Preventing Kids from Watching Porn

Transcript

welcome to the Shameless podcast where I help Christian men kill shame stand strong and live on Mission I'm your host Ken play and I'm bringing you real stories practical insights and biblical truths that equip you to break free from your sin shame and live a life of purpose let's step out of the Shadows together and Into the Light of Christ all right everybody welcome back to another fantastic episode today we're going to have a a slightly different conversation a lot of our conversations are geared towards you right finding the help but for many of you who are listening your dads right and you have kids and you've always wondered how do you help your kids right with the issue of pornography or how do you help them prevent even falling into that trap so that's what we're actually going to talk about helping kids your kids specifically overcome pornography and today I have Jason weening here he is a dad of 10 kids and a husband of just one wife he speaks and writes to encourage men to be intentional in their most important organization not their company but their family and he is the host of the helping men Thrive podcast Jason welcome to the podcast man thank you Ken I'm glad to be here I'm I love what you're doing it's so important so love it thank you yeah absolutely man Jason before we jump into it I know that people heard the intro and they heard 10 kids how in the world do you pull that off right I'm over here with four like Lord Jesus come now yes Ken I get asked that question a lot and I have a great wife and you do it one at a time except when you have twins then it's two at a time so we have eight-year-old twin girls but really yeah it's one at a time and you learn as you go and it is it is an organization to some degree at some point well you've got four kids so you're outnumbered two to one so you get a little bit I kind of think once you're at three you're outnumbered and 3 four 5 10 you're outnumbered so you just got to do the best that you can and hopefully empower the ones at the top of the list to leverage your uh influence through the rest of them you know the influence of older kids to Young that's a whole other topic on itself but yes oh 100% you know my wife constantly reminds me in a good way of like how if we train the older to right it's like a ripple effect for all of the younger ones uh and I was like we're just now starting to learn how to become good parents if someone would have taught us like how do we train the first two to be really good and obviously that's the work of the Holy Spirit too but you know there's stuff that we could do man we would have been in such a better shape so we're learning we're on the- go parenting and I think that's right by the time you get to your 10th I'm sure you're like we got this in the bag this is easy well I say to my I say to my oldest kids like my oldest is she'll be 19 next week and I I say hey I'm gonna make mistakes I've never had a 19-year-old but in 19 years I won't be able to use that line anymore on my on my baby who's six months right now because I had nine 19 year old so I should know by then what it's like to have a 19y old oh that's awesome well I I'm sure I'll be reaching out to you many times after this like how do I do this but Jason you know as we jump into our conversation I first I'm curious what led you to talk about intentional fatherhood and especially helping men you know to talk about this issue of pornography with their kids because quite frankly not a lot of people talk about it and sometimes fathers think that intentional fatherhood is just Financial provision right so what made you decide to like let's go in and talk about this yeah well there are a lot of facets to the areas that we can influence our children that's for sure but this one of the authors I read I think it was maybe Barrett Johnson said sexuality is the greatest battle field of our time and the battlefield is littered with casualties and if we look around us at the marriages of our friends that that's what kind of spurred me to start the podcast was just talking about friends who marriages were falling apart these were good Christian guys in small groups in our church doing well in business but at home things were not going so but really the heart of it started with a mutual friend of ours Heath Stoner 25 years ago now it's hard to believe that Heath ran a program called the trailer club and it was about he was helping young guys learn how to be better husbands and better fathers before we became husbands and fathers and his SL his slogan or his motto that was for the trailer Club was what one man can do another man can do the theory behind that is if you know a dad who is a great father or you know an older man who's a grandfather who has children that have grown up to become adults and grandchildren guys that have won near the end of their lives well what one man could do another man can do if he could do it well well young guys like us we could learn to do it well too by asking them questions by learning by reading by having discussions with other men so really it was in 2000 2001 in that neighborhood where I think God really put a seed in my heart before I was married before I was a father you know to kind of start preparing for the future I have a great dad you know this