Protect Your Teens from Porn (Without Shame): What Every Parent MUST Know

Talk to your kids a lot about sex and sexual things and have those open discussions. We are the ones that have to be holding them accountable. They're choosing to put limitations on to protect themselves. More important, they're engaging in sneaky behavior. Constantly model good behaviors and model self-control and self-discipline. They need that internal guidance. Otherwise, all of your work is for nothing. Hey there, this is Greg Denning. We want to reach as many people as possible and help as many families as possible with these conversations. And we want to keep this podcast adree forever. You can help us do that by subscribing on Spotify or Apple Podcast or wherever you listen, your favorite platform and on YouTube. And leave a quick review and and share your favorite episodes with friends and family. It makes a big difference. Thank you for being a part of this very important movement. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Extraordinary Family Life Podcast. We're your hosts, Greg and Rachel Denning. Super excited to be back with you and talk about um it's challenging topic for many people and for some of you, you're like, "No, it's it's it's an okay topic. We've talked about time and we got it covered." But for many many many people, in fact, some studies are suggesting 90% of boys, teens, and men are consuming pornography. 8 to 88. 8 to 88 90% of them are consuming porn specific problem. You interviewed a woman who was a neuro cognitive neuroscientist and a specialist in porn and those were the numbers she shared. Yeah. Which I found was to be shocking. Yeah. But we knew before that it was at least 75%. Yep. So this is a major topic, a major issue. We're we want to go into some of the reasons why it's an issue and it's not just on moral grounds, although I think there's definitely a case for morality and why porn is bad or wrong, but it's it's more than that. It's deeper than that. Like there's an entire physiological and biological element to this that I think makes the case even more compelling against porn. And we definitely want to talk about some of that along with strategies of how to I think specifically in this case prevent it for boys and teens. Yeah. And it has to but there's so much secrecy around it. So much sneaking. And you know I've had many many many conversations with young men and men about pornography addiction for years two decades including up to yesterday. Yesterday had another one. And so it's it's very common and it's it's almost always hidden. There's a sneakiness about it where, you know, husbands aren't letting their wives know and young men are not telling their parents. And there's something really powerful when they can finally admit to it and own it and say it to people who can help them, not just to anybody. We shouldn't just go sharing it with whoever, but sharing it with someone who can actually help you so you can just be open about it and then get serious about, you know, understanding it, understanding, like you were saying, Rachel, what understanding what it's doing to you and what it will do to you. And across the board, I know people argue with this and there, oh no, it's it's good for relationship. It's good for it's not harmful. I just don't see that. Well, especially when you look into the science and the research behind it, you're realizing no, that's that's not true. And there probably and and in that conversation, there probably was a time maybe when porn was not that harmful because it was still very mild and mostly unavailable. But in today's world where it's literally available 24/7 in your hand on a device on a computer, like you can access it at any time. And it's getting more and more graphic, violent, twisted, disturbed. There's a lot of child porn at this point. I think it's naive to say it's harmless. And for sure, it's definitely not helpful, especially if you have the desire to live a normal life with a a good relationship, raise a good family, it is not helpful in those scenarios. And so, we want to talk about why that is on a biological and physiological level and a social level too. And family, like this is the extraordinary family life podcast. Everything we talk about here is to create an extraordinary family life. And if you're okay with like whatever and switching, you know, wives halfway down the road or husbands, you're like, "Nah, I'll just throw this one out and go for another one." Like, I guess we're not your we're not your people. Go ahead and include porn in that, I guess. But go for it. But if you want to have an absolutely extraordinary life and you want to have holistic health in mind, body and spirit and marriage, parenting, work, everything, and you want to help your children achieve that, which is why we're talking today about teens and and kids specifically, then you have to understand what this does. Yes. And it is, I think there's a there's a moral issue to it. There's a 100% like this is undeniable. There is a physiological and psychological effect. it is affecting your dopamine baseline and making it far far too high. So, you're way off of normal. And so, that makes it unhealthy. And then you and again, this is not my opinion. This is what happens at a physiological and and a biochemistry level. You enjoy life less. You stop enjoying small things. You literally stop enjoying sex. And SAD, the sexual arousal dysfunction is rampant and spreading like crazy. And then it ruins, you know, a a normal, healthy, beautiful, wonderful sex, sexual relationship and physical and intimate relationship. It just it wrecks us. So it's wrecking your psychology, your productivity, and your relationships. Right. And part of the reasoning for what you just mentioned is simply because of the dopamine baseline because porn produces such a high dopamineergic effect. It alters the way