The number of parents contacting the Children At Risk in Ireland (CARI) helpline with concerns about their young children’s sexualised behaviour increased by 57 per cent last year.
The CARI 2011 annual report, published today, shows that 212 concerned calls were made about the sexualisation of children under the age of 12. This number is up from 122 the year before.
Overall, there was a 12% increase in calls to CARI in 2011 but parents concerned about their children’s behaviour experienced the biggest increase in numbers.
National clinical director with CARI Niall Muldoon said the internet and smartphones provide children with easy access to pornography.
Dr Muldoon called access to the internet a “contributory factor”.
“There’s a change in the sexual norms for children and the availability of sexualised images and behaviours that they can see without necessarily understanding, and this is just a very clear manifestation of that,” he said.
“The 57% increase in one year is huge.”
“It is a younger generation having a different set of norms around sexual activity,” he said. “There is a bigger risk now with the availability of images that young people can access and do not understand.”
Dr Muldoon continued to say that, while previous generations may have only seen such images for the first time in their mid-teens, children as young as 10 or 11 are now viewing sexual images.
CARI recommends that parents worried about what their child can view online advice on netsmartz.org and childnet-int.org.
The organisation also recommends a Dublin website called reassureme.com which allows parents to monitor internet usage among all computers in a home.
