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nextTalk contains content of a mature nature. Parental guidance is advised.
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Today on the show we have best-selling author Kristin Jenson. She wrote good pictures, bad pictures, and if you guys have been to any of our events, watched our videos or heard our podcast, you know of her.
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You are familiar with this awesome set of two books that she has written. We love them and use them.
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Yes, we’ve used them in our own family. So, kristin, thank you for being here. Why don’t you just introduce yourself and let us know, like you know, what started you on this journey, like what inspired you to write these books?
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I will tell you that it was not my lifelong ambition to write books about pornography for children.
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Imagine that.
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I was thinking about when I was, you know, studying my goals for life. But I moved to a new town with my husband and I met a woman in my church and she called me up one night and she told me about the tragedy that had happened in her family. She had a very large family and the oldest son had been sexually molesting his younger siblings, and pornography was also involved. And so from this I woke up the next morning. I mean it, we talked to like 1 30 am and I woke up the next morning and I just had this thought through my head, like about warning children, because I could see that young children were getting exposed to pornography through mobile devices and there seemed to be a gap between what parents were able to talk to them about it, and you know, and the exposure rate. So I thought we need to close this gap, we need to do something.
So at first I looked for a book, because I thought I’ll get a book from my friend that she can use to reach her kids and I thought there would be several. But, my surprise, there was nothing. And I started researching and I just kept feeling this it was just a compelling need to write this book. I had to write it and in fact, I gave up a job like a real job, you know.
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We said that before. Yes.
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And to do this and to get this book out there.
So that was the genesis of good pictures, bad pictures, porn proofing to day young kids. And then, and really in this book and we can talk about this more but it’s basically a script for parents to use to walk kids through what pornography, the effects pornography have on the brain and also how they can have power over pornography. And then parents started asking me for a book for younger children and I remember the first time after I was speaking, a young mom came up to me and she said would you ever write a book for three year old? And I just felt like I thought seven year olds was young, right, but when she said that it felt like somebody had punched me in the stomach. We’re at the point now where parents want a book for three year olds to warn them about pornography, and I thought it was interesting that it wasn’t my idea. And then other parents kept coming and asking for the same thing. So I wrote to Good Pictures, bad Pictures Junior a simple plan to protect young minds which is very, very simple, very comfortable.
So that’s kind of how I got started and now this is kind of taken over and I’ve become. You know, I have a website, protect Young Mind, and we just are trying to help parents, especially parents of young children, to inoculate their children on an ongoing basis against pornography.
0:04:33 – Speaker 3
Well, I found your resources. We’ve talked about our journeys since then. We’ve gotten to know each other, but when we each started we didn’t know each other and you know, I was the same thing. I mean, my child was exposed to pornography at the school lunch table by because somebody just told her about it, painted a visual picture about it of something they had seen online, and my thought as a parent was she’s just not getting a phone until she’s 18. And I don’t have to mess with it, like I’m, I’m, she’s protected.
And that was my light bulb moment that I was not right, like I was dead wrong, even if I was going to delay the phone, I couldn’t delay these conversations.
And that’s when I went on a journey trying to find resources to help me with these conversations and I found your resource and I remember it just being such a great tool because we sit down and I love how your book like talks about addiction in general, and I love how your your original book, the good pictures, bad pictures, talks about the you know, emotional part of the brain and the logical part of the brain you know the feeling part of the brain versus the logical and teaching kids how to, how, to.
You know, shift their thinking when they see something because they have an emotional response to it, and that’s perfectly natural, that’s biological. But getting them to recognize, to move it to the logical part of the brain and figure out, like why it’s bad for you, anyway, it just became a really great tool in our home to like create this conversation. And so I remember when we started traveling for nextTalk and then we actually got to meet you and since then, you know, we’re part of the safeguard alliance, together with the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, with a lot of people doing a lot of great work to help families and kids. But it’s just been such a pleasure getting to know you more and just seeing your heart on this because, I mean, I speak for lots of parents out there it’s a great resource. It’s a great resource. Thank you so much.
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Well, you know, when I started writing it I had no idea. I didn’t know how to get a book out there. I know nothing, I relate I. What’s that? I?