your brain receives or or facilitates dopamine. And so vanilla sex, normal sex with a regular person becomes and and literally this was discussed in the podcast of actual cases of this your podcast. You're not able to enjoy those normal experiences because you're so used to the dopamine highs of pornography. Right? So that's essentially what you're talking about. Now again just in case there's any misunderstanding with this we are full supporters of healthy sex like we believe that is a healthy good thing that everyone should be pursuing. Eventually every person should have a healthy sexual relationship uh a long-term relationship is ideal. So it's not about sex itself being a bad thing. It has nothing to do with that at all. Nor and I think this is crazy important. There is a lot of confusion here. Nor are we saying that it is inappropriate or bad for a young man or a man for for you know included to be attracted to a woman's body. That's normal natural. And so as soon as a young man hits puberty, he's going to start noticing body parts. He's going to start noticing women and breasts and legs and I mean the whole body and the curves. He's going to notice that that's normal, natural, and good. So then the confusion is well hey if it's normal and natural and good then why is looking at pornography bad? Well and and I've heard people put it this way and to me it makes sense if you think about us and I love to do this like the evolutionary history of humans. If you think about that, the average person, average male would rarely see a naked woman. Like they would see that occasionally in their life. And usually if it occurred, it happened during marriage, right? You know, or or a long-term relationship. Like that's when a man would see a naked woman. But as our society has progressed, and of course, one part of that is there's more and more skin being shown, right? But then now we go to full nudity that's available in porn and men can see this anytime and they can see hundreds or thousands of naked women. That's just not quote unquote normal for the way society has developed for the whole history of humanity. Exactly. Right. For for a for one man to be able to see thousands of naked women even even hundreds even dozens I would say would would have been absolutely unheard of a few generations ago especially in colder climates. I mean let's you take somebody who grows up in in Russia or Scandinavia or Montana and you know the other ends of the world on different seasons. It's like when you wouldn't have to see somebody in a bathing suit, right? You know, would have been so rare, right? You'd have had to go into the hot hot climates and beaches and and to travel that far, you know, hundreds of years ago on a biolog biological level, like it's it's abnormal for human males to experience that sort of exposure to nudity. Yep. And so if you take that alone, if you take away porn, let's say porn doesn't exist, like even now in our modern society with all the bikinis and the scantily clad women, like how often would a man see a naked woman? It it wouldn't be anything close yet to what it is through media. That to me is fine, better than intentional porn usage because it's still normal. You know what I'm saying? still a real life experience. And and you're right, it's a real person. You're not going to look at this naked woman, half naked woman at the beach, especially here in Europe where a lot of women do go topless. Often they go naked. We see it all the time. You're not going to sit there and masturbate to that because that would be socially inappropriate and and you would get reprimanded for that. Exactly. There's natural boundaries there that exist that make it a healthier experience. Then like if my boys looked at a girl at the beach, that to me is totally okay. As opposed to them getting on and watching porn, you know what I'm saying? Like there's a in some secret little corner. Exactly. Looking it's and objectifying her. So it's not even a real person. You're literally looking at a piece of glass. If you're looking at your phone, you're looking at a piece of glass. And it's so so weird. Yeah. It's so bizarre. It's like what a what a I mean stop listener like stop and think about it's like this is so strange. You're holding this little piece of glass and metal in your hand making a glass screen. It's like that's not even a real human. Like you can't talk to her. You can't touch her. It's like there so it's so weird. Yeah, it is. Yeah. And then if you're out in public, like you you're not going to go over and try to touch her or assault her because you would get, you know, severely reprimanded by any anyone around or by her, get hit over the head with a rock as you should for, you know, those kind of behaviors. Exactly. Right. So then that's what keeps you in check, but then this this this hidden secret slimy behavior is is such a problem and is abnormal if you look at it in this other context. So, that's kind of where we're wanting to start out here. But the important the important thing we have to emphasize and we're going to be emphasizing in this episode is that this isn't going away. It's not like suddenly there's not going to be porn available. Like it's not going anywhere. It's here. And so all we can do as individuals and specifically as parents is we have to teach this understanding first to ourselves and then to our our children so that they can develop the internal resilience to be able to engage or not engage really not engage with this in a way that helps them create the healthy life that they actually want. so that they can have the healthy relationships that they want and they can enjoy a beautiful sexual relationship. And that's the point like that's where the real long-term sustainable beauty and value comes from is being able to create a life like that that's sustainable for the long term. And that comes by having these appropriate