, seem embarrassed by it, etc. Basically avoiding stuff leading along those lines. He's also proven himself to be very trustworthy up until now. Apparently, not anymore. Hubby and I know he's masturbated- caught him at it. DH has talked to him about it and has given him "the talk" previously. DH tries to be very kind and nice and open about talking about sex stuff, as his parents were so hard core the opposite way that there were NO such conversations and when they found porn in the house they went into denial and insisted that it must be the neighbor kids, not even questioning their sons- which caused a lot of problems, obviously. DH doesn't want to repeat that mistake and tries to keep the lines of communication open with our children, to let them know that they can always come to us and we will always love them, even when they make mistakes. You know, that sort of thing. And our 12yr son has come to hubby, and asked questions, and talked about the bad language at school, the dirty talk and even occasional porn that he's been exposed to at school. (This is his first year of public school since kindergarten, we've homeschooled previously.) Communication was happening, we thought he was getting the message, that he was armed with info and strong enough to resist. So this morning, I ran into some really ugly stuff in my internet history. Apparently, my son has been looking at pornography online. Five separate times last month, nothing so far this month, that shows up anyway. It started with a search for sexy girl images and searches on how sex works and related stuff. (Isn't this why we talk to our kids about sex, so they don't feel the need to go looking elsewhere? I guess it didn't work...) Then he started looking up stuff related to nudity, sex and his favorite fantasy characters (Star Wars, Ben 10, video game characters like Zelda. Scarey what happens when you internet search using such a combination of terms- just evil). This led him to some really graphic stuff, which he searched and clicked on over and over and over again. I looked at some of it and was really disturbed. We're not talking about suggestive pictures of girls in scanty underclothes here, it was bad. A handful of it was video. I couldn't stand to look at all of it. I've estimated 150-200 searches/hits between those five days. Some of it was for sure while he was supposed to be doing homework, while we were right around him in and out of the room- search for geography landmarks- next, search for porn- next back to geography. I remember that day. This is for sure him. We've talked with him about computer rules, what to avoid, how to just click out if something bad pops up. He doesn't have unlimited access, he gets on for school work and we give him permission to be on there on occasion for fun (if he asks first) but where our computer is in the main room where everyone comes in and out and because he's not given us reason in the past not to trust him and the open talks he and DH have, we thought things were okay. Stupid, stupid. No wonder when we asked him this month if was interested in getting a temple recommend so we could take him to go do (proxy) baptisms for the dead (I have some ancestor names I've saved for him) he just said he'd think about it- when previously he had expressed interest for when the time came. I had wondered what was up. DH says it's a hard age- says the wind can blow wrong and stir up feelings it can get so bad with all the hormones, and that it's common for kids get curious- plus such stuff is everywhere. DH understands, but he also knows we need to nip this now before it gets worse. We thought things were okay though already, this has come as a surprise that it got this far- where son was actively looking for porn. I could just cry. How do we handle this so it helps him and doesn't push him away? I also wonder about the boys he walks home from school with. One of them we know- a neighbor. The others we don't. Son has never liked one of the boys (a friend of his neighbor friend) but suddenly last month started saying how great he was. It makes me wonder if there's any connection, and if/how to pursue it. If we asked son, would he even be honest? If we contacted other parents to be aware that their sons might be looking at porn, too, would it help or would it just shame son and push him away? I've been taking him to school, maybe I need to pick him up, too. He takes an hour or more to get home- says he's talking with friends. I did that when I was a kid, stand on the street corner with my friends and talk for an hour, so I never thought anything of it, but now.... Is there any software I can put on my computer to prevent him from getting this stuff again when he is online for homework and stuff? The less expensive, the better, as money is very tight and we're already trying to squeeze blood out of turnips around here. Hubby is going to talk with him tonight (no boy wants to talk about this with his mother) and any free and even slightly unsupervised for a moment computer time for him is over. What about other ways to help him and keep pornography away without pushing him away? At what point does he need to talk to a bishop? He was just made deacon quorum president last month, he's the kind of boy people look at and say "amazingly good kid". I don't want to embarrass him in front of anyone, or make him feel like we "tattled" on him or force him to go in. We want him (to do whatever is necessary) because we want to help him and want him to repent and do better because he wants to. We've never pushed him to "be good", at least we haven't thought so. My parents were the pushy "you will do this because I said so or you will go to hell, end of discussion" types while DH's parents were the "my kids can do no wrong, don't talk to me" types so we try to be careful to remember honest communication and agency and kindness in our house. Guess this shows that even when you think you are doing okay, you aren't. Oh, and do porn sites have a way of blocking their site being recorded in the internet history? I noticed a lot of google image and regular type searches and just some actual websites. When I clicked on some of the regular type searches in the history, it pulled it up and some of the links on the search page showed up purple instead of blue, indicating they had been clicked on, but those pages don't show up in the internet history. It seems odd to me that he would only delete some of the relevant browsing history and not all of it, so was wondering if it was possible it got blocked from being recorded in the first place. If so, he looked at a lot more than is showing up in the history. This is our oldest son, we've never had this level of parental concern/issue before, and it's a bit overwhelming at the moment. Please, advice. Thanks!