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relate to that. I relate to that. Yes, because you just start on this journey.
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Well, the calling comes first the calling and then the details follow.
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The calling comes and you don’t know what you’re walking into. You have no idea, but you know there’s this need out there and I hear that in your voice. Right now. You desperately know there’s something going on that you need to help with.
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Yes, and that’s one reason why you know I was, I felt so urgent about it, but it took, took me three years to write this book because we tested it. We really wanted to get it right because it was such a sensitive and important topic, but we want the thing about the pictures that pictures is that we wanted to provide a proactive model. So the proactive parent starting the conversation, not waiting with their fingers crossed hoping that their child will come and tell them if they see something or hear something, but actually diving in and saying hey, you know, there are some good pictures but there’s also bad pictures. And let’s give a simple, age appropriate definition of those pictures and talk about how those pictures can affect you. Like you said, emotionally, your feeling brain is affected, it’s aroused, it is, it’s intrigued and it can feel like the pull of a giant magnet.
And that’s just helping to reduce the shame, right? Yes, good kids. I’m talking with a principal of a Christian private school and he says you know, even in our little community, in our school, we have a problem with this and we have a lot of really good kids. And I’m like it isn’t about the kids. All kids need to be protected and need to have an internal filter. It’s not about being a bad kid, it’s just about being a normal, biological kid, human it is.
So we start out in the book with the mother, but we end with we have a father that comes in at the end and basically, as I said, a proactive approach, also giving a script. I talk to a lot of parents and they just don’t have the words. But once you give them the words, they can tailor those words, they can change them up or add to them, but you give them a script and then they can customize that script if they want, and then it just teaches children the difference between their thinking brain and their feeling brain and how important it is to keep their thinking brain in charge, because it’s their thinking brain that knows and learns right from wrong. That’s where your ethical center is. That’s where you learn the difference between right and wrong is in your prefrontal cortex, and so children need to. If they learn this, this concept of feeling brain, thinking brain, they have so much more power to reject pornography than if they’re blindsided and caught off guard.
0:09:46 – Speaker 1
Well, and it’s just like exercising a muscle. The more that they learn how to do that and that becomes a part of who they are and how they react to things, they’re more apt for it to happen naturally, and I’ve seen that with my own kids. I have the youngest kids on our nextTalk team and so we started with your books. We have both of them. My kids were a little bitty when we did the first one, the junior, and then I did the other one, the original one, with my older son, and it was great for a couple of reasons. One, like you said, it gives the script, because one of the things I hear most often parents with young kids are like I could never talk to my kid about pornography. You are crazy. And so I say this is a great resource because you don’t even have to say the word to plant the seeds and give your kids tools and tips and an action plan on what to do when they see bad pictures, and that takes away some of the fear when they read your book because they’re like okay, I can do this and I can make it applicable to my kids and I know for us.
We’ve read them a few times, especially junior, and we role play. We pretend that we’ve seen something bad, and then the beauty and the blessing in that is now that things have happened and something has popped up on their tablets. I see them do it automatically. It just they put it down, they stop, they run over and they tell me they don’t even have to think about it because we set that standard early, we practiced it. They know that’s how they can protect their own mind. And then we’re constantly having a conversation, in different scenarios, even outside of technology, of moving from the emotional brain to the thinking brain. So my little kids will run their finger over their forehead, I’m moving over to my thinking brain. So it’s been great, great tools for lots of different reasons.
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Yeah, I’ve heard so many parents actually say that the thinking brain, feeling brain, has helped them with all kinds of parenting. Oh girl, Attitude.
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So you teach your child Dating when they’re getting in a relationship a dating relationship you know you don’t want to. You can’t go with your feelings all the time because they can get you in trouble. You got to think logically here what are my boundaries as to what I’m going to do, you know, with girlfriend, boyfriend I mean all kinds of things are it’s good for.
