Author shares tips for keeping kids away from porn, helping them heal after exposure
The head of an anti-pornography organization recently offered tips for how parents can protect children from pornography in an era where many minors have smartphones and help their kids heal if they are exposed to such content.
Kristen Jenson, the founder and CEO of Defend Young Minds, was interviewed by host Brittni De La Mora on an episode of the "Let's Talk Purity" podcast posted earlier this week.
Jenson said it is common for children to be exposed to porn by other children and for parents to be unaware of how often it happens.
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"I've had many parents tell me that their 5-year-old kindergartener was exposed to pornography by another child on a school bus. So, that's why I say every school bus is a XXX theater in America because of how many kids have smartphones," said Jenson, who authored the book Big Pictures, Bad Pictures Jr.: A Simple Plan to Protect Young Minds.
"Kids do expose other kids to pornography. This is a very common way because this is very normal. Kids share with each other. ... When I found a Playboy magazine on my dad's bedside table, guess who I showed it to? My little sister."
There are many ways children are exposed to porn. Jenson said the porn industry is "predatory."
"They are after kids. They are looking to hook kids ... through games, like video games and social media especially. I really worry about social media and kids because there's so much porn on social media," Jenson said.
"Often when [children] are exposed to pornography, they weren't looking for it. It came to them either by another child or online. They happen to click a link or a pop-up or something and it brought them to pornography."
Preventing children from being exposed to porn is a "two-pronged" approach for parents, Jenson noted. The first prong, she said, is "filters and parental controls."
"And if you're going to give your kids access to technology, it's a stewardship of a parent to make sure those things are safe," she said. "So, I would definitely use ... one of the newer filters that we really like called Canopy."
Launched in 2021, the Texas-based smartphone app uses artificial intelligence to block pornography and explicit content on the internet.
"So they've taught computers, 'OK, this is what porn looks like,'" Jenson detailed. "And then, it recognizes each picture and takes it out. So, that's kind of the technical. You want to have the technical side. You want to lock things down as much as possible."
In blocking porn from devices, Jenson said it's important to talk to kids "about what you're doing" and emphasize that this is "protecting the entire family."
The second prong to protecting children from porn, Jenson said, is for parents to talk to children, educate them and develop a plan for them to know how to react if they encounter pornography.
"There are three things every kid needs: they need a definition, a warning and a plan. So, a definition of what a bad picture is, a warning that it can be harmful to your brain and harmful to your life and ... a plan, so they know exactly what to do when they see pornography," Jenson said.
"And that's the internal filter, right? So you have these other external filters, like Canopy and others, but [an] internal filter is really where you want to go to because it's persuading them."
Podcast host De La Mora, a former porn actress who now runs a Christian ministry with her husband, said young "minds are curious."
"And if we're not talking to our children about porn and about these things, then they're going to learn from the outside world," De La Mora stressed. "So, we want to make sure that they're learning at home."
Jenson said parents have the power to help their children heal if they have been exposed to porn. Defend Young Minds offers a guide to help parents titled "My Kid Saw Porn; Now What?"
"One of the biggest mistakes parents make when they find out that their child has seen pornography is they have this big emotional reaction. They freak out. And maybe they get angry," Jenson said. "And it's really best to deal with your own feelings first before you confront your child and figure out what you're going to do, how you're going to help your child going forward."
"If we are there for [children] and if we can talk with them and if they don't feel ashamed or embarrassed to come to us to know that they need to debrief after they've seen something, that is going to go a long way to helping them deal with it," she continued. "Because when a child has to deal with this alone, it's such a burden."
Jenson said that the best time to start talking with children about the dangers of porn is when a child is first exposed to the internet.
"When your child was a little toddler and starting to walk, you started to tell her about the dangers of cars on the roads. 'Don't run out into the street. ... Don't run out into the parking lot.' You warn them about dangers," Jenson said.
"So when they get out on the internet superhighway, they need to also have a warning because it's very difficult to know exactly all the different ways that your child might be exposed or to predict when they might be exposed."
De La Mora said many children could be embarrassed to talk to their parents about sex and porn. It's important, she said, for parents to bring up the topics anyway because "the world is filled with sexual cues, and children will be curious."
"Whatever age your children are, if you haven't had the talk, and you're going to start, it's going to feel uncomfortable at first. But if you keep ... leaning into the discomfort, eventually, it becomes more normal even for you. And the conversations in your household will be more normal," De La Mora said.
"And I really believe just ripping away the curiosity out of your children's mind. You want them to know that they can come to you with any and every question. Because if there's something that you're not willing to talk about, their curious minds will find answers and they're not going to be the type of answers that you want them to find. They're not going to be healthy answers because they're going to come from their teenage friends or their elementary school friends or they're going to come from porn."
