The average American first sees online pornography at age 12, and nearly three-quarters of all teenagers have encountered it, according to a 2023 survey of adolescents by Common Sense. It’s enough to make almost any parent squirm, but Brian Willoughby, a social scientist at Brigham Young University who studies the pornography habits of adolescents and the impact on relationships, has some advice: “Don’t panic.” Instead, he says, help your child understand that “this is a normal and acceptable topic, even if you’re stressed out.” Here are some suggestions for how to broach the subject:
Build a dialogue
First, try to take some of the intense emotion — yours and your child’s — out of the conversation. “Start with helping them feel calm and validated,” Willoughby said. “They can’t have a conversation with you if they are feeling strong emotions.” Then, he said, “assess their reaction to porn — were they excited, disgusted, attracted, disinterested? — and make them feel safe sharing this with you.”
That shared trust forms the basis for a next step, he said: “Tie your own values into the conversation. Share what your view of porn is and why.”
He noted that adolescents crave a clear explanation, not merely a pronouncement that pornography is “wrong.” Willoughby suggested that parents “talk through some of the details of porn to point out problems with expectations and intimate behaviors” and then “tie these thoughts and views to your overall hopes and values about sexual intimacy.”
Try content blockers
Numerous phone and computer apps offer help blocking pornographic content.
These can “potentially buy a few years of protection” if loaded on a child’s phone and other devices, said Melea Stephens, a family therapist in Alabama who speaks to universities, legislators and church groups about the harm that exposure to pornography can present to children and teenagers.
Despite such barriers, studies indicate that most young people will stumble across the content or find their way to it. At that point, Stephens said, parents should take their adolescent aside and “explain the difference between a real, loving, mutually respectful romantic relationship and the destructive dynamics and metamessages being depicted in pornography.”
A chief concern of scholars is that watching pornography will give younger viewers inaccurate ideas of what to expect from sexual relations. Children and adolescents may not recognize that what they are seeing is not a guide, a documentary or realistic insight into sex and intimacy.
“Help your child become a conscious consumer,” Stephens said. “Equip them with discernment and an internal filter to avoid the pitfalls of pornography. In her experience, she added, children and teenagers value having guidance, difficult as the topic might be.
“Keep the conversation going over time,” she said. “Life provides natural opportunities to discuss these issues.”
Seek advice from your primary care doctor
Emily Pluhar, a clinical psychologist at Harvard Medical School, said parents might find it useful to seek input from their child’s health care provider. The provider can help educate parents about teen sexual development but also, if the parents wish, join a conversation with the family.
“This can help normalize the discussion and provide a foundation for ongoing conversations about pornography,” Pluhar said. “It also reassures your teen that their health and development are topics that adults are comfortable talking about openly.”
She said parents can and should be honest that this is a complex topic that parents are still learning about, too.
“You may not have all the answers, and that’s OK,” she said. “Your honesty will show your teen that it is normal to learn together.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