for me it didn't come from like a father wound kind of a place my dad is awesome I love love them we have a great relationship but really just seeing the need around us seeing the need in my own friends lives you know dads you matter what you do matters you've got so much influence on your kids like it is you got more influence than anyone else and it's so important and Jason you know you just said something really important dads you matter right but many times dads don't feel like that especially when it comes to this topic of helping their their sons and their daughters talk about pornography and lust in this issue why do they why do you feel like parents and specifically dads have a hard time sharing and talking about this topic well can I've uh listened to some of your other interviews you know shame is the big topic that comes up when we start talking about pornography start talking about this issue start talking about masturbation all this kind of stuff that is not you don't have these sorts of conversations every day at your coffee break while you're sitting at your softball game with the boys you're not having these kinds of conversations by any means because I think that shame is such a huge part of it make a difference in people's lives by shaming them into it the story where they wanted to Stone the lady and he said well which one of you is without sin then you throw the first Stone and they all went away and he looked at the lady and said where are your accusers Jesus is not accusing us but there is an accuser out there who does want to accuse us and does want to build up those walls of Shame and keep us from engaging in this with our kids so shame is a huge thing I think also our own upbringing I don't know about you Ken but I had I can think of one but Pro maybe two conversations with my dad about this kind of stuff one was basic like birds and the bees you know and and the other you know I don't even know if there was another one so have we had this modeled for us I don't know if we have I don't know many guys that have had this modeled for them so part of it is shame I think and part of it is I don't know what to do just a lack of training yeah I haven't been trained to do this Heath used to say you know how long do you train to become a plumber or a mechanic or doctor or a lawyer you can be doing apprenticeships you can be doing eight years 10 years of schooling and stuff well how many years did you go to school to learn how to be a dad or learn how to be a husband yeah uh anyone you know I I remember when Heath used to say that to us and I felt so convicted in a good way like oh my gosh you're right like we do all this training for everything but we rarely do the training to be good husbands or good Fathers it's like oh maybe we read a book think about even like before you get married married premarital counseling you're like you do six sessions and then it's like then what right it's just like no there's actually a lot of stuff that happens after you get married that like you that's when you need it I remember and I don't know if you were there at the time when we were at the internship John Bushnell does that name ring about to you I know John Bush now yeah yeah so he actually did a pre-engagement counseling with us wow what a concept I know what a concept like hey before you even think about get getting married let's just sit down and talk and figure out between me and her like is this really the thing you guys want to do I mean it was like the most pivotal moment for me to be like oh my gosh I want to marry my wife and then we did premarital counseling with him and then we did post-marital counseling right like there was all this training that we did with you know him that like set us up to win right like I know right now we're in a complete tangent I'll bring it back I'm writing it down I'm like I just wrote it down my daughter's 19 I'm like pre-engagement counseling well I love it it was huge I mean he has a whole curriculum so for all of you who are listening John Bush he's got a whole curriculum it's awesome but one of the things that I remember thinking is I remember people telling us wow the first year or first two years of marriage was so hard and that was just not our case and I don't want to be like Oh I'm special I think it's because we had the training that you were talking about right like we had someone who came and trained us like 6 months before we got married and then like 6 months after we were married someone was there coaching us on how to deal with these conversations and built these muscles and habits for us right so it was a huge victory in that regards now going back to our conversation here about dads right same thing about training dads they don't feel like they know what to do in this conversation so uh let's walk them through some practical tips on how do you help okay a father right who she wants to help their kids right how do you help them gain some great practical tips on start working with their kids that's a great question Ken and I think we don't have to feel like we're an expert to go back to the shame thing sometimes we don't want to talk about this stuff because of our own past mistakes or our own current struggles yeah and we feel like I don't want to I can't go through this with my kids because I haven't figured it all