I believe that marriages are often made messier by the “messes” our children become involved in. So I want to arm parents with helpful information regarding this issue.

The information I will be sharing is from Josh McDowell’s Just1ClickAway.org

Dr. Jill Manning, author of What’s the Big Deal about Pornography? testified before a U.S. Senate sub-committee on the harms of pornography. There she cited numerous effects that have been documented on children and adolescents when directly exposed to pornography. Some of the effects include:

• Lasting negative or traumatic emotional responses
• Earlier onset of first sexual involvement
• Increased risk for developing sexual compulsion and addictive behavior
• Increased risk of gaining an incorrect and out-of-context view of sex
• The objectification of another human being for selfish sexual gratification

McDowell points out …

The irony is that many Christian adults tend to think none of their kids are involved sexually, while their own kids think everyone else is “doing it.”

McDowell shares a couple other examples of the pervasiveness of this disconnect between parents and children …

The mother of a 12-year-old recently visited school to have lunch with her child. To her amazement, the conversation around the table of her child’s friends was “oral sex.”

At a prominent evangelical Baptist church, a mother approached me just before I was to give a three-hour Bare Facts seminar to about 1,500 students on a Monday morning.  “Josh, you have to talk about oral sex!” she exclaimed quite forcefully. My instant reply was, “Why?” She went on to explain that at this church they have two classes for 11-year-olds. Since she has an 11-year-old daughter, she teaches one of the classes. “Friday night (this was Monday morning) I had a party at my house for my daughter’s class.” Thirteen kids showed up, seven boys and six girls, including her daughter. “About 8:00 p.m. the phone rang. It was noisy and the music was loud, so I went upstairs to take the call. About 15 minutes later I came back downstairs thinking, ‘It sure is quiet.’ Then to my amazement, I saw the seven boys lined up with their pants dropped and the girls, including my own daughter, on their knees having oral sex with the boys. They are all 11-years-old, from my church, and one was my very own daughter!”

Allow me to share more of McDowell’s startling statistics …

• Internet has surpassed TV as the media choice for kids.
• In 1998 – 14 million pornographic webpages                                     In 2006 – 420 million pornographic webpages
• 90% of all 8 to 16 year olds have viewed pornography. (London School of Economics 2002)
• 80% of all 15 to 17 year olds have been exposed to hardcore pornography.
• A new study of US Department of Education found that 27% of 4 – 6 year olds are on the web, and of that number, 35% go to pornography websites.
• 91% of first time exposure by a teen was during activities such as research for school project or surfing the web for other information.
• 62% of parents are unaware that their children have accessed objectionable websites. (Yankelovich Partners Study 1999)
• 12 – 17 year olds are the largest consumer of Internet pornography. (Freedombeginshere.com church leaders intelligence report 2010)
• NBC news report 50% of all access to Internet is now on handheld devices.
• 4 out of 10 teens post sexually suggestive messages daily.

Most Common Ways Pornography is Accidentally Reached:

1. Web pop-ups
2. Misrepresented links
3. Misspelled URL’s
4. Auto links in email

To arm yourself with more knowledge, check out Josh McDowell’s book, Bare Facts that will help you and your teen deal with this very important and complex topic.

And if you’d like a free PDF copy of Josh McDowell’s research, then click on: Just1ClickAway.