Sometimes we need a wake-up call.
Let this information from the article, What Parents Need to Know About Porn and Their Kids take a moment to sink into your mind:
…according to statistics cited by the non-profit advocacy organization Enough Is Enough, the largest group of viewers of Internet pornography is children between the ages of 12 and 17. And there’s more. The average age of first exposure to Internet pornography is 11. Eighty percent of 15- to 17-year-olds have had multiple exposures to hardcore pornography. Nine out of ten children between the ages of 8 and 16 with Internet access have viewed pornographic websites, sometimes inadvertently in the course of looking up information for homework.
Now that you’re awake, go over and read the rest of the article. Don’t worry, we’ll all wait for you.
So what are we, as parents, going to do about this? How are we going to guard our children’s hearts and minds in this new era of easy access to some of the most vile, defiling images known to man?
Recently, I received an e-mail from someone who reads my blog, wondering if I could recommend a good internet filter for a Mac so her kids could play games online. She was concerned about allowing them Internet access, and rightly so! I had to admit that we don’t have any experience with filters. Since our children are very young (our oldest is only five), we have simply not allowed them to surf. We have bookmarked a few select sites that we allow them to go to. The computer is in plain sight in the living room, and I can monitor to make sure they are only going where they are supposed to. But, like I told the lady who wrote me, this is just a Bandaid. As they grow, our children are going to need a lot more than this to help them.
A filter is a good start, and I’d love to hear from those of you who use filters what you have and how it’s working for you. But, as my husband pointed out to me, all a filter is is a list of sites that the computer will not load if you click on them. There is no way that list is going to have every porn site on it. According to Enough is Enough’s statistics page, there are 420 million pornographic web pages, and every 39 minutes, a new pornographic video is made in the United States. A friend of mine has a filter, and she says that some stuff still gets through. And furthermore, a filter is not going to stop the page title and description from coming up, so even if they can’t click on the page, our children still run the risk of reading about what’s on it.
A filter is fundamentally a sheltering tool, and as I pointed out in another post, sheltering isn’t enough. Our children need to be aware of what’s out there, how it’s likely to make them feel, and how dangerous and destructive it really is. Also, we must never let a filter lull us into a false sense of security. We still need to be diligent in checking our children’s browser histories and in asking the hard questions. And if you think your children don’t have a problem with pornography, ask yourself how you would know if they did.
Pornography addiction is rampant and skyrocketing. It affects men and women, young and old, and is a danger for both our sons and our daughters. I’d love to hear from you what your family is doing to protect your children and to teach them how to live lives of integrity online.
March 10th, 2009 at 8:35 pm
I have a teenage boy, so this is a very relevant issue for me. Even though I am a free speech fanatic and am not anti-porn (which is to say, I think adults should be allowed to produce, distribute and consume it), of course I want to control what comes into my home — and what my younger children are exposed to.
If your kids are like mine, they are better at computer stuff than you are. I know my son would disable any filter I tried, so I don’t even bother.
He was not allowed to use the computer unsupervised until he was 12. Even now, we have only one computer in the house, and it’s in the kitchen.
I honestly worry more about violent video games than about sexual content, but that could change.
My kids aren’t homeschooled, but even if they were, my son is old enough to go the library by himself now. He is also responsible for babysitting his younger siblings sometimes. Therefore, there is an element of trust on my part now, that certainly wasn’t there when he was less mature.
I can’t be 100% sure of what he is looking at, or doing, at all times. But I am 100% sure that whatever he does, he would know my opinion on it without even asking me.
And for younger kids, I think my “no unsupervised computer use” rule worked pretty well!
March 10th, 2009 at 10:52 pm
K9 Web Protection is an excellent free software download. We have been using it on our home computer because we were tired of the photographs and words that would accidentally be stumbled upon during searches or browsing.
Thank you for speaking about this subject, as I think it is one that a lot of people shy away from. The stats are so scary.
March 11th, 2009 at 1:11 am
Even at 9years old, my daughter is not permitted to use the internet without supervision. Our computer is a media center, which means it is in the livingroom – no privacy. But I agree that as children get older, it is a matter of educating them on what the world is looking to offer them. It is a matter of giving them the scriptural background to build their own convictions on what they view/read/listen.
Sin is free for the taking at any age. We all need to be diligent in protecting out hearts. Putting on the full armour of God shouldn’t just be a saying, but a practice.
March 11th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
This is so true, so sad, and so maddening. Our family tried several different filters as I was growing up, but none of them worked very well. Occasionally a search that was too close to something sketchy would bring up porn sites while at the same time the filter blockerd sites with photos of Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation. Not exactly the quality we were looking for.