out yet either uh Yoda said uh didn't he say like do or do not do there is no try or something like that I think I'm botching the quote but it's okay Disney botch Disney last three videos that's fine that's Yoda is wrong he's wrong try there is a try even if your heart is racing and your hands are sweating and you don't know what you're gonna say to your last week Ken my 10-year-old son we're driving in the van last week he says Dad uh how do people I kind of think I know but how do people breed like he says I think I know but I just want to ask you you know and I felt my heart racing and I've had the conversation with his four older siblings so so this is the fifth time I'm having the conversation it did get a little bit easier but we got to just have the conversation and if you've you know do you are are you a professional baseball player uh Ken no you didn't play in the major leagues I didn't see you okay I actually I might have played for the Yankees you know at some point when I was 14 you know yeah yeah no doubt you're the child prodigy yeah but I bet you've probably like tossed the ball with your kids you had a catch with your kids you know we don't have to be the pastors the C the therapists the professionals we can just be their dad and we can have a catch we can just toss the ball with our kids we can figure it out as we go just give it a shot I think that's that's where we got to go feel the fear and do it anyways yeah you know I remember before we recorded actually for those of you who are listening to this this is the second time we had to record this because the first time welcome to technology botched it up but the first time we talked about this one of the steps that you talked about is creating a safe space for both yourself right to mess up but then a safe space for your kids to be able to have these discussions walk us through what does creating that kind of safe space look like so one of the authors that I read it could have been in Barrett Johnson again I mentioned him already in his book The Talks there's another book called unwanted and it's more about sexual healing I it came for one of those two sources I think but the author said we need to make pornography y a casual term and what he meant by that was that when we talk about we've got to bring it up with our kids even at a young age a couple other good resources there's a book called good pictures bad pictures there's an older kids version and like a under s version very innocent just painted drunk very like it doesn't show anything just great books to have the conversation and I have read this with my eight-year-olds I'm going to say and actually we were reading it and their 5-year-old brother came running out of his room and he's like I heard you talking about cornography and it's like well you didn't quite get it there buddy but but we're bringing it up we're talking about it and you mentioned the term safe space like giving our kids an opportunity to ask questions and when they ask questions don't shame them about it like curiosity and attraction and sexual attraction okay two things curiosity first of all it's okay to be curious about about things and we're curious about lions and tigers and crocodiles and things but that doesn't mean we jump in the cage at the zoo with the lion and get into it no we watch safely from outside of the cage in a healthy environment and that's like a family a healthy environment with a mom and dad to talk about these issues that you're curious about so I asked my boys when I tuck them in I ask my boys and my girls you know do you have any questions you know at the end of the day hey do you have any questions for me about anything and it doesn't have to be about pornography or things like that but I did ask my son when he was asking me on Tuesday night about how humans breed we I explained it to him and I said any other questions you have or have you seen anything you want to ask me about just creating it so that it's not a let talk about pornography bring it up in the home in a in a safe place so that it becomes part of your lifestyle to be bringing up to ICS like this there's so many I'll tell you another story same son 10 years old scrolling through we have a iPad for the family scrolling through Spotify finds sees something some album cover you know some pornographic album cover and he goes right away to my wife and says hey Mom I just want to tell you I saw this thing it wasn't good I saw it on Spotify it was like great no big deal thank you for coming to me that's another thing you know when they do come to us Us Praise them for it thank you know a lot of kids would be scared to talk to their mom and dad about something like this but I'm glad you came to me I'm always open to have these conversations with you to answer your questions if you tell me you saw something hey I'm on your side I'm going to help you figure it out and work through this no shame no shame yeah you know there was another episode previous to this with Trevor Windsor and talks about being vulnerable but he said he remembers a time he was trying to be vulnerable with his parents and because it was the first time he heard someone like a kid say the f- word right and he went back home and he asked his parents like well what's the f word and the way they managed it he just remembered like th it's