TLP 147: Help, I Just Found My Child with Porn! | what to do when your child’s deliberately or accidentally exposed to sexuality

This is the situation we all pray will never happen to our children, but it does happen, and Christian parents need to know how to respond. Join AMBrewster as he discusses a number of practical principles for helping your child whether they deliberately sought it out or were inadvertently exposed to it.
​
Check out 5 Ways to Support TLP.

Like us on Facebook.
Follow us on Twitter.
Follow AMBrewster on Twitter.
Follow us on Pinterest.
Subscribe on YouTube.

Need some help? Write to us at [email protected].​

Click "Read More" for today’s Episode Notes and Transcript.

---

Episode Notes

To download this document, please right-click and select "Save Image As."

---

Transcript

Introduction

We’re in our second episode of season 6. Last time we talked about family game time, but today we’re swinging to the opposite side of the spectrum and discussing pornography. ​

We want to cover all the bases and help every facet of your parenting.

But before we continue I need to say something to the parents of young children. Please don’t skip this episode.

I know, you’re may only be expecting, but I highly suggest you plant these seeds in your mind right now and revisit these concepts multiple times before your kids get too old.

Children are being addicted to pornography in elementary school. They’re having lustful thoughts in kindergarten. Some child in their elementary class drops their pants on a dare. Children are abused at sleepovers. Something you didn’t know would be there flashes across the screen during a family movie.

What are you going to do?

By the way I have personally interacted with every example I just mentioned.

I’ve counseled elementary kids who were addicted to porn.

I distinctly remember having lustful thoughts for an actress when I was in kindergarten.

I worked with a fourth grader who dropped his pants and underwear in front of female classmates at school.

I have relatives who were abused while at a sleepover when they were very little.

My own son was exposed to nudity while we were watching a family movie.

You never know when Satan is going to shoot that particular fiery dart, so you absolutely must have a plan for how to deal with it. And though each of the above issues has a lot in common, they’re also going to require a slightly different take.

So, we’re going to start by discussing the concepts that apply across the board, and then we’ll end off taking about how each of the illustrations I gave might have to be handled differently.

So, here we go.

Topic

Let me start by reminding you of two principles we discussed in episode 28, “A Prediction Concerning Sexuality in Your Children’s Generation.”​

Whether your child has been exposed to sinful sexuality or not, we all need to . . .

1. Talk about Biblical Sexuality Early and Often.

2. Encourage others to talk about it with our children early and often.

Now, those are huge ideas we don’t have time to talk about right now, so please go and listen to that episode. In fact here are some of our other episodes concerning sexuality:

Episode 12 is “Prepare Your Kids. Don’t Protect Them.”
Episode 25 discusses “Parents, Kids, and Techtation”
Episode 30 is all about “Teens and Dating: what God has to say about their crush”
Episode 62 asks whether or not sleepovers are helpful or harmful.
Episode  88 discusses “Apps You Thought Were Safe for Your Kids, But Aren’t”
“A TLP Snippet 10: How to Parent with The Nashville Statement”
The Merest Christianity series answers why our kids do what they do. And that series starts with episode 95.
And “A TLP Snippet 11: How to Parent a ‘Me Too’”

So, laying a biblical foundation for sexuality with your kids is an absolute must. It will help them identify sinful sexuality, and it will prepare them for the attacks.

Now, let’s move to the general principles for the time when your child will be exposed to sinful sexuality.

1. Trust the Lord; don’t freak out. If God is who He says He is, and if His promises are true, God wants to use this situation in your child’s life to help him or her become more like Christ. Galatians 6:1 tells us “Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.” This doesn’t simply mean that you may be tempted to your children’s sin. It can also mean that you will be tempted to another sin — perhaps fear or anger or depression.

2. Remember God’s grace. Romans 5:20 tells us that “Where sin abounds, Grace abounds much more.” There is always hope for forgiveness and growth.

3. Do something. Many parents are tempted to ignore things like this. “Well, we knew it would happen at some point.” “It’s natural for a kid to want to look at that,” and other statements of escapism  tempt us to ignore issues. We need to be preemptive, but whether we miss that opportunity or not, we have to help our children understand what’s going on. We talk about the importance of helping your children interpret life in episode 104.

Another reason some parents don’t get involved is that they don’t feel qualified — or more accurately — they feel disqualified to work their kids through these issues because of their own sinful choices in the past.

