It doesn’t matter how much you try to ignore it, but porn was and will remain a part of our society. With the advent of the internet, access to porn has become easier as it is more difficult to avoid it rather than finding it. With such easy access to porn, it has become much more important for parents to teach their kids from right to wrong. There is more and more evidence showing the negative impact that pornography is having on children and their relationships once they grow older. One of these studies estimates that at least 42% of the children have been exposed to porn before the age of 17. With such early exposure to pornography, it is becoming a very pervasive part of everyone’s life.
Parents must take it upon themselves and find answers to questions like how to block porn and how to keep their children away from such graphic content. Raising your kids sexually safe is a key part of preventing sexual abuse later in their lives. Let me show you the negative effects porn has on the mental health of your children so that you can do something about it sooner rather than later.
It Can Be a Confusing and Frightening Experience for Children
When children see unfamiliar looking bodies engage in acts that they can’t perceive, it has a very negative effect on their emotions and brain growth. Not only is it confusing for them to comprehend, but they start seeing people in a different way, and it frightens them. Porn forces children to develop their own morals and creates a very fine line that deludes them from differentiating right from wrong as they grow up believing what they see. The porn industry has come far away from being just sexual in nature, as porn stars engage in graphic acts that are not normal. When a child sees them engage in such activities, it shivers him to his core, and he develops unnatural habits.
Main Source of a Child’s Sex Education
When a child gets access to porn from such a young age, it is the only and the main source of his sex education, which to a point, is not a good thing. The exposure of pornography by adolescents is associated with stronger permissive sexual attitudes as they develop different and unrealistic expectations from sex. When they see things happening in a porn movie, they think that these things are totally natural, and they develop a liking for it. It leads them to increase the likelihood of earlier first time sexual experience, and they dream about sex all the time, which is not a normal thing.
How to Respond to These Mental Health Risks?
Now that you know that exposure to pornographic content poses a lot of risks to the mental health of children, you need to know how to combat it so that you can ensure the safety of your children. Here is how parents can save their children from the woes of the internet.
Open Communication
The first thing that you need to do is to be more like a friend to your children rather than a parent. I know that it can be a very hard thing to do as your children will hate you if you enforce anything on them. It is natural for kids to go against the rules and order, and you need to be compassionate rather than be a dictator. You need to let your children know that they can talk about anything they want to. You can also initiate conversations about the online experience of your children and get an insight into whatever’s happening in their lives. If you are worried about their online ventures, you can download FamiSafe, which blocks porn and helps you keep an eye on your children without them knowing it.
Digital Literacy
Parents need to guide their children about everything and teach them right from wrong. In order for them to be aware of everything they are going to find online, you need to teach them about it. Parents and caregivers need to educate their children and themselves about the dangers of the internet so that they perform an active role in the upbringing of their children’s digital lives. If you think that things have gone too far and your children are already caught up in the web of pornography, you need to hold an intervention and offer psychological and emotional support to them.