not safe to bring this conversation up with the my family so anything to do with sexuality he just kind of avoided and that's exactly what you're saying like I I was actually listening to that and you're like wow you could have been like super helicopter parenting and be like we're going to turn off Spotify can't believe you watch that why didn't you say something sooner no you were like hey I'm proud of you for coming to me that's such a beautiful example of creating a safe space and as you think about that Jason what happens on the flip side when you see that maybe one of your kids is struggling with pornography what are some of the signs that are there that you can start to like be aware like oh I need to be mindful that my kid may be falling into a trap and I need to not step in as Dad I've heard a few people joke about this like is your son 10 years old does he have a cell phone you know there those are your first two signs he's probably seeing pornography or looking at it you know I had a conversation I interviewed Dave HW another mutual friend of ours for our podcast and he said something along with way say thought like is your son 12 years old does he have a phone yeah he's probably looking at porography or has seen it even if he's not looking at it so what are the signs that was your question you know secrecy Proverbs says when we bring things out into the light that's where Freedom comes and if our kids are starting to act in a way that is secretive or they're trying to hide things or you're observing things that super practical like taking their phones into their rooms or they have computers in their rooms there's some practical things as parents we can do to prevent some of this from happening like no phones or computers in the bedrooms could be one of those things but watching yeah for secrecy for hiding things for acting in a different way acting strange how quickly flicking away as soon as you approach when they're looking at their phone or something or putting their phone down those are some kind of practical signs and when you notice that I think you just got to ask like hey what were you looking at was there anything you saw that maybe you feel bad about seeing how how can you put your phone away so quickly just asking questions and getting answers from our kids just keeping the conversation alive constantly just keeping the conversation alive yeah one thing that's really important Jason and this is probably your demeanor but I think that's really important is it's not just the questions you ask but also how you ask them I think your tone you bring a very curious non-judgmental tone to it versus some people you know if you're like I'm a type a individual I could be driving this literally happened to me earlier today I asked my wife a question and then I gave her response to the way she responded to my question and she's like dude why are you so edgy like what's wrong with you right now and I'm like sorry I'm just on the goat I'm like I was just moving and I didn't recognize that I was not a safe person at that moment right and my wife knows me she blew blew it off but if my kids were doing something and I asked them the question that same way I think a lot of walls would have come up but what you did is very like and maybe just because of this conversation but from what I've known of you you have that huge heart of compassion and like curiosity and non- judgmentalness that makes it easy what are some other practical little tips that you can give to guys that will go a long way I think and you go there all the time on this podcast Ken is just the transparency of your own life and telling them like my sons guys I've seen things that I I knew I shouldn't have looked at as well I'm not perfect I'm trying to figure this out and I need God's grace too and as our kids transition to get older I'm T my sons are 10 and 12 uh and six so we haven't got into any super intense discussions uh yet my son turns 13 tomorrow so I've got some ideas as we head into his 13th year of some very intentional discussions to have but just letting know that hey I'm not perfect either I struggled when I was young when I was your age I understand I'm a man too I was at 13 I know what it's like to be 13 years old I am not some perfect I got all figured out you know when I was a teenager to go back to the shame thing I remember being like I was a good Christian kid at church and all this stuff but still struggled with lust and masturbation and all this stuff and I wrote a note to a friend of mine we were both on worship team at our church I played drums he play guitar but I was too afraid to write it in my own handwriting so I like cut out Letters Out of the newspaper like a ransom note you know so he couldn't figure out who it was cut out these letters folded this up put it in his guitar in the back of his guitar amp after practice one day and it was like please pray for me I need help super vague but what I had in mind was like I need help because I'm masturbating and I feel guilty about it and I hadn't had any kinds of discussions at that point like I don't know 14 15 16 I'm not sure something in that neighborhood anyways he didn't know till like 10 years later that I had written that note and we were both married I said Hey do you remember in youth getting like the ransom note he's like I