Now, assuming you actually want to do something, what should you do?  Well, before you do anything . . .

4. Get help. This is particularly important if you’re a single parent. Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 reads, “9 Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. 10 For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! 11 Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? 12 And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken.”

Friends, it’s in times like these that we’re tempted to cover up the problem. Our pride, our fear, encourages us to hide instead of share with others.

This point is so important I want to share three more passages from the Proverbs.

Proverbs 11:14, “Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety.”

Proverbs 15:22, “Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisers they succeed.”

Proverbs 20:18, “Plans are established by counsel;”

The truth is clear. Please get help.

But who should you get involved? It needs to be a mature, Christ-honoring, Bible-savvy believer. Hopefully this describes your pastor and other men and women in your church.

But it likely may not. 

And for situations like that, you need to reach out to a Biblical counselor. Now, we don’t have time to talk about it right now, but there’s a huge difference between a Biblical counselor and Christian counselor. I know, they should be the same thing, but most people who call themselves Christian counselors give more credence to secular ideology and less to God’s Word.

The Association of Certified Biblical Counselors has a list of all of their counselors on their website. 

And, of course you can contact us at [email protected].

The key is, you need God’s Truth, not man’s opinion.

Alright, so 1. Trust the Lord. 2. Remember God’s grace. 3. Do something. 4. Get help.

Now, you’re ready to talk with your child.

So, 5. Listen. Whether it was on purpose or an accident, you need to find out what lead up to it, what happened, how your child felt, how they responded, everything that happened, what they saw . . . as much as possible. 

And though it has to be done the right way, please don’t not ask important questions because your concerned about making your children uncomfortable. The questions you need to ask are designed to help them thrive despite what happened. If you don’t deal with it, they may survive, but most die under the weight of the sin or situation.

This is why . . .

6. Remember the heart.  Yes, the situation was primarily physical, but the largest issue is a spiritual issue. Rick Thomas, Founder and President of The Counseling Solutions Group, Inc in upstate South Carolina talks about discipling a young man struggling with porn. He said, “While I would want to disciple my children on the sin of pornography — if they were into porn, I would want to disciple them through the deeper and more insidious problems that are going on — the things that feed the porn. I cannot over-emphasize this: our behaviors flow from our hearts and if our hearts are not shepherded toward Christ, then the kid does not have a chance. The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.”

Mark Massey builds on this concept in his article, “So You Found Porn on Your Son’s Computer: 6 Helpful Things to Remember.”

I want to read you what he says because his observations are so helpful.

Mark says, “Some of the more insidious issues of the heart are the following: 

“Slothfulness - the child is lazy, meaning that he is using sex to satisfy himself rather than sex being a beautiful thing that God designed. Sex is not primarily for him, but for his future wife. He is lazy. He is not interested in what God says.

“You will find laziness at the root of a lot of what the child does. Laziness is not a singular tributary out of the soul. Laziness will touch many things in this child’s life. Begin to carefully examine his whole life and you’ll find pockets of laziness in other places, not just how he thinks about and behaves toward sex.

“Dishonoring - More than likely the child knows he is dishonoring his parents, but he does not care. He wants what he wants. Like laziness, you’ll also find this “dishonoring worldview” popping up in other areas of his life.

“If his dishonoring attitude is not taken care of now, there will be many other repercussions in his future, e.g. how he thinks about and works for his future employer and how he loves and serves his future wife are just two examples.

“Deceit/lying - He is lying and living in a lie. This is one of the more heinous sins. When a person lives a lie, then it is difficult to know if anything he says or does is the truth. Lying and deceit in a relationship will destroy a relationship.

"One of the reasons we love God so much is because He always tells the truth. We can assuredly know where we stand with Him. You cannot ever be sure where you stand with a person who lies.

“Self-righteousness - Porn is a form of self-righteousness. The self-righteous person has a greater than/better than attitude. Porn is the devaluing of women. The porn user is “using” women to satisfy his own selfish cravings.

“Self-centeredness - As you might deduce, self-centeredness is the center of the porn users worldview. Whatever is in the center of his life is what defines him. This is who the son really is. Being self-centered will creep into every single facet of this person’s life.

“Ignorance - Part of why he is not trusting God, choosing rather to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, is because there is something he does not understand about God. There is a level of ignorance working in his life. You can find this kind of life portrayed by the life of the fool in Proverbs.

