0:00:00 – Speaker 1
nextTalk, sponsored by nextTalk, contains content of a mature nature. Parental guidance is advised. Welcome to nextTalk Radio with Amanda and Kim every Saturday at 10 am on AM 630,. The word nextTalk Radio is brought to you by nextTalk, a non-profit organization keeping kids safe online through cyber parenting and open communication. Find resources, videos and subscribe to our weekly podcast at nextTalk.org. Are you ready for the nextTalk?
0:00:35 – Speaker 2
Today we’re wrapping up our pornography series and we’ve been on this topic for five weeks. We’ve had three guests and it has been a great series, Absolutely.
0:00:47 – Speaker 1
I’ve learned a lot Well, we’ve tackled it from every angle, from a certified psychologist, from the founder of a great ministry and just really our own personal experience and what we’ve learned through the nextTalk ministry.
0:01:01 – Speaker 2
Yeah, first we had Charles Coulter, and he was a been a licensed counselor for 14 years. He’s he brings with it not only the husband and dad perspective too. He’s also the founders of counselorchatcom. It’s one of the first online based faith community counseling services, which I think is so cool. Well, we’re busy In this fast paced world. Who has time to make an appointment and go to a marriage counselor? Well, you can put the kids in bed at night. Crawl in your bed, go to counselorchatcom and meet with your counselor.
0:01:31 – Speaker 1
Very cool resource. Check it out. Absolutely had some great information there and help. If you are needing counseling in person or online, please reach out to him. Find out how he can walk you through whatever season of life it is. If you’re struggling with pornography, or if you’re struggling just parenting through pornography with your kids, he’s a great resource.
0:01:52 – Speaker 2
Yes, Then we had bestselling author Kristen Jensen and I was so excited to have her on the show because I found her resources about four years ago when this whole thing started with me, and I remember not knowing, not knowing who she was. I found her book and it was amazing. It helped me start the pornography conversation with my kids and just opened up so much. So when we had her on the show I felt like I was meeting a star.
0:02:18 – Speaker 1
You were sweating a little.
0:02:19 – Speaker 2
I was like so excited to have her on the show. She wrote Good Pictures Bad. She coauthored Good Pictures Bad Pictures and that is really for ages six plus. Most recently she authored Good Pictures Bad Pictures Junior. Because she is seeing what we’re seeing at nextTalk that there has been a shift and so people need to talk about pornography. I know this sounds shocking with their three to six year old. Yeah.
0:02:44 – Speaker 1
Well, it’s hard to imagine that. Where do I start? What do I say? What’s appropriate?
0:02:48 – Speaker 2
How do you?
0:02:48 – Speaker 1
You don’t want to scar them. You don’t want to scar them and you know we’re the first generation parenting this technology and this pornography in their hands through a device. So we have to start early. This is their world, and these two resources are really great way to do that. They make it easy to start the conversation.
0:03:06 – Speaker 2
And I know it may seem crazy, but when you’re two year old is walking around with the iPad playing Barney, she could accidentally click on something that takes them to a bad site, and we just need to prepare them for how to react when that happens.
0:03:19 – Speaker 1
You’re dating yourself with Barney girlfriend.
0:03:21 – Speaker 2
I’m telling you Barney, barney, my kids are older now. I was popular now. Who’s popular now?
0:03:28 – Speaker 1
Oh my goodness, good question. Yeah, well, the problem is that there’s so many now because they have such access to Netflix and every kind of thing that everything is popular and they’re click, click, click, click through them, so you’ve got to walk them through all of that. This is a great way and great resource to start that conversation.
0:03:46 – Speaker 2
And then the last show we had Jonathan, a darty here from B broken ministries. That was a good show. Oh he, what he is doing. So he had a you know, pornography and sexual addiction that he walked through. His marriage was in shambles, left. No, no thought of a reconciliation at that point. And what God did in his life, you know. He showed him that he had a sin and then he walked him through how to get through it and I think you know we touched on that. That was so important. It’s one thing to say. So many times in our society we say, well, yeah, porn’s a problem, we know it because it’s one click away. But what is the process to fix it?
0:04:28 – Speaker 1
Yes.