boundaries in place. Yeah. I think it's important to point out just quickly that more and more young women are and girls are looking at porn. So don't don't just completely dismiss it. be aware that that more and more girls are being introduced to it as well. And I've heard I mean people have told my daughter that you know nowadays many young people feel like you need to watch porn. It's a thing you need to do so that you are prepared to have sex one day. And if that was true then, you know, we wouldn't exist as a species because there was not there's not the opportunity to watch porn before most humans. You could argue that is just pure procreation versus a sexual relationship. But I think for the most part, like you were saying before, pornography today is so warped and so far gone from a normal healthy sexual relationship. And so it's warping that idea, the reality. And so you have these have these young men and and this is a tragedy to me. It really it truly breaks my heart. You have these young men 15, 16, 17, 18. They've seen so much porn and many of them have never even kissed a girl and made out that they're nowhere near having sex. And yet they have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of images, expectations, unrealistic expectations, strange ideas like bizarre fantasies, in inappropriate behaviors, abuse, violence. It's like it's so unrealistic. Which was a specific story that was shared with you from the neuro I keep forgetting neuro physicist. A cognitive neuroscientist. Thank you. That she shared with you that there was specifically one young man she worked with who was 20 and had viewed tons and tons of porn. And when he actually had the opportunity to have sex with a real girl, woman, he was unable to get an arousal. That's what they're calling the sad sexual arousal dysfunction because he'd seen so much porn. And he told her, he's like, "I just couldn't because it was such vanilla sex." And that's what we're talking about. First time, his first time being with a naked woman, first time, first opportunity, actual sex, and he can't even get an erection. That's so why this is such a big deal. That right there is a perfect illustration of why it is a big deal. Because if you want yourself or your children to be able to have healthy relationships, you can't think that normal sex is going to be vanilla because you've spent so much time looking at unnormal unnatural porn. Wow. It's so sad. Okay. Well, and it affects all other aspects of life, too. I know we touched on this and I just want to hit it real quick. When you when you really distort and mess up your your dopamine baseline, even even normal tasks and normal adventures and cool experiences seem so dull and boring and life is and so it starts to mess with you anyways and you might not be cognizant of what's happening, but now you're discontented and frustrated and irritated and feeling depressed or anxious and you're all over the place. And what's happening is your brain is so used to getting huge hits of dopamine that just are not found in normal life, even in an adventurous fun life, because the dopamine levels are so high with porn that you got to be doing cool things. You're like, "This is so bl" and you're just longing like an addict to go back and and get another hit because your dopamine baseline is so messed up. So it literally messes up productivity and enjoyment of other good healthy activities. And Huberman actually calls this the dopamine deficit state or they call it the escalation effect where right the stimulus has to keep being increased in order for you to get the same high. And so that's why it has to get more weird, more warped, more violent, more intense for you to feel that same sort of feeling that you had before. But if you maintain a healthy dopamine level, dopamine baseline, then you can engage in life in a normal way and find meaning, pleasure, and fulfillment in it because you don't have this escalate this escalation effect. You don't have this unrealistic dopamine baseline. Yep. Yeah. So important. All right. So, um I I guess I want to reiterate, you have to teach this to your children. Yes. You've got to teach them all the science and and and walk through this. Dr. Huberman has a bunch about it. Dr. Peterson has a bunch about it. He talks about that, you know, it for one teaches you to cheapen sexuality and human other human beings. This doesn't even go into the whole other side where the porn industry is essentially fueling sex trafficking. And that what were the numbers like 80% of women in the porn industry feel like like they would get out if they could but they are feeluck stuck which that right there is just so messed up because by you watching porn you're contributing to sexual trafficking. Higher porn use is also correlated with higher rates of depression, anxiety, loneliness and sexual dysfunction of course. And so the combination of the easy internet access and especially with an adolescent brain, it's like literally creating this perfect storm. So we're going to talk about the strategies we can use to help prevent all of this. Now I don't know if you feel this is important but maybe it is that we define what porn is for some people because we have heard people say to us oh well I think my son or my child saw porn because they saw some passionate kissing and I guess this is where we I feel we also need to find a healthy balance because something like passionate kissing isn't necessarily porn in in my mind, right? That's just kiding kissing. It's a it's an expression of sexuality, but in a way, it's a healthy one because because we don't want to go to the other extreme where we create prude children who are not okay with any display of affection or any hint at sexuality. Let me touch on it. The reason why is because with the best intentions, we raise very sheltered children. We think we're doing them a favor. We