“These are merely a sample of some of the things that have been going on in the kid’s heart–things that have led to his pornography use. As the parents insightfully talk to him, they will find other sinful categories working in his heart too. They will need to carefully unpack him so the roots of porn can be eliminated.”

Man, I don’t think I could have said it any better. I know that situations like this can seem like the worst thing to happen to your kids, but this is truly a secondary issue to the worship war going on in your child’s heart.

7. Submit to God. Please don’t forget that only God can change a sinful heart or help an abused child overcome the experience. 

It’s too easy to make our children our God. Their well-being, their behavior, their experiences become our highest goals.

That must not be the case. We must always live for God and parent for God.
1. Trust the Lord. 2. Remember God’s grace. 3. Do something. 4. Get help. 5. Listen. 6. Remember the Heart. 7. Submit to God.

Now, like I said, those seven principles apply to any and all situations where your child has been exposed to sexuality of any kind and whether or not they were the deliberate perpetrator or the innocent victim.

I have just a couple more principles to share for if your child is the perpetrator or the victim.

If your child is the perpetrator you must not set yourself against them. You are still in their lives as an Ambassador of God. You’re there to help them.

So you need set safe guards in place to help prevent more access and failures. Now, I suppose this principle could also apply to a victim. Obviously, you need to do whatever you can to prevent your child from being exposed again in the future.

But — too often — our rightful knee jerk is to protect the innocent, and our sinful knee jerk is to throw our hands up and abandon the guilty.

They need you. God put you into their lives to prepare them and protect them if they’re not accepting the training.

So whether it involves a filter on all digital devices, curfews, supervision, enhanced accountability, no access to the internet, changing schools, more counseling, whatever . . . it’s worth it if it protects your children from themselves.

Now, on the flip-side, if you’re able to verify that your child was the innocent victim of exposure to sexuality related material, please keep the following principles in mind:

1. Intentionally plan your talk. Don’t wing it. Of course, if you’ve laid a foundation and gotten appropriate help, you should already have made your plan. 

2. Don’t shame your child or scare them into thinking that they’re now broken. 

In our anger and fear it’s too easy to leave our children with the impression that life will never be the same. Remember, our God is a God of hope. He wants to use situations like this for the best interest of your child and your family.

They will never be too broken, they will never have seen anything too sinful, they’ll never have experienced anything too dramatic for healing.

3. Don’t Lecture. Your children will need to understand what happened to them, but you first need to understand what they currently think about it. Listen well and converse with them. Avoid the temptation to soapbox. Make sure you understand how they felt. You can deliver the same lecture no matter who’s listening, but you really need to know your child before you can parent them appropriately. 

Along those same lines, if your child truly was innocent in the situation . . .

4. Reassure them that they’re not in trouble. They should already have gotten that impression from you interaction with them, but it’s valuable to say the words.

I’m super excited about the openness my son and I have to discuss sexual things, and I think it all started because I discussed the material as casually as I did anything else, and I never gave him the impression that he was going to be in trouble for asking things or making statements about what he was thinking.

Now, that’s different than this situation, but the truth still stands. Help them interpret the situation. They may likely be feeling very guilty for what they saw or heard or felt. Help them understand the reality.

5. Prepare your child to know how to respond in the future.

This may mean helping them understand the danger of surfing the internet. It may mean teaching them to be aware of the warning signs. It may be an action plan for what to do if someone says something. Teach your children that for which to watch and listen.

So, don’t shame or scare them. Don’t lecture. Instead, reassure them that they’re not in trouble, and prepare them for future attacks. And in situations where your child is the victim of a crime . . .

6. Take whatever legal steps need to be taken.

Consequences were created by God. God ordained government to protect the righteous and punish the wicked. It’s not spiritual or Christ-honoring to avoid taking the appropriate legal steps to make certain that sinful people are held accountable.

If your child was deliberately exposed to pornography by someone, report them. If someone did or said anything to your child that was inappropriate, report them. Even if — and especially if — it was a family member.

It’s against the law in most states to say anything sexual, show anything sexual, or do anything sexual with a minor. And that includes if another minor is the one abusing.

Please, seek counsel, but do not be persuaded to just overlook it because “kids will be kids.” That’s not biblical.

Alright, let’s finish up by going back through the real-life examples I gave at the beginning of the show. I appreciate your patience, and I think this last part will be very helpful as we look at how each of the following situations may have to be handled a little differently. Of course, all the guiding principles we just discussed will have to be followed, I’m just going to talk about what makes each example unique.

