Women

Parenting in a Porn-Saturated World

Parenting in a Porn-Saturated World
XIFOTOS / ISTOCK

My husband and I have decided to talk to our son about porn before he starts kindergarten next year.

We may not use the word porn at first. But as we continue to teach him to respect his own body and the bodies of others, we need him to understand that there are images and videos out there that don’t honor the dignity of others and that looking at these pictures can harm him in serious ways.

If this seems a bit premature, consider the statistics on kids and porn. While some studies indicate the average age children first view pornography is between 11 and 13, a growing number of experts believe this number is changing.

“I’ve seen children struggling with porn as young as nine,” says Sharon Cooper, a forensic and developmental pediatrician and faculty member at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill’s School of Medicine.

Dawn Hawkins, executive director for the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, believes the average age is closer to eight, but she’s seen even younger children struggle, including a growing number of very young girls. “There are quite a lot of six year olds I’ve heard about and have been introduced to who are dealing with an addiction to porn,” she says.

Numbers like these are leaving families scrambling to catch up with the harsh reality that the efforts of the porn industry paired with a generation of kids who are growing up never having known life apart from a smartphone is resulting in an increasing number of children who are regularly viewing erotic images and videos before they even fully learn how to read.

Perhaps the most sobering realization is that for today’s generation of kids, the likelihood of a child progressing through adolescence without being exposed to porn (even accidentally) is pretty much impossible, Hawkins says. “It doesn’t matter if a kid is homeschooled or attends private school. Trying to raise kids completely separate from this and thinking that because of our parental efforts our children are not going to be exposed is wrong,” Hawkins believes. “Kids will be exposed to it, no matter how hard we try. While we want to protect our kids, what’s really the most important is that we prepare them.”

The Realities of Early Exposure

While research has shown that young adults ages 18 to 24 seek out and view porn more often than any other generation, what parents today may be slow to realize is that even pre-pubescent kids are being drawn to it, often accidentally. (It’s worth noting here that according to a small survey of Philadelphia families in 2015, 75 percent of children have received their own mobile device or tablet by age four and frequently use it without adult supervision.)

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