I do think it helps to have the computer out in the open, although this becomes difficult when kids are older and trying to do homework or concentrate while writing a paper.
In the end, I agree with one of the comments above. Even though we can’t always be 100% sure of what people are up to, we CAN be 100% sure they know what we think on the subject. In the final analysis, we can’t sanitize the whole world for our kids or spouses or anyone. We have to pray, trust, do our best, and learn to be forgiving rather than stigmatizing when people mess up.
March 11th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
We are well aware of the nonsense out there on the internet. We use something called: Covenant Eyes. It’s not a filter, but it is a detailed report. Everything is given a report/ rating. Any site that anyone goes to can be checked. It has worked so far.
March 13th, 2009 at 11:30 am
This is a great call to awareness, however it seems to me by some of the comments above that folks are still kind of \ho-hum\ about internet pornography and protecting our children.
It is DANGEROUS and (I’m going to say it at the risk of getting flogged by folks) irresponsible to not have an internet filter on your computer. Not only to your children, but to your husband and yourself.
It breaks my heart to hear that people don’t even bother putting a filter because their child would find a way around it. If this is truly the case, then there is an underlying issue with your child and his respect and heart for you. At that point, my child wouldn’t even be allowed on a computer, period. And if by the rare occasion that he must be for schoolwork, I’d be sitting right next to his side monitering him.
Pornography is NOT a game to play with.
Yes, their is an underlying heart issue that absolutely MUST be addressed and taught and discipled. This is a must too.
But even with the best of hearts, one should NEVER be on the computer with out a filter. Period. That is our rule. No one in our home is on a computer without a filter. That even includes the library. We don’t use the library computer. And if we had to for whatever reason in case of an emergency, a child would be supervised with an adult and a wife and husband would go together to use it. That is called accountablity. And that is Biblical.
Porn is dangerous, I just can’t say it enough. I have seen it wreak lives and recover from it, while very attainable and dooable, is hard and painful.
A computer with an internet connection should ALWAYS be in an open public place. Even at the risk of making it hard for concentrating on school work, it needs to be this way for the protection of hearts and minds.
Porn is one of Satan’s ulimate tools of distruction. There just isn’t anyway around that line of thinking.
Hoping I didn’t come off as too harsh, but this is serious, dangerous business and should never be taken as anything but.
BTW as far as a filter, I too recommend K9 – it is incredible and FREE and works.
Even with a filter, we limit computer time for everyone in our family. My children are rarely if ever on the internet, but if/when they are the computer is out in the open and filtered.
It takes ONE second for an image to pop up that is ingrained in the head and heart, but it can take a lifetime to remove it.
March 13th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
I think Covenant Eyes is about as good as it gets. It sends you a complete history of every site that’s been contacted, and even if someone calls and tries to cancel, it still sends out a report of what sites were accessed up until the cancellation. It doesn’t block anything, but it makes everything known.
March 13th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Thank you Chelsey! I agree with everything that you said. I love the internet for so many reasons (blogs/recipes/amazon/google/email), however it scares me to have such an incredible tool be used as an incredible weapon (so easily!) against the purity of our family. There’s dating ads on yahoo with beautiful young women sporting a seductive look when I check my e-mail . This bothers me! I don’t want to not have the internet, however it truly is a disaster waiting to happen if some serious measures of caution, training, accountability, etc. are not taken.
March 15th, 2009 at 1:44 am
Actually, Chelsey, for the record, I think my son would consider disabling a computer filter to be a technical challenge — not a breach of trust.
I think that at some point, TRUST is at the heart of what I want to instill in my children: trust in God, trust in me, and trust in themselves. Same with my husband — I trust him, and I would trust him to use a computer without a filter without me sitting next to him, and I imagine he would feel the same way about me. (In fact, come to think of it, both of is work on unfiltered computers at our companies.)
Of course, people need to decide for themselves, what works best for their own families. And in cases where trust is broken, I’m sure different steps are warranted.
March 19th, 2009 at 11:48 am
I agree that filtering can really only be a shelter. I recommend other tools like accountability software which is more relationship-based, not so much technology-based.
http://www.covenanteyes.com/blog/2008/06/12/is-filtering-all-there-is-introducing-accountability-software/
March 30th, 2009 at 10:46 pm
We use Bsafe Online filter. I don’t have bad emails anymore with this filter. It blocks a lot of ads within a web site but still lets me view the site. I have used this for over a year now and have been very pleased with it.
http://bsafehome.com/
You can visit the site and see who endorses it.
Before this filter I used Integrity.com I liked it too but I couldn’t use dsl in my area with it.