A little girl goes to a friend’s home to play. Instead of playing with dolls, the two girls hide away in the closet and watch hard-core porn on the family’s iPad.

Is the fact that the iPad was not password-protected the biggest mistake her parents made?

No.

Smart parents understand that the Internet is a dangerous place for kids. To protect their children’s developing minds, they install filters on their computers and password protect mobile devices.

They may even reach out to other parents to make sure they are doing the same.

Their biggest mistake? To think they’ve done enough.

So if a parent has already installed Internet filters, what else can they do to protect their kids? The answer: Teach them to install their own internal filter.

With more and more kids getting exposed on school computers, an internal filter is crucial.

What's an Internal Filter?

It’s the understanding of what pornography is, how it affects the brain, and an action plan to use when kids are innocently exposed to it.
​
Here are three steps to help your kids install their own filter.

1. Define the word pornography.
2. Explain that viewing pornography can hurt their brain (just like drugs).
3. Give them an action plan to use when they see sexually explicit media.​​​

Define Pornography

​​Some parents shy away from even saying the word pornography, but that just gives it more power. 

Jill Manning, PhD, author of What's the Big Deal About Pornography? A Guide for the Internet Generation and an expert who has testified before Congress on the dangers of pornography, advises parents to define the term so kids are clear about what we want them to avoid.

“Being clear on what pornography is and how to recognize it is the first step to protecting ourselves.”

​Let’s bring this darkness out into the light without apology or shame. For some great tips, check out How to Define Pornography for a 7-Year Old.

​Pornography Can Hurt the Brain

More and more brain research is demonstrating what mental health practitioners already know: viewing pornography can lead to a lifelong addiction that can be more difficult to overcome than addictions to drugs, alcohol or tobacco. And because kids have easy access to the internet, these addictions are beginning younger and younger.

​Recently, Valerie Voon from Cambridge University published the results of a study which showed that pornography addiction leads to the same brain activity as alcoholism or drug abuse. Another study done in Germany documented brain shrinkage in people addicted to pornography. These and many others studies are beginning to show that pornography can damage the brain just like drugs do.

What do your young kids need to know? That just like other drugs, viewing pornography can lead to brain damage and addiction. For more kid-friendly information about how pornography affects the brain (and a child’s freedom), read Hey Kids! Freedom Begins in Your Brain.

Give Your Kids an Action Plan!

This is where you get to help your kids with some specific strategies. Answer these questions to help you devise your family’s porn exposure action plan:

1. When they see it, what should they do immediately? (Shut down the device—it’s good idea to practice this drill.)
2. Who should they tell if they are ever exposed to pornography? (Kids often keep exposure to pornography a secret for a variety of reasons—encourage them to tell you and assure them that they won’t get in trouble.)
3. How can they deal with the memories of the porn exposure that keep popping up? (This is a cognitive skill—for some helpful tips, read Teach Kids Two Ways to “Forget” Porn.)

​If you’d like more ideas to help your kids proactively defend themselves against pornography, check out the best-selling read-aloud book Good Pictures Bad Pictures: Porn-Proofing Today’s Young Kids about a mom and dad who teach their child what pornography is, why it’s dangerous, and specifically how to reject it.

​I am convinced of this truth: As we face the dangers of pornography head-on, our kids won’t have to face them alone.

Please share this article with anyone you know who has young children or grandchildren. Thank you!

More is not always better. Constant entertainment can sap our own creativity and make us more sedentary. An ongoing news feed keeps us aware of not only minute-by-minute drama among friends and acquaintances, but anxiety-producing issues around the entire world! Boundaries help us sort out what’s really worthwhile in all this information and stimulation.

Technology is good, just like food is good. But both need limits for a healthy life.

When our eating habits get out of control, we ingest smaller portions or choose to put certain foods off limits. Technology overload is no different. Here are ten ideas on how to take “tech breaks” to get back into balance.

1.  Check phones and devices at the door. Many families are choosing to turn in phones after school and work to protect family time. Once the phones are on the chargers, the night is for homework, meal and family time. Require that homework on the computer be done in a common area.

2.  Check phones and devices at events. Having a party? Let kids and parents know their phones and devices will be checked until pick-up time. Have a basket ready!

3.  Plan your next adult gathering tech-free. Let invitees know that phones will be stored to allow everyone to spend time together. Play charades or use some conversation starters that include everyone. Wouldn’t that be a great trend?