0:04:29 – Speaker 2
And I love that’s where Jonathan came in. I mean, he approached it from a marriage perspective and how to walk the spouses, the man and the woman, through the addiction. Yeah, and he had two great resources and we have those all. On our last show, everything’s on be brokencom, but you can check that out. It was really good and I loved how that can apply to so much more.
0:04:51 – Speaker 1
Absolutely. You know what he’s talking about the process of identifying sexual sin, walking through healing, and then you know it’s important to walk away from it. And that’s the hard part is not just to identify it, but what are my action steps afterwards? And we can apply that to parenting absolutely In the church, absolutely being able to know the process and walking our kids through what that looks like in their own sin not necessarily sexual and starting that at a young age and having that open communication. That was what was so lovely and amazing is that, even though we’re talking about pornography and sexual sin things that not everyone can relate to the steps on healing and true change are really the same the Holy Spirit and being obedient and being repentant and so great resources on their website, bbrokencom, and that will take you to, if you go there, that will take you to their online community pure online, pure community, pure community, thank you. Online with great resources for every age and every situation. So please check it out and see what you can find.
0:06:01 – Speaker 2
You know there was something that he said in his show that we talk a lot about here.
I have a chapter in my book about it is that he said, walking through this process, I couldn’t talk to my kids about it had I not healed myself, had I not gone through the process of recovery and getting it all right and figuring it out why it was bad for me. But now that he’s walked through that process, there’s no topic off limits in his home with his teenage kids because he’s healed from that. But so many times we have found and in my personal life, me from experience, I write about this in my book I avoid certain subjects with my kids because I don’t wanna have the question mommy, did you dot, dot, dot? I call it the dreaded, did you questions? So this is such an important topic. I just wanted to plug it here because we’re gonna have our next show is gonna be about that. We’re gonna really tackle into that about looking in the mirror and getting healing on yourself. So we’re gonna go right from our porn series into that show next.
0:07:04 – Speaker 1
Yeah, it’s the hard work it really is, and you know it’s where you have to dig in.
It’s the battlefield. I just wanna bring up one more point that he mentioned that really hit home for me and I think, a lot of us. It’s real easy I shouldn’t say real easy Sometimes. It’s easy to share parts of our past, but don’t forget to share what you’re currently struggling with, too, with your kids and I love that, because I focus a lot on here’s. What mommy did when I was eight years old, or this is what I used to struggle with, and that’s easy then to set your kids up for thinking that everything is perfect now, like all your struggles were back then, but now you’re perfect, and so they’re striving for this perfection instead of realizing that we are a work in progress through the Holy Spirit for our entire life, and so sharing our current struggles with our kids is just as important as the ones that we’ve conquered through Christ in the past.
0:08:00 – Speaker 2
Well, you know, and just going off of that, I mean, now that my kids are older, they’re kind of, they are my accountability partners. I’m not gonna lie, in fact, I had something that stung the other day, really stung. So you know, one of the key things that we say is teach your kids early no phones in bedrooms or bathrooms, like it’s just key, no phones in bedrooms or bathrooms. And that’s for a number of reasons because sharing nudes are popular when they get older, pornography, all of those things, and so you can just start those key lessons early without introducing them to the big terms.
And my daughter, my 13 year old daughter, I was in the bathroom taking a shower and I forgot and left my phone on the counter and my daughter came in and saw it and my teen said mom, I cannot believe that you did this and y’all.
It was a good wake up call for me Because and I told her, I said well, I’m not perfect. I’m struggling right along with you to figure out how to handle this little device and where to take it. You know, we also had a conversation because daddy leaves his phone in the bedroom at night because of work if he gets a work call, and so we did talk about how sometimes it looks differently for adults and kids, because that is definitely there are situations where if you’re on call you have to have your phone with you. But just that concept of like talking with them about I mean, when I see pornography I’ve seen pornography a lot on Twitter, a lot, and I will tell my daughter it’s hard for me to look away Like I wanna go block that, but you know I have to protect my heart and mind and just talking with them about that struggle too, that continuous struggle of this phone in your hand all the time and what you can see and what you can access. We’re struggling with that just right, along with our kids.
0:09:49 – Speaker 1
And you know this whole series. I would say one of the running themes in this pornography series has been talk about it. That’s really what we’re all about here at nextTalk, but it’s one of those subjects that I feel like women especially also men, but women really struggle even to say the word, let alone talk to their kids about it. But if you don’t, someone else will. Every single guest has said that in some way or another they will be exposed. It’s not, and if it’s a win, they will be exposed. And you’ve gotta start the conversation early.