0:12:01 – Speaker 1
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0:12:29 – Speaker 2
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0:12:55 – Speaker 4
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Today we have best-selling author in the house, kristen o. Good pictures, bad pictures. You guys have heard us talk about them. If you are doing our video series, we literally held her books up in our pornography series that we did in our pornography video. She is here talking about her books. What started her on this journey? Right before we went to break, we were talking about the feeling brain and the logical brain. I think as a parent, it has been so useful for so many other things, just not pornography. It’s helped. So many of our conversations about feeling are real and it’s okay to feel them. But we need to think about is this good to act on or do I need to stop right here? Is this a boundary that I shouldn’t cross? We got to move that to the logical brain. Why is this not good for me, for pornography, for sex, for dating, for attitude, for everything? It’s a really good conversation in your home.
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I’ve heard people say I use it and I’m trying not to eat all the leftover Easter candy. The book, basically, and we’ve got this new second edition now, which I’m very excited about. We’ve updated some of the pictures. For example, on the cover, the boy is looking at a tablet, not a laptop. We have rewritten the tips for parents, which I know coincide with many of the things that you also recommend.
One of the things that we encourage parents to do is to really actively teach children to never take pictures of themselves without their clothes on and share them. Also, to begin explaining sex earlier rather than later. You’ve got to start that, even though you can read the book to your children before you’ve had the sex talk. It’s really so important. So many children.
We’ve done studies, our own research, showing that many children go to porn to find out about sex because their parents haven’t talked to them. If we can get that started a little earlier, that’s great too. Just to really quickly review, it’s so important to one define pornography or, when they’re younger, bad pictures so they can recognize it when they see it. You don’t have to give them all, you don’t want to tell them everything pornography is. You just want to give them enough information that they can recognize it. Pictures of people with little or no clothing on that focus on the private parts of the body. Then, once they have a definition and they know how pornography can make them feel and can affect their brain, teach them the harmful effects of pornography. It can become an addiction. It can cause them to think of people as objects and that we can hurt instead of love.
We don’t go into that a ton, but we do mention it in this book. I think that is something that is better. As children get 11, 12, 13, they can understand that objectification easier. We want to start mentioning it when they’re young. Then, finally, you need to give kids a plan what to do when they see and teach them. You were talking about role playing. We really add that into the junior book a lot to get the little kids role playing. But also give kids a plan. They know what it is, they know why it is harmful and they know what to do when they see it. They are not caught off guard. Those are the three things that we help parents teach children in this good pictures, bad pictures, pornography and kids. I don’t know if you want me to tell you a little bit about what the differences are between the old edition and the new edition.
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Sure, before we get to that, I love your can do plan. Do you share that with us? I think that is very helpful, for what is the plan? Go out and buy the book, because you’re going to be able to see it. You’re going to have it. It is the can do plan. You want to walk us through what that stands for? Sure, yeah.
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This is much as you said. If you’ve gone through the whole thinking brain, feeling brain, and if you’ve brought the child up to this point, this can do plan is really going to come alive for them. I want to very briefly close my eyes. A child that sees an image, that image is going to have a physical effect on them quicker than in less than three-fifths of a second. So you really want to close your eyes. Then A is always tell a trusted adult so that they never keep it a secret. And then N is name it when I see it. So that’s bringing the thinking brain online. Yeah, that’s moving it to the thinking brain. And then those are the three things that you do when you are exposed as soon as possible.
But what happens when those memories of pornography come back? What do you do? How do you deal with those memories? They’re shocking and they will keep popping up in your mind. So B is distract myself and we talk more about how to do that. And basically what you’re doing is you’re teaching your child to build a new neural pathway in the brain away from that image, and this is such an essential cognitive skill. The kids that live in this same age really need it. And then, of course, always order my thinking brain to be the boss, having that conversation between the thinking brain and the feeling brain that really empowers that thinking brain to stay in charge of making the decisions around rejecting pornography.
0:19:10 – Speaker 3
Yeah.
That’s a candid plan and I love that because we’re all about getting our kids to tell us what they’re thinking, building that safe place with them and parents as you walk through this.
This is going to happen to you if you implement this book in your home, because I’ve done it and now I have an 11-year-old boy and so the thoughts he has been exposed to pornography, and every time he’s told me, every time he has come to me and told me when it happens. But then the thoughts do come back. Yeah, the thoughts do come back, and so my thing is you have to be the safe place, even when they have those thoughts that they’re able to say to you I’m thinking about it and I know it’s wrong and I will say to him this is perfectly natural. Honey, you saw this, you’re a dude like I get it, but you’re right, we got to do something with these thoughts. So I love how you address that, kristen, like from a scientific standpoint, that we have to find a neurological path for them, and we have to be. If they’re talking to us about it, we can be part of that process to help them find that new neurological path.