actually make them naive. Yeah. And the naive are the most vulnerable in society. Right? I don't know how to emphasize that enough. I don't know how to get that in. If you or your children are naive, you are most vulnerable. You're most exposed. You're most likely to have horrible things happen to you because you live in the state of naive. and thinking that we're not going to let them ever see anything like passionate kissing is like no they should be seeing that cuz that that normalizes like well yeah cuz cuz they feel it. It's not like if you never show it to them, you never talk about like they won't like puberty does that like you're young as soon as they hit puberty your young men are thinking about making out and they're going to start having wet dreams. They're going to have dreams and then like you could never you could I don't know hypothetically put them somewhere where they're never ever exposed to anything and their body is going to create wet dreams of them having sex as young adolescents because that's what that's what the body does. That's what it's driven to. And even if they never saw it, they would still have that in their head. So it's there. They need to see it done. They need to see it. But they're going to see it and they and they should see see people in love and people kissing and be exposed to like this idea of sexuality and then in a very appropriate age appropriate way and and I don't this has to be done appropriately. They need to know the good side and the bad side, right? So they're exposed to both. So, I guess what we're doing here is cautioning a little bit that like if you're naming passionate kissing as porn, in some ways it's almost contributing more to the problem because then they start to feel bad or shameful about seeing something like that when that shouldn't be the case or even noticing a beautiful woman. Right. Right. And so, we don't want to shame the sexuality itself. We want to teach the the science behind it. We want to teach the reality behind about what actual porn is doing to men, to relationships, to the biology, to the psychology. That's the real concern. Not that any sort of sexuality is bad or wrong and should be avoided at all costs. Right. Right. That's not what we're trying to emphasize or teach here. So we need to be very clear with explaining to our children like what exactly porn is. And so for us and again I guess every family can have their own definition here. It's not like black and white but for us like kissing in movies even like a mild sex scene that is not porn for our family. And by sex scene I mean like you know not they don't show anything but you know and and the older teens like I I I I I want them to know that and that that's going on because like two people are in love especially if it's couples or even if it's a one night stand or whatever like that they know that this type of stuff is going on in society. We're not trying to shelter them from the reality of what's happening in the world because because sheltering doesn't teach right nor does like too much exposure that creates a problem as well. But then acknowledging that it happens and then talking through it, right? It's like, oh yeah, that they have these one night stands or they're just hooking up. There's this hookup culture. Okay, let's talk. That's happening all over the world all the time. So, let's talk through that. Is that something you would want in your life? Is that how you'd want to be treated? Is that how you'd want to treat someone else? There's there's a side that's like, "Well, yeah, that'd be great. Wow, sex with a different woman every night. Whoa." Okay. Walk through that. get past first level thinking. Teach your children how to think, get to second level and third level thinking, and then they themselves realize, "No, that's that's not what I want." Mhm. The body might crave that sometimes. You might fantasize about it and be like, "That's not the caliber of person I want to be and not the kind of life I want to live." Right. I think it it was interesting. I heard Jordan Peterson one time on a podcast essentially saying that the the definition of a I forget forget if he used the word psychopath or sociopath sociopath something like that so don't quote me on the exact word he used but basically the definition is someone who uses someone for short-term pleasure or gain and he said so essentially anyone who engages in a one night stand is behaving in a psychopathic way because you're using that person for short-term pleasure and that's it. And so when we teach those principles to our children about this is what it really means. This is what it really looks like despite the fact that that's common doesn't change the definition of what it really is and what it actually leads to. And if you want to create a life that's meaningful and fulfilling, it's going to look very different. You're going to have to do very different things to get very different outcomes. So for us, we're constantly teaching that. We're teaching our kids that if you want different outcomes than what you see in the movies or what you see around you or what your friends are experiencing, you have to take a different path. You have to make different choices. Yeah, that's so important. So I guess this is a good time to say, you know, talk to your kids a lot about sex and sexual things and have those open discussions. Don't make it awkward. Don't make it weird. Don't, son, sit down. we need to have the talk. And he's like, just talk about it openly. If you if you notice he's checking out a girl, it's just like, okay, talk about it. Don't and don't shame him. Don't make him feel bad for like, wow, she's really pretty or she has nice legs. Okay, wow, there you go. And let's talk through this. And you're not going to cheapen her and objectify her, but you're also not going to be like, don't ever look at women or their body parts. What