didn't think that was you but the shame that was the thing the shame was just like wanted to be anonymous didn't want him to know about it with our kids shame is the enemy we don't want our kids to feel afraid and shameful to come to us to talk about it can God has put us as dads in our kidss lives there's no one else who could have been your kid's dad except for you now I get it there's adoption there's fostering so there are some exceptions to the rule but God literally gave you your children he could not have given them to anybody else and I believe along with that came this mantle of leadership and influence as dads even when we feel like we can't do it and even when we feel like we have shame and even like we are not perfect nobody was perfect that's you can do it and God has given you that influence in your kids even if you're not going to do it perfectly that's okay Jason that that is such a uh encouragement right even when you were just saying like God gave you these kids and I was even thinking about adoption right like God allowed that to happen that you would to be adopted right like in his sovereignty now you have those kids like God gave you these individuals so there's a reason that he gave you these individuals as you think about this topic it could be really scary for a lot of parents like you were saying earlier it's just unknown and they don't know what to do what are some good resources or recommendations that you have you mentioned some already but just remind them and any others that you think would be helpful for guys to just be like I really need this because I want to take proactive steps in helping my kids and prevent them from actually ever falling into the Trap that is a great question and like I said before you know if we've we can get help from other people and I found some of these resources to be helpful because you can sit and read this book good pictures bad pictures it's like a it's not a Dr Zeus book but it's a kids book it's innocent you can read there and you can get the discussion started so I like it that it kind of takes I feel like it takes the pressure off of you as a parent to have to have all the answers and explain all the things it is just an intro to get started so good pictures bad pictures if you Google it you'll find it Kristen I have it here beside me Kristen Jensen is the author good pictures bad pictures so that is a fantastic resource uh another super simple one is called who made me and this is a book my mom read it to me when I was grade four probably who made me and it's just another simple kids book that explains the birds and the bees and what sex is and all this kind of stuff in a real simple kidfriendly way to go through that so those are kind of for kids that are younger I'm going to say they're kind of picture books the talks is another book uh by Barrett Johnson I've already mentioned him and the title of the book says it all Ken like we sometimes hear oh have you had the talk with your kids or how to have the talk with your kids well that's the whole completely wrong premise it's not the talk it's talks over years it's talks over coffee it's talks when you're in the car it's talks over meals you know kind of a practical tip I find it easier and I think a lot of dads probably could relate to this to talk while you're walking you know my son asked me what was the F-word this was last February so we're filming this in November so it was 10 months ago my son asked me what's the F-word like that example you just gave and we just went for a walk and I explained you know what the F-word meant to him and walking along beside him side by side shoulder to shoulder or maybe while working on you know if you're working out in the garage or doing some woodworking or throwing the ball or maybe you're playing video games together you know doing something where you're shoulder-to-shoulder with your kids yeah I find that a lot easier I think dads do some people say women like talking face to face better and guys like talking like shoulder-to-shoulder better I can certainly relate to that so talking shoulder-to-shoulder doing that and yeah using other resources there there's so many resources out there and you don't have to have all the answers yeah 100% And you know there's two resources that I'll actually mention one and this is more in the sexual abuse area but you know this is something that's it happened to me it was personal to me there's a book by Justin hokom called God made you and it was all about how protecting yourself so like that's a great recommendation in this kind of conversation of like pornography and sexuality for kids I read that regularly to my kids and remind them you know especially as they're getting older and have other friends that are influencing them I know I was at a birthday party the other day and I saw my daughter hanging out with one boy and she's like oh yeah he's a really good friend of mine and I'm like oh yeah and there's seven I mean it's like but I could just tell right like I could just tell there was something the chemistry there and I'm like okay I'm gonna have to remind her how to like protect her and just like protect her body so that someone's just not like oh we're playing a game or we're being curious right so book and the second book this is going to sound you know I don't know what the