0:10:23 – Speaker 2
Well, and let me remind you, when my daughter was in fourth grade, my story is that she didn’t have a phone and I didn’t think we had to talk about pornography, but someone told her the details. He didn’t even show her the actual pornography. He described graphic details to her, so she was exposed in a different sense, but she was still exposed. We needed to be talking about pornography and we cannot fall into the trap that Satan wants us to, that we don’t have to talk with him. That complacency he comes to steal, kill and destroy. So we have to have our guard up. Good pictures, bad pictures is a great starting point for you to start this conversation. The other thing we need to do is talk about we need to role play with our kids, like once we’ve introduced them and we’ve said this, you can see this and there’s good pictures and bad pictures, and this is what you do. We need to role play with what to do when it happens.
0:11:17 – Speaker 1
Kids, especially little ones, they really need clear, simple steps. They need to know what the expectation is. If we’re just generalizing things and saying don’t look at bad pictures or don’t look at pornography, that doesn’t give them an understanding of what do I do then, what are the steps that I do? So the role playing is really important in starting at young.
0:11:37 – Speaker 2
And this is what happens Sometimes. Your kids will be at school and pornography will pop up either on your kid’s phone or somebody else’s phone, and the kids have never been taught how to process it. And so they see it and they’re shocked and they are like what? And they’re like, oh my gosh, look at this. And then they show people Out of innocence they show people.
0:11:59 – Speaker 1
Well, we’re drawn to things just like watching a car accident. You slow down the car, you’re staring, yes, you’re like what is happening, it’s an unfamiliar thing, and so we need to explain to them. Yes, you’ll feel those feelings, but what do you do with it?
0:12:13 – Speaker 2
And I can tell you from experience that most school districts will suspend your child if they show another child pornography, no matter what the intent was, even if it was like shock and they didn’t mean to like expose them. And so in my book I share three things to teach your kid to do on role playing if porn pops up on their device. One is turn it off immediately. Turn it off, never, ever show. Number two never, ever, ever show a pornographic picture to another child. You cannot distribute pornography to other children. Three report anything pornographic to a parent or school official. You know, with my kids I say if it’s a school computer or a school iPad or whatever, tell the teacher. If it’s your personal device, your personal phone, turn it off, put it in your backpack until you get home and then we’ll report it together and we’ll talk about it. But it is a very important to tell our kids not to show others the pornographic picture when it pops up.
0:13:16 – Speaker 1
So those three steps are in Mandy’s book and they’re real simple. You can simplify them for your little ones and start early. It doesn’t even have to be with pornography, but that sets them up for success when they actually do see a bad image. We have been role playing this in my household for a long time and I have the little ones of the group and the team, and we just recently had a situation and it wasn’t pornography, but it was a violent game that downloaded on my son’s tablet and he put it down really quick and he said mom, I want to talk to you about something. I said okay, and he said this is the game that we talked about not being appropriate for me and I was downloading a bunch of them and I pressed the download for this one. I haven’t played it and I wanted to show you and could you please take it off my device.
And so starting that early with anything sets them up for knowing that that is the process, automatically when they see pornography a little bit older, and then rewarding them when they do it right. We talk about this a lot. You know when they see a pornographic image, you want to shut it down. Just get it out, throw away the phone. Don’t overreact, don’t go crazy. Reward them for doing the right thing and coming to you and praise them for following through on all the things that you’ve set up.
0:14:32 – Speaker 2
Yeah, and you know, don’t fall into the trap of thinking, well, they’re playing a four plus app and it’s safe, because we’ve learned that you know especially ads. If you don’t pay to have ads turned off, or even if you do, there are some that can come through, but the ads, like a four plus app can have an ad for a 12 plus app. You know, we got a call recently where a mom, their kid was playing a four plus app and then a 12 plus app was advertised to their four year old and it was about having an affair. Yeah, somebody caught somebody in bed with somebody else and this app popped up and their four year old is looking at it, shocking Like video of a man and a woman in bed and then somebody else say to go for them.
