Talking with Your Child
Talking with our children about pornography can be one of the most intimidating and uncomfortable conversations for parents to have. But it doesn’t have to be awkward. Here are some resources to help you have this much-needed conversation early and often.
Preparing for your conversation:
- First, prepare yourself. Stay calm, breathe, and pray for guidance.
- Second, get your game plan. These resources should help.
- Third, make the time and space. Address it as soon as you’re calm enough and confident enough to have the conversation but BEFORE too much time goes by.
The goal is for parents to have open, honest conversations about pornography early and often. By doing that, parents become trusted sources of information. When we give our children this information, we are in control of the message. When we present them with the truth openly and genuinely (just like anything else we teach them about our faith, the Mass, or the Bible) then it comes across as fact and takes some of the allure and enticement of pornography away.
Then, as our children grow older, hopefully they will come to us with further questions and more conversations will happen naturally.
If this is the first time you’ve brought this up with your child, we recommend reading these:
Talk Today – Safer Tomorrow! 10 Easy Conversation Starters: The National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) created this quick overview to help make it a little less stressful of a conversation to have with your children.
Covenant Eyes has an excellent eBook for parents When Your Child is Looking at Porn that is a very thorough guide for parents. It walks parents through different scenarios. Download other eBooks from Covenant Eyes on their website.
Now that you have prepared yourself to talk to your child about pornography, you need to decide which talk to him with her/him. Please click on one of the images below to be taken to another page with more helpful information on how to have a general conversation regarding pornography or how to speak with your child because you know they’ve viewed pornography.