If we don’t educate our kids about sex and porn, we risk the online porn industry doing it for us, says DR JANE CHERRINGTON, author of How to Talk With Your Kids About Porn. She shares her tips on how to start the conversation.
Dr Cherrington became interested in educating parents and kids about the porn industry as her own children grew up and she realised how important it was to prepare them for what they might come across online.
A lack of good sex education can have lifelong impacts on kids’ health, wellbeing, relationships, and enjoyment of sex, she says. And with 12 years old being the average age kids first see porn, it’s important to start the education early. She says more than 70 percent of kids will have seen porn by age 17.
A researcher, former head of the Mental Health Foundation, and current director of branding agency String Theory, Dr Cherrington has been using her current role to produce philanthropic works aimed at making positive change in communities. This includes How to Talk With Your Kids About Porn, which is the latest book produced in String Theory’s Sex in Space series.
It’s aimed at educating parents about the conversations they need to have with kids and at what age, the benefits of doing so, and strategies to help parents feel more confident talking about sexual subjects. It also looks at how to work out your own family values around porn, as well as setting up online safety nets for the kids.
Parents as educators
Dr Cherrington says parents can feel unprepared for dealing with topics such as sex and porn with their kids, find it hard to know where to start, or not want to touch the subject at all. But she says it’s more important than ever that parents become confident in their educator role.
“It’s not fair to put it all on the schools,” she says, urging parents to “wake up” to the risks.
“Get involved in your kids’ sex education otherwise you’re handing it over to the porn industry.”
To do this many parents may need to upskill themselves first. She describes the difficulty parents can have in naming body parts alone as “stunning”, with many parents likely to have not received a good sex education themselves.
While five to 10 percent of porn on the internet is OK, the bulk is problematic and the remainder “beyond problematic” into the stuff of “horror”, Dr Cherrington says.
“What was around back in the day was very different to what’s around now,” she says.
While having the right filters on computers is a good start, Dr Cherrington says you simply can’t filter everything.
“It’s when they get on the bus and another kid shows them that stuff,” she says.
As a result, it’s important they know what ‘good’ or safe sex is, so they have a reference point.
Dr Cherrington says it’s important to make it easy for your children to come and talk to you about sexual topics and not feel shame in doing so. She also suggests avoiding having ‘the big talk’. Have lots of normalised little ones instead.
Dr Cherrington’s tips on what to talk about and when
Five-year-olds and under
Start young – even under the age of five. The main aim at this age is to help them become comfortable with using anatomically correct terms for their body parts. Provide short, accurate, and age-appropriate answers to questions they have about their body. You can also start to teach them about boundaries – what sort of touches aren’t OK and what to do if they are touched in a way they aren’t comfortable with.
Six- to 10-year-olds
Start introducing the basic facts of reproduction and sex, puberty and body changes. Explanations can be short and simple but expand on what your kids know already.
Around 10 years old
This is a good age to have a more deliberate ‘porn talk’ – about what it is, the reason it’s not meant for children, and what you’d like them to do if they see it. Talk about porn in terms of safety.
Ages 11-13
Include porn as part of your online safety talks. But start to extend it out to wider conversations about sex and relationships. Discuss why porn is not a good tool for sex education.
Ages 14+
Talk about porn as a subject together. Maybe open the conversation with things like – I heard that a lot of teens are using porn to learn about sex. How do you think porn might impact people’s relationships in real life?
The key is to engage with the kids where they are – ask what they discuss with their friends and work hard to not respond negatively to whatever you get back, Dr Cherrington says.
“Don’t react,” she says. That produces shame and they will clam up. You want to be open to being their support person.”
You also don’t want them to feel like they must manage your emotions.
“It’s about getting really open-minded,” Dr Cherrington says.
How to Talk With Your Kids About Porn is available via www.sexinspace.com. It is available as a PDF for a small charge, or as a hard copy through Amazon.
