Parents need to educate themselves in the first place
so that they know what's out there
and they know the danger that it is.
Once they understand those really harmful effects
of pornography, then they're motivated through love
to protect their children.
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As I've talked to bishops and stake presidents,
I've found that it's not so much if they will see pornography;
it's when it will occur.
And so that's why I am somewhat passionate about the idea
of prevention.
And I feel that we can't always wait
at the bottom of the hill with the ambulance.
We've got to build the fence at the top of the cliff.
I think what we need to do better at is teaching them what
to do when they encounter it, because usually we just stop
at "Pornography is a problem.
It's dangerous.
It's going to harm you.
Please don't look at it."
The moment our children encounter it--and they will
early in their lives because we are surrounded by sexual
imagery--the moment they encounter it,
they immediately go, "Oh, this is the thing I was told not
to look at, and I'm now looking at it.
And I don't know what to do."
When we work with parents and we talk about these themes,
they get a little overwhelmed.
"Where do I start?
What do I say?
How do I teach them?
What does that look like?"
And parents get scared, and I really understand that fear.
It can be a tricky thing.
But I think often parents are afraid because they
didn't get that.
They don't know what it looks like.
And we tell them to teach progressive, developmental
facts over time.
One of the issues, I think, that comes up
for parents in wanting to talk about sexuality
with their children is, maybe they're
even uncomfortable with their own sexuality.
And they may even feel a little shame about talking about it.
If you're not sure about how to address sexuality--you may have
some reservations, you may even be uncomfortable with it
yourself--talk to a professional and say, "Hey,
I want to talk to my kids about this.
I want to understand, what is healthy sexuality?"
And there's a lot of people that can help.
Go talk to an ecclesiastical adviser.
There's many, many people that have information
to help parents take off that shame shackle
and be able to feel comfortable with their sexuality
themselves and then be able to talk to their children
about it.
Often we talk to three- and four-
or five-year-olds about "good touch, bad touch"
in our attempt to try to keep them safe
or help them understand what people should or shouldn't
do with them.
So this is the beginning of a sex talk,
but it's really just about boundaries.
And we adjust that language for their developmental
understanding.
Eight-year-olds are going to have maybe even
different questions than 12-year-olds,
or the experience that they will have had
is different than a 12-year-old.
Each child, depending on their level
of development, their stage of development,
is going to need some careful listening to.
And I think maybe that's one of the keys, is listening
carefully to the child, understanding what
their experience has been, how they feel about it,
and then responding to that.
Starting at a young age, you can talk about any image.
"How does it make you feel if you see this image?
Is this a good image?
Does it help you think good thoughts, happy thoughts?"
Help them understand they can choose
what makes them feel comfortable and what
makes them feel uncomfortable, and they
can discern the difference.
And help them be able to understand
that response and what to do if they see something that they
feel and know is not right.
Because they've been taught that the body is to be protected.
It's to be covered.
It's to be treated with respect.
Then if they see anything that is diversion from that,
they can recognize it.
One of the best things that we can teach our children
is that they will have two simultaneous experiences when
they see sexualized imagery.
One is fear and shock and maybe even horror
because it's something absolutely out
of the ordinary for them.
They're not used to seeing it.
And kids will feel afraid a lot of the time.
But at the very same moment, they
will feel intrigue and interest and often
some powerful feelings.
And what gets really confusing for children is, they say,
"This is the bad thing I wasn't supposed to look at,
and I'm interested and intrigued by it.
That must mean there's something wrong with me, or I am bad."
And so we need to teach our children,
"You will have two experiences.
You will be intrigued and interested,
and afraid or shocked at the same time.
And all of those feelings are OK.
They're all normal.
What I would like you to do is come to me.
Let me teach you how to feel and how
to deal with what you're experiencing,
because I've been there before.
And I know how this works.
I know the best ways to manage."
Each child is different and unique,
and it's hard to overgeneralize to all children
and make any statement.
You, as the parent, are the expert on your child and how
they are--what they need in reference to information about
sex and sexual topics.
By the age of eight or nine, we really
should make sure our kids understand
the mechanics of sexuality, they understand
where babies come from, they understand how the body works.
Now, some people might think, "Well, an eight-year-old can't
really comprehend all of that."
I don't totally disagree.
But there's something else happening
when we have that conversation.
And by the way, a husband and wife should do that together.
They shouldn't delegate that to one of them.
It's like, "Oh, no.
You do it."
"No, you do it"--because they're both scared.
Lock arms a little bit, go into the fear
together, and have that very basic conversation
with your kids.
But what you're really establishing
is the parents as the expert.
The parents understand sexuality.
They need to help the kids understand
that "we're here for you.
We're the ones that have the good information,
and we want to share it with you lovingly.
And we want to help seed the idea that we
know these feelings will come for you, and when they do,
we really want to be the ones that you come talk to.
So please come talk to us."
Then from there, from eight on, you're
revisiting that issue regularly, relative
to developmental factors.
And then when the children do come,
we need to be able as parents to say to them, "Hey,
this is a normal feeling, and you're going to learn how
to experience it without fear and without avoidance so that
when--as you're becoming an adult,
you can learn how to utilize those feelings to build
your relationship with your future spouse."
You get to 10 and 11 and 12, and you're
going to be talking about this prepuberty conversation that
says, "Here's what's going to happen to your body.
Here's what to expect."
What was going on within you when you were 12 as a boy?
What was going on when you were 12 as a girl?
What were you thinking about?
How sexualized what was your thought process?
How biologically driven was it?
Is there, for instance--with women,
is there a connection between your menstrual cycle
and your biological sex drive?
If those things exist within you or existed within you
when you were young, again, you can pretty much
count on the fact that your child
is going to be experiencing similar kinds of things.
Imagine a child who goes through those changes
and gets no conversation, and they're self-discovering,
right?
But if a parent prepares a child and expects those,
then it's likely that when these things start to happen,
the child is going to come back to them and say, "Hey,
guess what's happening?
Guess what I'm feeling?"
That begins to set this groundwork for education,
for love and connectedness, for understanding, and for empathy
and to help them grow into that experience.
We want children to understand that sexuality has its purpose
in God's plan, but we also want them to understand that
pornography is something that's different--that it is
absolutely evil.
When a child comes to you, or when you discover that a child
has been exposed to pornography during those ages--really,
with any age it's the same, as far as, you want to react with
calmness.
We want to react with love, with support for the child rather
than anger or disapproval.
Help the child feel that you are on their side,
that you are part of the team that's going
to help them to feel better.
Then from those latency years and that early adolescence,
then you start talking about socialization and sexual
feelings when you're going to a dance,
or when you're touching a girl on the waist,
or you're holding a girl's hand as you dance with her,
and what those feelings might be like.
You're talking about dating and the boundaries of dating.
And we do all of that with this expectation
that "you're going to have certain feelings."
And so it's this lifelong conversation
that begins really young.
And in our world--like we've talked about before,
where we're just kind of awash in pornography
and sexuality--it is ever more necessary for parents to be
fully engaged in shepherding their child's sexuality through
those developmental stages.
We've got to protect, fortify, and prevent our children
having these experiences that could lead
to much, much worse problems.
We recognize it is so important to have
that conversation with each child at the appropriate age
and to be open to their questions.
Once we know that that's our role,
we understand how important it is,
I think parents are motivated to follow through.
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