What If There Were an Easy Way to Talk About the Thing That No One Wants to Talk About?
5 Essential Questions to Ask Your Teen About Sexual Safety
If sexual assault is one of the biggest taboo subjects in our culture, then pornography is its evil twin. What other topics make us squirm so much we reach for the TV remote or scan Facebook in order to focus our thoughts on something else?
We all use screens as a way of managing life, distracting ourselves or just “numbing out” after a hard day. The increase in Netflix subscriptions during the course of the pandemic is a perfect example of how screens have allowed us to cope with some very difficult and troubling issues that affect our lives, every day.
Teens are using screens to distract themselves too, but they are using them for other reasons as well, like: tracking the latest cool song or music video; staying connected with friends throughout the day; conducting research for classes; or finding information that they don’t feel comfortable asking their parents about.
My daughter recently shared that she first stumbled upon a pornography site at ten years old, while she and her cousins were shopping online for a Halloween costume. At the time, she had no iphone, so my computer sitting invitingly on my office desk was a perfect alternative, especially with Halloween just around the corner. As they shopped, an ad for a porn site popped up. All three children made comments to each other about how inappropriate the content was, and left the site. But when my daughter recounted the event, she said, “I couldn’t take back that experience, or erase what I saw.”
My guess is this story exemplifies the “new normal” when it comes to our kids’ exposure to sexually explicit material. As this new normal affects younger and younger children, the age at which they are able to stop themselves from exploring these sites, likewise decreases. And with (according to KeyLogger Review) over twenty-four million pornography sites, prompting more than sixty-eight million daily searches, it is extremely difficult to avoid stumbling across one of them.
What is it that caring adults can do when something as benign as a Halloween costume has the potential to threaten a child’s innocence? We can’t watch our kids’ every move when it comes to screens, and parental restrictions are almost comically easy to get around for a teen who is way more tech savvy than their parents. So how do we equip our children with the kind of discretionary thinking that the new normal requires but that their development has not caught up with yet?
At BSBW, we ask these types of questions every day, as we deliver our courses to parents and teens, work with schools, talk with Title IX officers and meet with counselors.
Our understanding is that we cannot change the new normal, but we can’t ignore it either. In honor of Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM), parents and educators across the nation are taking a closer look at cyber safety, this year’s theme for SAAM.
In doing our part to support cyber-safety, here are 5 straightforward questions parents can ask teens about their online presence:
1) How old were you when you were first exposed to explicit sexual content online?
2) How has that exposure, or anything you’ve witnessed since, affected your understanding of sex and relationships?
3) What do you think about the fact that studies show pornography use has “ruined” the ability for healthy relationships, according to many college-age men?
4) What do you say to a peer or classmate when they send you inappropriate texts or images?
5) What does it feel like when you see something on your screen that you know is wrong or hurts someone else?
These questions will help your teen connect to an essential human trait that supports their safety and well-being. It also happens to be one of BSBW’s five safety tools: intuition.
If you want more information about how to support your teen in developing healthy online relationships while avoiding toxic ones, check out our Wise Steps Parenting Workshop: https://www.bestrongbewise.com/programs-for-parents
Empowered teens are safe teens, and we are here to help!
