teachkidsPorn isn’t going anywhere.

It’s been around since humans first learned to draw, and as technology has increased, so has the capacity to turn that technology into porn.

This is the world we live in, and so as a parent, you’re probably wondering: how should I teach kids about porn? Or better yet, what should you teach kids about porn?

There are plenty of things in this world you’ll need to teach kids about.

Porn should be one of them, so here are four crucial things about porn you need to impart to your children:

1) It will shape their brain and their worldview in ways they can’t imagine.

Viewing porn has strong physiological effects on the brain even in adults; your kids have brains that are still in the throes of development, meaning porn viewing will shape them in much more long-lasting ways.

Additionally, using pornography as a means of visual stimulation (and then catapulting that into the physical self-stimulation of masturbation) causes those who use porn to see people as mere things.

In other words, especially in young men, porn creates a worldview that says women are merely things to be used for self-pleasure, not uniquely, individually created beings with a heart, soul, and a mind of their own.

[ctt title=”Porn creates a worldview that says women are merely things to be used.” tweet=”Porn creates a worldview that says women are merely things to be used. – http://ctt.ec/Oq78D+ ( by @X3church @craiggross)” coverup=”Oq78D”]

This can shape your child’s entire interactions with members of the opposite sex – they deserve to know the truth about their developing brains so they can work with nature to shape their minds and worldview in healthy directions.

2) Sexual curiosity is natural – but that doesn’t make it worth acting on.

Your kids are walking cauldrons full of raging, boiling hormones. Their bodies are being flooded with all kinds of information and stimulation as they transition from childhood into full adulthood, and as a result, plenty of senses are coming awake that have long remained dormant.

Your kids are getting sexually curious, whether you want them to or not. They need to know this about themselves, and they need to know that this kind of curiosity is perfectly natural – but they also need to know that acting on it is the worst kind of bad idea.

Remind your kids that their bodies will tell them all kinds of fantastical tales about their sexuality, but that it’s important to control their bodies by thinking and planning ahead of time to redirect sexual energies in more positive, healthy ways.

[shortcode-variables slug=”circle-inline”]3) Their peers probably have a cavalier attitude about it – but so what?

Recent surveys from the Barna group indicate that only 1/3 of teens and young adults consider it wrong to look at pornography. That’s a staggering turnaround from past attitudes about it, but even though we might not like it, that’s just the way it is.

So teach your kids to have this response: “so what?”

So what if their peers are okay with porn?
So what if seemingly everyone around them is into it?
So what if it seems to be the norm in their world?

That doesn’t mean anything for them. Their peers also think that French fries make a great lunch or that eight straight hours playing Fallout 4 is a great way to spend an evening. Their peers already have terrible ideas – porn is just another one of them.

4) It will probably find them before they find it.

In that same survey, the researchers found that almost 3/4 of teens and young adults reported seeing something sexually explicit online – whether they were looking for it or not. That second half is the thing that we parents don’t really want to hear, but, again, that’s the reality of the world we live in.

Sexually arousing imagery is ubiquitous in our culture, and your child running across it is practically inevitable. It’s our job as parents to prepare our kids for adulthood, so this is a great chance to give them a leg up on the lifelong task of clicking past porn.

Teach them not to seek it out, of course, but also to keep going right on past it whenever it falls in their path.

Hopefully their understanding of their developing minds, their knowledge of what’s happening to them hormonally, and their well-defined sense of self in defiance of their peer group will help them make the best decisions in the moment.[shortcode-variables slug=”x3watch-bottom-ad-premium”]