right word is like cliche but the Bible and here's what I mean by this we go through a devotionals every morning I read the Bible right we're going through stuff and as you're reading the Bible and you're reading books of the Bible to them they're going to talk about sexual morality they're going to talk about topics where that's where you can make it normal for them to like oh what's sexual morality what's this and having those conversations be a part of everyday life is super super helpful right and there are times men when I'm reading the Bible I'm like gosh I hope they do not ask me a question right like it happens and then there are other times that I'm like I was not expecting that question I really wish that they would asked me the question on sexuality better like it was just curveballs H but it's it's super beneficial one of my kids was reading it was like Leviticus or something like the laws about sexual immorality and I forget what the term was but it was some term he didn't understand and it was from Reading like Leviticus you couldn't pick a more boring book of the Bible to read and and the sex questions come out of Leviticus but Proverbs 100% reading Proverbs with my kids one of the questions dad what is a seductress we're reading our Bible Proverbs 4 or Proverbs 7 I can't remember the term seductress comes out and the boys ask Dad what is a seductress and the Book of Proverbs can to talk about the in uence of moms and dads like it is a whole book of a dad giving advice to his son and he talks about your mother and I and when you sit on your mother's knee and there's a whole chapter at the end of it about a Godly woman like it is all about family and the influence of mom and dad so yes the Bible is full of great examples good and bad of sexuality and it brings it up and normalizes it like you just said yeah I love it Jason as we wrap up our convers ation here what's some final piece of advice or encouragement you want to give to these guys who are just starting off in this conversation with their kids and they might even feel a little shame of just bringing it up they're just like I don't know what to do you know we've all we've all made mistakes you know anyone in the room here who's perfect no you know there was one guy who was perfect it wasn't Ken it certainly wasn't Jason so the pressure we sometimes put on ourselves that we need to have it all together and have it all figured out before we can talk to our kids just get rid of that pressure give it a try Feel the fear and do it anyways I had a a quote out of my uh full Focus planner Ken so you'll appreciate this and the quote was to begin just give it a shot get out there and do it and you know don't feel like you've got to have it all together it's okay and if you if you come across your son looking at something thing you know don't freak out kind of recapping some of that stuff be calm talk about it none of us is perfect just make that normalization of the conversation happen Feel the fear and do it anyways yeah I love it and then you're absolutely right Feel the fear and do it anyways like just begin it's a real thing yeah I I know I felt it I I I feel afraid sometimes I have like other conversations but I'm like you know what I got to do this like that's that's what I'm here for as a father is to step up and to have those hard conversations but if I don't have them the social media is going to do it the culture is going to do it their friends are going to do it so for those of you who are listening and are fathers like you want in this age right like and Jason I think you would agree with me your kids are so impressionable at such a young age and you have the most influence in this time span right when they're like 4 to 12 right like they're like probably like going to listen to you the most that's when you want to be able to be speaking wisdom into their life so Jason thank you so much for all of the wisdom everything that you have talked about for those people who are like man I I want to help lead my family well I want to help become an intentional leader in the household and father like you were talking about what's the best way to get a hold of you yeah you can go to my website which is hey dads.car that's where theca comes from hey dads.com uh I also wrote a fiction book for like 8 to 12 year old I had Boys in mind when I wrote it is about Adventure and like Indiana Jones Jurassic Park Hardy Boys that was the vibe I was going for of boys going on adventures not alone but with older men with their fathers uh and learning from older men in that scenario but hey the book is called danger in the jungle it's available on Amazon danger in the jungle I love it Jason thank you so much for uh being on the podcast and uh for those of you again who are listening go check out hey dads.com jungle we'll also put that in the podcast show notes so that you guys could have it and find it easily Jason thank you so much again for being on the podcast thanks Ken thanks for everything you're doing yeah men as always kill shame stand strong and be on Mission hope you have a great day and God bless thanks for joining us today if you found this episode helpful make sure to subscribe and leave a review remember killing shame isn't just about breaking free from the past it's about walking boldly into the future God has for you