Talk to your 8 year old about porn before the pornographers do it.

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kidsNclicks

6 min readNov 2, 2018

he internet have made it easy to access pornography. A new report suggest that children as young as 8 years old have admitted to being addicted to internet pornography.

Jeanne Sager, a blogger, thought it was safe to her 6-year old girl to watch ” My Little Pony Videos.” She left her for a moment when she came back she saw her daughter came across a graphic video by clicking on one of the links in the video player. This is the most common way kids get exposed to porn.

Facts about children and online pornography :

53% of 11- to 16-year-olds have seen explicit material online
By the age of 14, 94% have seen porn
28% of children find materials accidentally, for ex through pop up advertisements
87% of the boys and 77% of the girls — felt pornography failed to help them understand consent
39% of the 13- to 14-year-olds boys saying they wanted to copy the behaviour they had seen
60% of the children and young people surveyed who had seen online pornography reported seeing it for the first time at home

Source : https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-36527681

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Concerns about porn and children:

13-year-old boy said: “One of my friends has started treating women like he sees on the videos — not major — just a slap here or there.” BBC News

13-year-old girl said: “A few of my friends have used it for guidance about sex and are getting the wrong image of relationships.” BBC news

Talking to your child about pornography

When talking to children about internet safety and online behavior the issue of online pornography need to be brought up. However, the thought of talking about sex with children can cause anxiety and embarrassment for many parents.

Despite how difficult it can be talking about pornography with your child , you will have to start the conversation once you have allowed your child some form of screen access. Many parents have shared with me that their children have been exposed to online pornography either by accident or shown to them by their friend.

Some of them are even exposed to hardcore pornographic site. The one thing in common for most of this parents have were the guilt of not talking to their child about porn before their children discovered it themselves.

When talking about online pornography with your children it is not as simple as telling them “don’t watch it”. Especially when kids reach puberty they will be curious about sex and with all those hormonal changes their brains may wire them towards watching porn.

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3 ways to prepare for the conversation with your preteen:

1.Build Trust :

It is difficult to advice your kids if there is no trust. Spend some time in developing a relationship with your child that makes them feel loved. Without trust discussing sexual matters will be impossible

2. Do not lecture them

Instead of lecturing your child, ask them questions. This will prevent your child from being defensive and tuning off. If you find out that your child have watched porn then have a conversation with them about it rather than scolding them.

3. Go for a walk

Rather than siting in a very serious environment have this conversation in a relaxed manner. For instance, when going for a drive or for a walk. This will help your child feel at ease.

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Questions to ask your child :

Before bombarding them with questions, ask them if it is ok to talk about something awkward. Tell them that you recently read about a blog post on this topic and you thought it will be good to talk about it and ask for their opinion.

Here are a list of questions to get the conversation going :

Have you heard of pornography?
What do you know about it?
Does your friends talk about it in school?
Have you seen it? If they say Yes then ask them how did they come across it. Let them know that they are not in trouble for opening up to you. Ask them how it made them feel and discuss their feelings. They can either say that it is ‘yucks’ or be curious about it.

Letting your child know to not watch porn:

A friend told me that he caught his 9 year old watching porn and she wanted another grown up to have the conversation with her son so he can hear it from someone else and not just his parents. This is how it goes :

” You are not ready for what you saw Ben” I told him

“Why?”

“What you saw is not real sex” I said.

“It looked real to me”. Ben said

“Look, we watch movies and we see how actors act in them. Porn is the same. They are just acting. What they are doing is not real. That is not how a relationship is suppose to be and that is not how you treat a woman.” I said.

At this point Ben was just staring at me blankly.

“Those women or men you saw are not enjoying this. Many times they are being forced to do this for money. Even they don’t do this in real life.When you are old enough, you will understand that is not what people do in real life.” I said

By this time Ben got the idea of how unreal porn is.

Conclusion

There is no script that can prepare you for what your child might ask when you have this conversation with them. You can help them understand online pornography by being open and having an honest discussion. Let them know that they can trust you in case they come across any images that are disturbing.

We all avoid having this discussion with our kids but it is better to do it so we can protect and prepare them. Keep the conversation short but have it as part of an ongoing discussion about internet safety

Here are other tips to you keep children safe in the digital age :

Instagram : 3 Instagram safety tips for parents

Google : Stop Google from tracking you and your kids every movement

Facebook : Is it safe for your child to have Facebook facial recognition switched one

Finally don’t forget click below: