Stunned by a revelation from a friend, a mom of three went looking for guidance and found a gap in the market of resources to help parents and their kids navigate the dangers of pornography. So she decided to take matters into her own hands.
Kristen Jenson, from Eastern Washington, was distraught when she learned that a friend’s son had sexually abused his younger siblings after exposure to pornography. She searched high and low for any resources that could help this family but found nothing. Beginning in 2011, she spent three years writing the book she wished the world already had.
“Honestly, I was shocked,” Mrs. Jenson told The Epoch Times. “I’m like, this has got to be such a big problem. First of all, if this kid got into it, and it’s affecting him the way it did, and [it’s here] in a conservative family that has their kids at church every Sunday ... it’s got to be widespread.”
Dealing With Exposure
“Kids have access to the internet on devices from young ages. ... There is no iron gate once you are on the internet, and children can find explicit material they are not ready to process,” Mrs. Jenson said.One of the biggest roadblocks is what researchers call the “naivete gap,” she says, where “parents vastly underestimate their child’s exposure to porn,” and as a result, children are usually not taught how to deal with what they are seeing.
“I interviewed a lot of parents,” Mrs. Jenson said. “I read a lot. I watched videos on YouTube by experts explaining the neurological effects of pornography. I decided that it would be possible to boil down this information for a 7-year-old in the form of a story. I wanted the book to show a set of proactive parents engaging in conversations with their child.”
Mrs. Jenson’s book offers an age-appropriate definition of pornography so kids can recognize porn when they see it.
“Bad pictures show the private parts of the body that we cover with a swimsuit,” reads the book, which goes on to explain why these “bad pictures” are harmful, and offers a plan so that kids know what to do when they see them.
Mrs. Jenson said: “Educating kids on the harmful effects of pornography gives them good reasons to reject it. The book for older children describes the process of addiction, while the book for younger children presents the analogy of ‘picture poison.’”
The plan for younger kids comprises three steps, and the plan for older kids comprises five. Both are designed to help them “reject porn in the moment, and deal with the shocking memories that can plague them afterward.”
The Dangers of Porn
Mrs. Jenson’s primary readers are parents and their kids, but her readership also includes grandparents, therapists, law enforcement, educators, religious leaders, pediatricians, and “anyone who cares for or helps children.” Both books started out as self-published, print-on-demand titles but are now bestsellers in multiple categories. Already, the author’s “success stories” are innumerable.
Perhaps even more insidious is the use of pornography by sexual predators as a grooming tool.
“It’s used to break down inhibitions and serve as a tutorial for what is expected. It normalizes children having sex with adults,” said Mrs. Jenson, who has already heard anecdotes of her book helping prevent potential grooming.
One anecdote came from a mother who had read “Good Pictures Bad Pictures” to her 6-year-old son. The incident occurred while dining at a friend’s home.
Protecting Kids Is Possible
Children are trusting, Mrs. Jenson says, and are susceptible to “highly trained predators” who groom them into uploading naked photos and then extort them for money. These predators can even show up in online video games, posing as children. They seek out a specific child and work together to normalize sharing nudes or highly sexualized videos.While the threat of porn may seem overwhelming to the parents of kids growing up in this digital age, Mrs. Jenson insists that protecting kids is both possible and realistic.
Her two-pronged “high tech, low tech” approach explains how: “The high tech approaches include limiting exposure to screens, setting up parental controls, and filtering of both the Wi-Fi and each individual device when possible, using accountability software to monitor phones and other devices, and providing safer phones to kids,” she said. “[The low tech approaches include] setting up boundaries and rules at home, and at friends’ and families’ houses, giving kids an action plan for when they inevitably encounter pornography, educating kids on the harms of porn, and shaping a disposition to reject it.
“Kids need an internal filter for rejecting porn wherever they may encounter it.”
‘Sooner Is Safer’
Pornography has become so mainstream that “respectable” companies advertise on their sites, said Mrs. Jenson, who worries that not enough people are talking about “how porn fuels child sexual abuse, child sex trafficking and prostitution,” teaches people to objectify others and their own bodies, and promotes sexual aggression.“Online pornography is big business,” she said. “Porn is truly the dopamine drug of the digital age. It’s extremely addicting–often leading to lifelong emotional and mental health struggles.
“It is natural for parents to be worried about their children who have been viewing porn, but it is important to let children know they are loved unconditionally and remind ourselves that we are all on the same team. Porn is the enemy.”
“We can help parents begin these crucial conversations by taking simple, proactive steps,” she said. “With all of the digital dangers out there, sooner is safer when it comes to talking to our kids about rejecting porn.”