So I mean, they’re in, they’re infiltrating our kids, and so what we’re saying to you is don’t freak out, don’t take away all technology. This is their world. They’re growing up in a new and different generation than we did, but we do have to equip them to walk through this and when they see something weird, a red alert should go in their mind and we should have created a safe place where they can come to us and tell us everything they’re seeing and hearing online, and the number one thing we’re not going to do is yell.
Yeah we’re going to remain calm. We’re not going to yell at them. We’re not going to get mad at the Internet.
0:15:57 – Speaker 1
Well, we might get a little mad at the Internet.
0:15:59 – Speaker 2
When people use the phrase the Internet, I’m like we’re on to apps now. You know like the Internet is old, but to phrase it in our old term, generation. Don’t be mad at the Internet. This is the world, and there are so many wonderful things to technology. You know when my husband is traveling and we can FaceTime at the end of the night and all still say our family prayers together. It’s a beautiful thing, and so technology is amazing and it’s wonderful. But just like anything, satan can use good things for bad, and that’s where we need to have our guard up.
0:16:35 – Speaker 1
Don’t let it become a wall between you and your child by losing your mind. You know when this happens, because it will happen. Don’t, like we said, don’t threaten to take away the cell phone. None of that. What you need to do at first is step away, because a lot of times are, you know, we’re human too and our first reaction is to like, lose our minds. But you’ve got to breathe. Step away so you can process and pray first. Just give yourself that moment so that you can respond in a way that’s fruitful.
0:17:06 – Speaker 2
Yeah, you know we talk to a lot of parents and we get a lot of calls saying I just found porn on my eight year olds iPad, family iPad or my 16 year olds phone.
0:17:16 – Speaker 1
Sleepovers are a big one.
0:17:17 – Speaker 2
Sleepovers are a big one, you know, continually get exposed to it, sleepovers. And so when they come to you with this or you discover it without them coming to you and coming clean, it’s really important to step away from that device and child and breathe and process and pray, like Kim said. And then the other thing is, once you’ve cooled down and you’ve stepped away and you’ve prayed and processed, you need to create some conversation around this, because your child needs to understand why pornography is bad, why can’t I look at it? And when I say that, I want you to think about your relationship with Jesus. When he gives us rules and restrictions, if we don’t have an active relationship with Him, they feel like a whole bunch of rules that we have to follow.
But when we know the heart of God, when we have a relationship with God, when we see that all these restrictions are to protect us emotionally and physically, when we get to that point in our relationship with God, they don’t become rules and restrictions. They become thank you God for protecting me. That’s the relationship we want to have with our kids, that they will come to us because they know that we’re not going to implement, we’re not going to take away their phone for a year when they tell us these things. But we’re going to talk through these things about why is it important to protect your heart and mind and share scripture and even share stories. Share a story from your past when is the first time you saw pornography or when is the first time you tried alcohol and what it led to and the pain that came out of that? Those are great conversation starters to start this journey.
0:19:02 – Speaker 1
It’s hard, it’s hard work, it’s difficult to bear yourself and let your kids see that you have struggles, but it’s so important. Just like Mandy said, it feels heavy when it’s just rules and restrictions and what you are looking for with your kids, just like in our relationship with Jesus, is a hope in a future and a lightness, because we know it’s a good thing. And so that relationship, as we have said again and again with each of our guests through this pornography series, is key and that means openness and that means communication, as we talk about here all the time. Another cool thing my kid is my oldest is a science guy, a math guy. He loves facts and numbers and figures and cool information and so doing some research when this happens.
Do a little bit of research and explain to them what you’ve learned. My son would love to know a statistic, or he would love to know how something affected the world or people, his age or whatnot, and he would really be drawn to that. So do some research that they can apply and understand. That’s also a helpful tool for communicating.
0:20:10 – Speaker 2
Like Charles said, our first guest, there’s a rush of dopamine in the brain and it creates a trigger that you want more and you need more and more to fill it. And so your science kid would probably love that to know, to really know about the dopamine and how that affects the brain and how it causes you to want to look at that. And then when I loved about Kristin Jensen is in her book. She talks about how we take those emotional feelings and we think with the thinking part of the brain and so you can take them through that process of taking your emotional part of the brain but then moving it to the thinking part of the brain. And again, that’s in good pictures, bad pictures. You got to get a copy of that book. It’s great.
