Raising Children to be P-Free

[settgfree]

It seems that there is a commonality between many addicts in that early exposure to p leads to later bondage to it.

Has anyone here had the "P is horrible, God hates mb, etc..." talk from their parents when they were little? Is this an effective deterrent?

My parents don't know that I have a problem with it, but I had found p at both my mother and father's houses when I was younger.

They never said anything to me about it, even when they found that I had raided their stash, probably because they were divorced and neither wanted to be the "uncool" parent.

My plan for raising my boys is to:

1) Keep a P-Free household
2) Use Covenant Eyes to monitor their internet use
3) If I find it, have a very serious talk with them about it.

However, I don't want to tell them mb is bad and have the Sex-Ed teacher at school make a liar out of me.

Anyone with more experience have any tips or thoughts?

[somedood]

I have all the hope and desire that my son will not experience this hell, and will expend his energy on more positive things. My inital plan as a completely new parent is:

1 - Be an example. Demonstrate what I do to avoid suggestive material, including things on the internet, TV, movies, ads etc. I think that if he sees me changing the channel when shows that have women dressed provacitively come up, (same goes with all other forms of media) it would have an impact on his decision making.

2 - Service. I want to have him (and any other other children we may have) to learn how to help others, not just themselves. I think these addictions are all pretty self-serving, maybe having a bit of selflessness would keep their "mental ground" too hostile for the P beast to grow.

3 - Emotional connectedness. I would like my children to understand and be able to deal with their emotions in a healthy manner. This is something I am not very good at yet, so it will be difficult for me to lead by example on this one initially, though I hope to improve. If he can learn healthy coping strategies initially in his life, then that should be yet another nurtient that the addictive beast does not have.

Maybe this is really idealistic thinking, but it is what I am striving for.

[settgfree]

Thanks dood.

I was raised by my mom and she did EVERYTHING herself. I definitely got the "God helps those that help themselves" mentality. (Even though that is wrong thinking.)

I think the service aspect you mentioned is very good. I will teach my sons that God helps those that help others.

[breakingfree]

Interestilng topic. I have three kids, all of them P free. I am an addict with a fifteen year P run. I didn't raise them to be P free although I was pretty good at hiding my use from them (except for some glimpses of MA movies on cable)

So what does this mean? Not sure. I would like to think about it some more. My initial(pat) answer is that even though I am a P addict I am still a pretty good Dad(Mrs. BF has said this, so I am not be totally out of line here). Maybe being the best parent you can be, to be loving and supportive is more imporant than their exposure to P. Trust me, what ever you do or dont do at home, they have unlimited access to it virtually everywhere.

bf

[fragile]

I think the "P is bad, God hates it" will not give children a p-free life.
I remember when we got our first computer and got it connected to the internet. My parents always kept telling us that if they find out that any of us view p, computer and internet both go... lol... nope.. didn't happen. We kids tend to get really "smart" with computers and especially internet.

I think that if kids are given a good "why" it's bad then it'll give them fear of it. I based my p-free life before I started using it on the "God" statement, but human nature is if it's bad, then it's "good."
Now, if kids are told that it's bad, and given a good list of "why?" what can happen, then they'll know that it's going to serve in ruining their lives.

[facingit]

I don't think there's any surefire way to raise kids that are anything free. Kids eventually make their own decisions. I think P is like anything else - you hope to be a good influence, a good example and show them right from wrong the best as you can.

[settgfree]

Keeping a P-Free house would have kept me from finding it when I was 8, and seeking it out since then.

I think that is the key that I will focus on, as well as being an example to my kids by helping out at church, etc.

I know I can't protect them from everything, but I can do my best to keep them from being exposed at an early age like I was.

[nrobinson]

think that having a talk may be the answer. I have (what I personally consider to be) some of the best parents in the world. They've been married for over 30 years, they're God-fearing people, they love each other, and never kept P in the house, but they never spoke to me about P or the birds and the bees or anything else, for that matter. And I ended up a PA. My stepson is 8 years old. He went to visit his father and grandparents out of state last summer and was found looking up an adult site on the internet. I'm at loss for how to approach it in the future due to my recent admission of my own problem. I've removed all P from our computers and all are now password protected, so he won't see it at home. And hopefully, after I've defeated my addiction and have a personal testament to the damage and harm it does to families, I'll be more able to convince him to stay away from it.

