This content was created by Nick Stumbo. This content was uploaded by Nick Stumbo. This is a YouTube video titled "When To Start Talking About Pornography With Your Kids | Pure Desire Ministries" containing a discussion between Wendy Maltz and Larry Maltz recorded in October 2023. The content focuses on advice for parents about when and how to start conversations with their children regarding pornography and internet safety, emphasizing early and age-appropriate communication to build trust and protect children in the digital age.
What age do you suggest that parents start this conversation about pornography with their kids? And what does that look like? How do you encourage parents to start that conversation?
Right. So I would say that, you know, when I first started writing good pictures, bad pictures, I thought, well, 7 is probably a good age to start. They're getting in, you know, they're using devices and they're on their iPads and whatever. And then I had parents come to me and say, could you write a book for a three year old? And it was honestly the first time a mom came up to me and asked me that. I was at a speaking event. It felt like something like punched me in the gut. Like I honestly like took a breath and. But then I looked around. Every kid is on an iPad that's three years old or they're, you know, so they have access to digital devices. And so I would say I'm going to answer the question with a question. And that is, what age does your child have any access to the Internet at all? And if you say it's two or three, then I would say you need to start giving a gentle warning at that point. You know, when our kids are toddlers and they're starting to walk and run, they can go pretty fast, those dollars. And they have no fear, right? Because they don't have their prefrontal cortex developed and they will run out into the streets. We have to teach them, we have to hold them, we have to teach them stop at the curb, always grab mommy's hand when we're crossing the street, or daddy's hand. So we teach toddlers about other dangers. We need to teach them if they're going to be on devices, we need to teach them, them about the dangers of the Internet and give them at least just a very gentle warning, but an effective warning. So that's why I wrote Good Pictures, Bad Pictures Junior. And it's just, it makes it very simple, comfortable, easy to begin these conversations with your young children. There are no bad pictures in there. And again, it just gives kids a definition that's very age appropriate, a warning and a plan so they know exactly what to do when they're in that situation, which you just don't know when that's going to happen. If we all had crystal balls, maybe this wouldn't be necessary, but you know, we just don't.
Well, and it underscores that our role as parents, and I think we get this, that our role as a parent is to safeguard our kids, help them understand how to navigate the world. And we do that Naturally in areas like, you know, crossing the street, how, you know, we need to chew our food so we don't choke. I mean, just not being in water that's too deep for kids that don't know how to swim. And I think as parents, if we could look at this whole area of sexuality and pornography not as some weird other than topic that we'll get to later, but just say, oh, this is a part of life and I need to help my child at all ages in appropriate ways navigate what's dangerous and have them see me as someone that's on their side, not mad at them or punishing them. I mean, I'm not punishing my child by telling them not to go in deep water when they're three years old. It's like, I know things and I'm protecting them. And I think if our kids, even at three, four years old, see, oh, my parent is in this role to help protect me, then it just creates that conversation all through the years. And I also think as parents, we tend to maybe underestimate how quickly our kids can pick up on things. A real quick story in our family. When my youngest son was three or four years old, we were on a family vacation and we walked into this bathroom at a hotel that had all this kind of like over. All the fixtures were overlaid with gold. They're golden. And it looked really kind of shiny and bright. And when we walked in together, my 4 year old looked around and went, hmm, impressive. And that word coming out of a impressive. I was like, I had no idea he had any concept of that word. But it was not only in his mind, he knew how to use it in a situation. Granted, it was a hotel bathroom, so it's a humorous story in our family, but to me that is just a reminder that our kids pick up on things, they're aware of things. And if we get into this mode of, oh, well, they're just little, they don't really understand, we may miss opportunities because yes, there are concepts they won't understand or don't and that's okay. But they're picking up on a lot more than we realize. And so using those opportunities, even at 3, 4 years old, to create healthy patterns, to create an awareness, to posture ourselves is there to help. There's just a lot of wisdom behind that. It's funny you say that because your kids are using words like impressive and mine are watching dude, perfect. And calling their dad bro. What up bro. That's so sick. And it's just like, how are you learning this stuff, but they just. They pick it up. It's so quick.
Sometimes our children get in front of us. There are many studies to show that parents underestimate negative experiences their children are having online, and by quite a margin. And they call it the naivete gap. It's very well studied. And they just did a study a few years ago in England and showed that 25%, an average of 25% of parents in this study thought that their kids may have seen pornography when it was more like, you know, 60 over 60%. And the gap was even wider when it came to girls. So parents, some, you know, I would say, routinely underestimate. I think people in your audience hopefully won't be doing that. But sometimes when it's your own kids, you just want to, like, I'm going to do everything right, and they won't have to deal with this, and they won't have the problems that I had. And having raised children, all children have problems and all children have challenges. But, you know, if we can prepare them to navigate these things ahead of time, I really believe that's going to increase the bond of trust and love between you and your child. And I've seen this happen over and over again. It's kind of one of those things. I didn't know what happened at the beginning, but I've had so many parents report that they just, you know, even when it happened and their child came to them and they were able to talk about it and kind of debrief and help that child. One of the things that we have in both books is a process that describes how to forget. I'm using air quotes, right? How to forget those bad pictures. And it's a very important digital defense skill that kids need to have so that they can really curate the things that go into their mind and help to diminish and neutralize the bad things that they may be exposed to accidentally.