1. I’ve counseled elementary kids who were addicted to porn. These situations nearly always started because someone in the past exposed them to porn or abused them. Discovering that will be extremely important to protect them moving forward.

2. I distinctly remember having lustful thoughts for an actress when I was in kindergarten. Listen, whether you did or not, you need to talk with your children and ask careful questions to understand the types of things going through their heads.

I don’t think my parents knew how sexually minded I was in kindergarten, and it was a long time before they started speaking about biblical sexuality. So, I had all that time to come up with my own opinions on the matter.

Don’t assume your child is innocent. Be premeditated and proactive to discern where your children are and parent them there.

3. I worked with a fourth grader who dropped his pants and underwear in front of female classmates at school.

If your child was one of the little girls, and if you hadn’t already had this conversation, I would take the time to explain the biological differences between boys and girls — thereby starting a conversation for biblical sexuality — and then I’d teach them why we keep that part of our bodies covered up.

I go back to Genesis and discuss why Adam and Even covered their bodies and then why God covered their bodies.

And the rule we have in our house is that the only people allowed to see our children’s private areas are mommy and daddy if absolutely necessary, a doctor if mommy and daddy say it’s okay, and our children’s future spouses once they’re married.

Again, that’s helping them know how to respond to certain situations and continuing the discussion of biblical sexuality.

Of course, depending on the age of the children, it may be appropriate to contact the authorities. 

Now, if your child was the one who dropped his pants, you’re going to have to have similar conversations. You’re going to have to teach him about why we cover up. But you’re also gong to have to discern why he did what he did so you can parent his heart.

4. I have relatives who were abused while at a sleepover when they were very little. 

This is one of those situations we all hope and pray will never happen.

First, please know that unless we’re being super observant and have consistent lines of transparent communication with our kids before anything bad happens, we may never know they were abused. 

So many of our conversations about biblical sexuality are designed to make it easier for them to talk to us in the event of a worst case scenario. That’s why we can’t afford to wait.

Of course, we must take all legal steps. Sexual sins against anyone must be appropriately addressed — I don’t care who the perpetrator was.

Doctors may have to be brought in to verify the child’s physical health, but a Christ-honoring community of biblical counselors must also be brought in.

And hopefully, you’ve already started creating that community of people who genuinely love your children and speak God’s Truth into their lives.

5. My own son was exposed to nudity while we were watching a family movie.

I grew up watching a particular movie, but it was the television version of the movie. Well, when I decided to show it to my family, I didn’t know that a particular scene had been edited out of the version I watched.

So, there in the middle of the movie one of the characters is watching National Geographic and there are a bunch of aboriginal women dancing around with exposed chests.

Now, this was in a 1994, PG rated movie!

Well, it flashed onto the screen, I dove to cover it up, and I thought I’d been successful, until I found out later that my son had just barely seen it and been thinking about what he saw.

Man. Talk about feeling like a failure as a parent.

So, I started by apologizing to my son for inadvertently putting him into that situation. That’s super important.

Thankfully, I’d been laying a good foundation of God’s view of sexuality, and we were able to go from there.

But, the other really important step that needed to be taken was how I responded to my own failure. I counsel kids every day who are addicted to pornography. I had such lofty goals for protecting my kids. I knew what had to be done, I was crossing all my “t’s” and dotting all my “i’s,” and when it was all said and done, my son’s first sexually oriented glimpse came about because of a movie I chose to watch with my kids.

Satan can really use that to tear a person up. But remember, when you beat yourself up like that, you’re being prideful. Yes, you have to apologize to your child and to God, but you have to acknowledge that God has forgiven you for your lapse.

His grace is sufficient, don’t arrogantly short-change God’s grace because you want to have a pitty-party. Don’t tell yourself that you can’t parent the way God wants. He’s in the business of changing people and doing so in the midst of the most uncomfortable situations.

You need to embrace His hope and grace and forgiveness just as much as your children do.

Conclusion

Now, we just took a long time to discuss a huge subject, but there is so much more that could be said, and would need to be said in the worst case scenarios.​

This is merely an introduction. It’s not the complete answer.

If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact us at [email protected]. 

Ans study these topics and issues in greater detail.

There is hope and security in Christ, and our goal is to open your eyes to the needs and instill in you a desire to learn more.

See you next time.