4.  Have one night a week that is technology free. Family or couple or single, choose to engage that night without the TV, without the computer, without phones. Get creative, take a walk, play a board game, bake or cook supper together.

5.  Set a regular time of night that all phone and online communication ends. Phones are gathered and held by mom and dad unless permission is asked. Talking to a boyfriend or girlfriend until a child falls asleep is never a good idea. Call it “sleeping together,” and just say no.

6.  Plan a tech-free vacation. No, it’s not crazy. You need this. Schedule a single movie, or two. Have one phone on hand for emergencies and pictures. Leave the rest at home. Swim, walk, talk, sleep in, play games, explore, and learn to share and work together. It doesn’t have to be every vacation. Just one (or even a part of one!)

7.  Wait longer to give phones and/or devices to kids. A child’s first phone should be used for emergencies only. Know exactly what the phone is capable of FIRST. If it’s higher tech than you’re willing to manage, buy a simpler phone. Teach your child that a phone is a not an appropriate status symbol, but a tool that requires great responsibility and can be taken away at any time.

8.  Don’t hesitate to remove a phone or device from any child’s possession if they are young enough to live in your house. If you are paying for the phone, you decide how it’s to be used. If they are paying for the phone, you still make the house rules. A phone is not required for survival. Do not award a phone to a child without the character to manage it honorably.

9.  Set limits on your own phone and devices. Check phone messages, email or social networks at limited times during the day.

10.  Choose ring tones that alert you to calls from family members. This allows you to be available to your kids, spouse or parents while saving other conversations for later.

Some of these ideas may sound daunting at first, but start with an easy one and work up. You may be surprised at the changes you see, and at how much you’ve been missing. So what are you waiting for? Make some tech-free plans today!

I give credit to Donald Miller for this phrase and honestly can’t think of a better way to describe the life-sucking device we call a television. Wait! Don’t write me off yet. Reading this blog could be the best thing you ever did. Really.

I’m the worst offender when it comes to being distracted by a television set. I have burned dinner, ignored my family, and missed opportunities more times than I can count because of TV or movie watching. Worse, I have a tendency towards depression that is only exacerbated by sitting in front of a TV, then realizing how much time has passed (usually wasted on less-than-quality material).

Yes, as anxious creatures, we need ways to unwind. And from time to time, a well-done bit of entertainment via the boob tube (or computer) could be just the relaxation we need.

But not that often.

What makes me seriously consider the danger of TV watching is recognizing how many of us see it as a default. We come home from work to sit down to TV every night, or we switch on the TV when “nothing else” is going on (besides life), or we use the TV as a babysitter because we’re so very, very tired of our child’s screaming.

We are passive, sitting, not communicating, might-as-well-be-hooked-up-to-an-IV in many cases. It reminds me of the scene in The Matrix when Neo wakes up in the pod, and people all around him are hooked up as unwitting energy-producers.

Do we really want to give the hours of our life away so easily?

Statistics:

• The American Academy of Pediatrics urges parents to remove TVs from children’s rooms. Negative effects: lower grades, less exercise, less healthy food, less family participation. Duh.

• Better Homes and Gardens: “The scientific evidence is absolutely clear: “What children watch on TV and at the movies can have an effect on their behaviors and attitudes and what they think is normal and acceptable.” And I don’t think kids are the only ones.

• Screenwriter Joe Estzterhaus said, “A cigarette in the hands of a Hollywood star is a gun aimed at a 12 or 14 year old.” The same would apply to drug use, promiscuity or pole-dancing. Watching is a step towards finding it “cool” and trying it. We often become what we watch.

• A RAND Corporation study says that adolescents with a high level of television exposure are twice as likely to get pregnant or impregnate someone. Why? Because sexual content is appearing approximately every 10 minutes in general grown-up shows. Monkey see, monkey do.

• John Robinson, a social professor at the University of Maryland, studied 45,000 individuals over a period of 34 years and concluded that the unhappiest were those who watched the most TV.

Need I say more?

Think about your TV viewing. Maybe it’s time to take a break, or dream about what else that time could be used for; to ask, “What did we do before TV?” I know the question is old and worn threadbare. But really … the answers could radically change the rest of our lives. Think about it. Dream about it. Make a plan to do more of what you really want to do before you die. But turn your TV off while you do.