This is a YouTube video (Nick Stumbo upload) where Douglas Weiss and a co-speaker list and debunk the top five myths parents hold about children and sex/pornography exposure. The five myths presented are: (1) "my kid is a good kid" and therefore wouldn't view pornography, (2) "if my child saw it they'd just look away" (underestimating impact/curiosity), (3) "my current measures are good enough" (insufficient monitoring/communication), (4) "only boys struggle" (girls also struggle, sometimes from a young age), and (5) "talking about sex/pornography will only make kids curious" (contradicted; open, age-appropriate conversations reduce harmful curiosity). The speakers share parent-anecdotes illustrating why shame/closeness shutdown are dangerous and offer practical advice (pause, ask where they heard it, give age-appropriate answers, be a safe place).
Foreign. Here are the five myths that I typically hear from parents. And one is my kid is a good kid.
Yeah.
And they, they wouldn't do that because we go to church. They would never look at pornography if someone showed them pornography. They just wouldn't do that because they're such good kids. And our kids are good kids, you know, and we love them and we know that they're good kids. Number two, if my child saw it, he or she would just look away. It wouldn't have, it wouldn't impact their brain like we know it would it, they wouldn't have curiosity. Like I was curious at 10 years old when I first saw pornography. We miss how impactful it is on that young child's brain and how that child's brain is underdeveloped. There's a lot more to go in there. We don't have time for that. But number three, the measures I have in place are good enough. And that typically means that parents are looking over their kids shoulder, especially their elementary kids shoulders, just to see what, you know, occasionally what they're looking at. They're not using any software that really helps monitor how the device is being used and receiving ongoing opportunities to create discussions in a culture that's always going after them. Number four, boys are the only ones who struggle. I don't need to worry about my girls. I cannot tell you the number of girls who, who, especially teen girls who, when we were at, going at these events, who will circle our table and they'll keep going around and around that you've seen this at Pure Desire events as well. I know you have. And then they'll finally build up the courage and my mom and dad don't know that I've been struggling with pornography since I was 8 or 9 years old. And you know, we were seeing more and more of this number. This is number five. This is what I always call the bonus is parents believe the myth that if I talk about pornography or sex, then I will just make my child curious and they'll go seek it out. And the opposite has been proven true over and over again. I cannot think of any professional or any counselors, any folks like you who have say that when you provide meaningful information, you actually move more of that curiosity. They have a safe place to talk about their temptations. They have a safe place to talk about their curiosities. And you're actually removing that curiosity rather than contributing to it.
Yep, I believe. Yep. And I, you know, I would just echo that. I remember I was sitting with my youngest son at the time, he was 10 or 11, and he had heard a number that was associated, and he knew from the way it was. It was said that that number indicated something sexual. And so he's asking, dad, what does this number mean? Well, that was a pretty. I was trying to think like, okay, age appropriate. How do I explain this sex act that he's heard about? And so I found a way to say it, and it was, I wish I had a camera, because his. When I described it, his mouth, he's like, are you serious? Like people do. I said, I know it makes no sense to you now, buddy. You know, one day it'll compute a little bit more. But yeah, that's what it is describing. And he's like, oh, okay. And what I thought about the reason I'm telling this is, after that conversation, I thought, what if my response had been to say, oh, we don't talk about that. You're too young. Yeah, well, now that curiosity, it's like, wow, there's some. My dad won't even tell me what it is. And I thought, what if his response was, well, I'm going to go Google that. Oh, gosh, or I'm going to go ask my friends. And I'm like, well, now I'm. I'm putting the. The need to know out to someone else. And I'm like, yeah, it was a little bit awkward. It was a little bit hard for me to find the right words, but I am so thankful I was able to answer that question and not have him go somewhere else with it, because that could have been far, far more destructive to him as a kid. And so, yeah, if you'd have said.
Hey, we don't talk about things like that, then that was where shame comes in and. And discussion closes down. Exactly. Dad is no longer a safe place to go to. So if I have questions like this, I know, don't go to dad. Yeah, go to Google, go to my friends, go to social media, go to somewhere else, but don't go to dad because he shuts down. And I feel this internal shame, this internal. I wish I hadn't asked dad that. Now he thinks. He doesn't think well of me. I. I'm a dirty person for having these kind of. This curiosity or questions. We need to be safe as parents.
Yeah.
I always tell parents when those kind of things pop in, just pause for a minute if you need to, but always ask, well, where did you hear that?
Say, jesus, help me, tell me what you know.
Because if that's at least gives you a baseline of where to begin, right?
Yeah.
And it's very easy to just begin giving them too much information, and we don't want to do that either. Based on age, we know where we can proceed.