[kaoskorruption]

I'm young and still living with my parents. I can tell you that when I was in the core of my addiction (coming home every single day to an empty house and looking at P after school to relieve stress) I didn't know that P was bad. I knew my parents would KILL me for looking at it, I just didn't know why. I thought it was like cussing - not bad for the health, just inappropriate. I had NO IDEA that it was an addiction, that it broke apart families, got people fired, etc... If my parents had told me that it was bad in the same way that they told me things like smoking were bad, I would never have gotten into it.

[due4change]

Hmmm, this topic really has me thinking. I have 2 kids, boy and a girl, 6 and 7 years old and really do not want them to go through what I have.

I do think that one thing is to have a P-free home, at least as much as possible. We all know how the internet is really how people get into it now. It's not like it was when I found my dads stash back in the day.

The other thing is just talking to them about s** and MB. I think that if you can build a good honest relationship with your kids that includes them being able to talk to you about those things then you are on your way to having kids that are not PA's.

You see in my house growing up my parents had a big fold out poster behind their bedroom door. I was still young enough to not think too much about it but I know I did show it to my friends whenever we could sneek a peek. Then there was huge stash that was found one day out in the shed again when I was quite young. I guess that is really when it all started for me. I'm not really sure how old I was but I'm thinking that I was about 10 or 11. To top it all off I never really got a birds and the bees talk so I guess I just kind of formed my own ideas from what I found in those mags.

So hopefully I can use the knowledge of my own upbringing and my problems to educate my kids and get them to lead a P free life.

[somedude]

My son is 9. That's not a good age to discuss pornography. I installed a blocker on his laptop. Youtube is blocked AND not allowed. He doesn't understand why we block his laptop, but it's not for him to understand yet. I also refuse to give him an email address. He does not understand that either. In both cases, I simply tell him the internet is not a safe place for kids to wander around, and that some email messages are not for kids.

It goes further. We block MTV, VH1, and all that crap. We also have the parental controls set to block all TV content rated TV14 or worse. I know what he watches anyway, but the parental controls are a nice safety net. iTunes has parental controls too. I have those turned on for him. I also have my email address set as the place iTunes sends purchase receipts so that I know exactly what he's buying. If I wonder about a title he's purchased, I ask.

I also plan for the future. Here's a good example. He's a real sporto. He reads Sports Illustrated Kids at school. When he brings it home, I don't comment one way or the other, but he can't have a subscription to it. Why? Because, while SI Kids is fine, its a gateway publication for Sports Illustrated. What does that magazine do annually? They have that stupid Swimsuit Issue. The Swimsuit Issue is a sexist piece of soft porn crap. It's totally inconsistent for me to allow SI Kids, but refuse to allow him to have SI when he's older.

So that's it. Am I strict compared to other parents? About the rot that passes as popular media but is not much better than soft porn, yes. My son is allowed to be his own person in a safe and secure environment free of mixed messages about sex, and free of harmful imagery and media.

Tim

[swisha]

As an 18 y o I can understand adult's concerns with pornography. If I had a son I know what I would want to focus on:

HEALTHY RELATIONSHIPS. My advice would be to treat EVERY girl on TV or in real life or on the internet or whatever, with the same respect they would treat their sister/mother. If they are doing something they would hate to see their mother or sister doing...it is wrong. it is repressive, unfair etc.

What I think would be truly amazing, is if kids from a young age could actively abstain from anything luring them into compromising sutiations. That would an impressive society. If young guys would switch off youtube videos which were womanising, and if they abstained from any such culture, and looked towards culture, music and TV that maintained a moral high ground, extended a high standard of happiness.

I think as a father I would want to be creative in how to teach my kids to uphold such a principle.

[facingit]

kaoskorruption said:

I'm young and still living with my parents. I can tell you that when I was in the core of my addiction (coming home every single day to an empty house and looking at P after school to relieve stress) I didn't know that P was bad. I knew my parents would KILL me for looking at it, I just didn't know why. I thought it was like cussing - not bad for the health, just inappropriate. I had NO IDEA that it was an addiction, that it broke apart families, got people fired, etc... If my parents had told me that it was bad in the same way that they told me things like smoking were bad, I would never have gotten into it.

I think that's an excellent point. Soemtimes we hurt our children by trying to protect them from ugly truths.

[chad32]

This is a really useful thread - my boys are only 5 and 1 years old, but I want to be thinking about them. I don't want them to get into the whole P in secrecy thing. How old do you all think that boys should be before they are warned about dangerous pictures on the internet?

My 5 year old can already surf the internet, but he currently can't get beyond the children's sites I show him, but I know he'll be better on computers than me before I know it!

Chad