Yeah we have to be. We have to be because they can’t.
0:20:19 – Speaker 4
It’s hard for them to do it on their own. They have to serve as their thinking brain a little bit.
0:20:24 – Speaker 3
Exactly Until their thinking brain is fully developed and that is for boys. It’s like mid-20s right 25, I think is the prefrontal cortex.
0:20:33 – Speaker 1
It takes a minute. You know a lot of us and a lot of our listeners have read your books or we have loaned them out just about everybody we know. But you do have a second edition that you’ve put out of Good Pictures, bad Pictures. Tell us a little bit about the difference beyond the cover.
0:20:50 – Speaker 4
Yeah, so one of the things that we added which I think is really, really helpful to rank in the book as a tool for parents, is the let’s talk questions after each chapter. Well, you know, we like that, anything that says anything about talk we’re all over that.
So these questions and I had teachers help me form these questions and these questions after you read the chapter, then you can talk about the chapter and these questions will help you talk about the chapter and all the things that are in the chapter. So you know why is it important to close my eyes immediately when I see a bad picture? Yeah, who are the trusted adults? I can talk to you when I see bad pictures and just really great questions that will elicit a wonderful discussion after each chapter. So that’s one of the things. And then we’ve definitely updated this science and we’ve also really strengthened the argument against pornography, because a lot of people will say well, I’m not sure you know.
Addiction is, you know, the only problem with pornography? Well, it’s not the only problem with pornography. It’s the humanity that we have to monitor, that we check and judge if we’re right. So let’s get started. Unfortunately, pornography can also lead children to objectify other people’s bodies so that they see a person’s body as an object to use instead of a whole person who deserves to be loved and respected. We teach children that you can kick a ball and you’re not going to hurt the ball, but if you kick a person. But when you objectify people, it’s easier to hurt them. We talk about that in the book. Then also, it teaches lies about ways to have fun, about ways that hurting people can be a form of entertainment. These are things that children Ellie should be. We should start to talk to them about this.
Something we don’t cover in the book, but that is a really important reason for parents to poor, improve their kids, to talk to their kids, is that the rate of child on child harmful sexual behavior is skyrocketing and I’ll tell you it is fueled by pornography. Children watch pornography and then they imitate it because they are wired to imitate. I was just at a conference, at a symposium in March, with the National Center on Sexual Inquitation. Protection of Mind helped to sponsor that and where we talked about this problem of child on child harmful sexual behavior and how it’s linked with pornography. And the other thing is that children are often groomed for sexual exploitation and sexual abuse through the use of pornography. So if you teach your child about pornography and how to recognize it and how to come to you when they see it, you’re not only protecting them from addiction, you’re protecting them from abuse, from sexual abuse as well.
0:24:33 – Speaker 3
Well, even confusions about their sexuality. They’re seeing different things online and so all kinds of things you’re protecting your kids from by protecting them from pornography. We are out of time and we could go on and on with you, but, kristen, remind us of your website, protectyoungmindsorg. Is that correct?
0:24:54 – Speaker 4
Yes, protectyoungmindsorg and your books are on Amazon. Yeah, books are there as well and they’re on Amazon. And we are coming out we’re actually piloting right now a curriculum for schools based on good pictures bad pictures, so we’re really excited about that. It’s video based and it’s going to be awesome, so we’re looking to bring that out early next year.
0:25:20 – Speaker 3
Great, it’s been fun, perfect. We are looking forward to that. Yeah, thank you for being here. I hope you guys know we love her. Go out, use her resource to create more conversation in your homes.
0:25:34 – Speaker 2
Thanks for joining us on nextTalk Radio with Mandy and Kim on AM630, the Word. You are not alone trying to figure out how to parent in this digital world. We are here with practical solutions to help you. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Find our video series and podcast at NextTalkorg. Are you ready for the nextTalk?
Transcribed by https://podium.page
