Will you prepare them for a pornified world? Before you know it, your 5-year-old will be 10, then 15, then 25. The ultimate goal of our parenting is not to raise children but to raise adults. Filters don’t prepare kids for a world without filters. Parents should make conversations about the Internet a habit around the home, so that they can teach children to enjoy the Internet responsibly, and so little problems can be dealt with before they become big problems. Parents should know what their kids are searching for, what they’re clicking on, and where their searches are leading them. It isn’t enough to merely stop kids from seeing something bad online. Ultimately, Internet filters aren’t tools that facilitate good conversation.

“A warm and communicative parent-child relationship is the most important nontechnical means that parents can use to deal with the challenges of the sexualized media environment.” 2

After decades of research, here is her advice to parents: Patricia Greenfield, Professor of Psychology at UCLA, directs Children’s Digital Media Center which researches the developmental implications of the Internet. When your child runs in to a fence, no one knows except your child and the fence-unless you happen to be looking at the right moment.ĭr. Filters aren’t relational or conversational. We can’t trust the purveyors of porn to play by the rules online. But even if your child isn’t looking for porn, porn is looking for your child.

You might be thinking, “Not my kid!” Personally, I believe too strongly in the deceptive power of human sin to say that about my kids.īut let’s assume you’re right-you really do have a good kid who wouldn’t look for porn if he had a gun to his head.

They’ll just test the fence until they find a weak spot.

They’ll discover one day you forgot to log out of your administrator profile.

They’ll use a computer at a friend’s house.

Perhaps the fence will keep them out for a while, but it won’t take long for them to find a way around it: It doesn’t take long for a child to want to know what is beyond the fence. When they function correctly, they provide great protection against accidental exposures. But some of it is also sinful rebellion: we want what we aren’t allowed to have (Romans 7:7-8). Put up a fence and the natural human tendency is to want to look over it. This is a good start, but knowing the power of porn personally, I simply won’t settle for just an Internet filter in my home. Most Christians parents I know at least think they have some protection in place on their devices. Is this the kind of sex education we want for our kids? Your Internet Filter is Not Enough Most of these people first saw porn and developed their habit while they were still under their parent’s roofs. For Christian women, it’s around 15% that are watching once a month or more. For younger generations of Christian men, that percentage is much higher-over three quarters of them. Among Christian men in my generation, 57% of us still watch porn once a month or more. The habit caused me plenty of grief and was one of the reasons why it was so difficult for me to form relationships. I lament thinking about what my life would have been like had I discovered porn any earlier than I did. Can I be frank for a moment? I know the next sentence may make you uncomfortable…

Net nanny vs covenant eyes