0:20:50 – Speaker 1
Well, we figured out over the years that that process is good for us. It’s good for every situation. It’s good for your, when your teenager is a teen and has.
0:21:00 – Speaker 2
You know, we all have a little attitude sometimes and when those attitudes collapse, I’m like, okay, I got to take these feelings and I got to move it to the thinking part of the brain before I go off on this child.
0:21:11 – Speaker 1
That happened to me the other night. My husband was like who are you? We were literally sitting at the table and he just put his hand on my knee and he’s like who are you? You were thinking with the emotional part of your brain. I was. I was having a moment and what was so great about it is I wanted to be like what you know and like go more into the emotional side, and in that moment I just really felt the Holy Spirit say let’s just talk through this. And I was able to literally think through what had been happening in the week and what we had been experiencing and as I was verbalizing it, it was becoming very clear as to why I was feeling crazy town, yeah. And so moving that over and teaching your kids that process is so important yeah, it’s just a key thing, yeah.
0:21:55 – Speaker 2
Another tip you can do if you find your child, your older child, with pornography and you’ve discovered it. They didn’t come to you with telling you about this. You know this is going to sting a little, but I’m going to say it because admit your part, yeah, and what I mean by that is cyber parenting has blindsided all of us. It’s a new generation and I forgot, I did not know that I had to prepare my child for pornography. So when she was exposed to it once, I processed through the emotions. I told her I’m so sorry you were told about all these graphic details and I didn’t prepare you for this and I was. That’s what I’m supposed to do as a parent, and so just acknowledging that we may have missed something, like I did to my child, it opens up some conversation. And then your child is like oh, this isn’t all on me Now.
They do have to take a part in it. At some point it becomes their responsibility and they have to look away. But that’s another thing. You know, if you’re walking your kid through a porn addiction, you’ve discovered it. You’re starting to create conversation. Walk them through this, you know, have a little emoji that they can text you and when they’re wanting to look at porn and you’re not going to respond with anything, but you’re going to try and get home and take them for a Starbucks run or you know whatever like. Come up with little tools that can work for your family to help them through this addiction.
0:23:20 – Speaker 1
You know speaking of accountability, we have a next-talk leader. Her and her husband have walked through pornography addiction and they have shared their story on our videos On our website. Truly, if you are struggling with this or you think that perhaps your spouse is, go to our website. You can hear their full story there at nextTalk or under of our videos, yes, and you’ll see the process and what that looked like, how they walk through it and what they do now.
0:23:47 – Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, he was convicted and came to her and said I struggled with this, yeah, but the grace that she gave him and she will say that wasn’t I don’t know who that was it was God giving him grace at that moment. But they have had struggled with that and walked through it and it’s a great video. You can check that under nextTalk org under our video series. But the thing is, whether your husband or your child is struggling with pornography, walk with them hand-in-hand in this. Try and overcome the addiction together. Be a team, not working against each other, but working together to fight the enemy that wants to take your family down. That’s Satan.
0:24:29 – Speaker 1
The true enemy is Satan well, and Satan wants us to keep things in the dark and to tell us that we are the only One who is experiencing this or who is feeling this way, and that’s why it’s so important to get help.
0:24:41 – Speaker 2
God is bigger than pornography or any addiction that you face. He is bigger, he can restore and he can heal. If it’s in your marriage or with your kids, and so see a counselor talk through this, go, get help. You do not have to suffer in silence. You are not alone in your struggle.
0:25:01 – Speaker 1
For our wrap-up segment today in our five-part pornography series. We want to remind you in one, your kids will see porn. The question is, at what age? You’ve got to start the conversation early To prepare your kids on how to respond to porn, role play with them, show them what to do when they see it, so they have a plan, they are equipped, and three continually discuss how to process pornography and other images. Talking is key. The relationship is so and most important.
0:25:31 – Speaker 2
Yes, thanks for joining us on nextTalk radio with Mandy and Kim every Saturday at 10 am On a m 6 30. The word nextTalk radio is brought to you by nextTalk, a non-profit organization keeping kids safe online through cyber parenting and open communication. Find resources, videos and subscribe to our weekly podcast at nextTalk.org. Are you ready for the nextTalk?
Transcribed by https://podium.page
