Pornography and How It Affects Children:

The widely accepted notion that there is little we can do about the proliferation pornography on our children can be one of the single greatest threats in their lives. It denies young boys from developing a “real” relationship with a young girl, and sets a false example of what a relationship should be like. Homework suffers as well as their grades because they spend so much time on the Internet. Because they start on this path while they are young, they continue when they are older and will not think of the hours upon hours of time they will spend trolling from site to site, denying precious time with their own children. Young men develop a pattern that will view women as objects and will have a low respect for them. Many rapists get their start spending hours and hours viewing hard core sex on the Internet, and validate their manhood by taking what they want.

Children have many obstacles in life to be sure, but a parent that does not actively participate in understanding what their child is doing on the Internet will dramatically stack the deck against them in their lives.

• 9 out of 10 children between the ages of 8 and 16 have viewed porn on the Internet, in most cases unintentionally (London School of Economics 2002)
• The average age of first Internet exposure to pornography is 11 years old (internet-filter-review.com)
• Youth with significant exposure to sexuality in the media were shown to be more than twice as likely to have intercourse between the ages of 14 and 16 (Pediatric report 2006)

It sometimes starts innocently, as there are several pornography web sites associated with children’s character names like “Pokemon” and “Action Man”. There are so many tricks that are employed that with a simple click, your child has exposure to the worst the Internet has to offer. As a parent, it’s hard to keep up. For example, did you know that certain video game systems offer a wireless hookup to browse the Internet? Do you know what “peer to peer” means? The chat rooms, the web cams, etc.

Are you educated enough to do battle? More importantly, are you willing to do battle?

If so you need to actively take control of what your child can do and not do on the Internet. There are several reputable places on the Internet that sell software that will filter content for a fee. There are things you should do like having a central location in your home for the computer, so that there are no avenues to porn behind closed doors.

You can install a child safe browser for young kids. Perhaps one of the most effective ways to prevent or stop children from viewing is to install spyware that reports to your computer. Tell your children that the only way they can have a computer is if you have the ability to know where they go. If they are unwilling to accept that, then they are denied a computer. This type of “contract” let’s them know that you always have the ability to monitor them. After all, once they are of age and borrow your car, do you want to know where they are in your car? What if you suspect that your child is doing drugs? You have a right to look in their nightstand drawer, you are their parent and they are under your guardianship. Of course they will object to this saying it’s an invasion of privacy. Let them know you value their privacy (walking into the bathroom while they are taking a shower, etc) but the “window on the world” that the Internet affords is just too wide for you to accept. Stand firm and do it.