planet are you on where that's just so unrealistic? And so this has to be more of an open dialogue. Yes. And I So I guess let's go into some of the specific strategies and things. Is that what you're ready for now? Perfect. So I'm I'm with I'm I'm right with Jonathan Height on this one. He wrote The Anxious Generation and he's just promoting like no smartphones before high school. And I I 100% agree. And that for me would most cases probably include an iPad as well. maybe some exemptions to that with education stuff, but it'd all be locked down. But especially our our boys, boys and young men, they're looking at porn. They're being exposed to porn as early as eight years old. Very often, 10, 11, 12 year olds are are regularly consuming porn. They should not have access to that crap. And so, even the story from yesterday and and these young men I talked to, it's like they've been looking at it for years. What in the world is going on? No, they shouldn't have those devices. They shouldn't have an unlimited access, you know, 14, 15, 16 in their bedroom or where wherever they want to be in private just consuming this garbage. No way. Well, and so there's like there's three or four different parenting approaches that are generally happening with this. And and I'm saying four because I think one of them, which you just hinted on here, is naive. I think a lot of parents are perhaps naive or maybe it's a sense of hopelessness where they feel like well it's going to happen there's nothing I can do it's inevitable all their peers have phones everyone have phones the coaches are using social media apps to communicate and so oh my kid has to well okay so that aspect of it of course with just having the device but I'm talking about then not real it's like this naive that what's out there and what they're going to find and what they're going to be exposed to looking at. And and and this one's super important. Listen up. You think my kid's such a good kid, right? Like I have such good kids, they they couldn't possibly be doing it. And I want to make it crystal clear, ladies and gentlemen. Good people still struggle with addictions. And good men look at porn. It doesn't make you evil or bad. You can be really good and be consuming porn. like you're not a bad person, but consuming porn is a destructive habit and addiction. So, in many cases, you're right, the parents are just naive, or they just don't think they think, "Oh, yeah, he saw it, but it's not a problem anymore." And it's like, "No, it's just it's been hidden right in front of your face." So, then another approach they take is, of course, total restriction. There's no access. There's no anything. And like you were already talking about and this is this is backed up by the research by Jonathan Haye is that there should be total restriction up to a certain age like he says no social media before 16 period. An 8-year-old should not have unlimited access to a device with internet. You know what I'm saying? 8-year-old shouldn't even have a an a smartphone. Yeah. So So there should be this level of of total restriction to apps to internet to devices up to a certain age. But then it's like if parents take that approach, which many of them don't, and then they get a device for their child, then it's like total freedom. Now it's the other side. Now they've got total access to everything, unlimited restrictions, and they're just who knows what they're doing, right? So really what we've got to do is kind of this fourth approach here. It's like we have to be guiding them into this transition of moving from childhood to which I think should be an adult skill or a mature skill using devices and using the internet and it's a skill that's earned little by little. Exactly. Yeah. A classic example I knew this mom she put her son in in an online school. This was years ago when online schools were just starting and she got him a computer and a phone and everything and he was in his room doing school. So she thought for a whole semester, for an entire semester and he was just looking at porn and playing games, looking at videos for hours and hours and hours. She had no idea clueless until until the end of the school year when she saw his grades and realized he hadn't had done anything except consume porn and video games the entire time. So we h we have to be the guides and the mentors in helping our children learn to navigate this very dangerous world of internet and device usage. We can't just hand them over and be like, "Here, kids. There you go. Figure it out." It's literally This is not an exaggeration. I used to think this was an exaggeration. It's literally like handing them drugs and saying, "Good luck. Hope you make it through." We can't do that. It's just not it's just not practical. So, here are some here's four four or five steps for helping them with this guided transition, right? First of all, like you already said, we have to start with the conversations. We have to be talking to them about these things. Now, if you if your kids already have devices and everything, this is even more important, especially if you're going to start putting controls on them because if you automatically start putting controls, there's going to be a lot more fighting and kickback with that than if you start by having these and even leading up to it without talking about the device controls your Institute, but start talking about the reasonings, the science, the research of everything that's coming The ideal scenario always is that that the child understands perfectly and voluntarily agrees to the restrictions. That's perfect. That's the ideal, right? You talk to them, they're like, "Oh man, that's crazy." They're like, "Yeah, that's real dangerous. I get it." And like, "Okay, what do you think we should do?" It's like, "Yeah, we should have some real restrictions on my phone. That's great. Let's let's light up light it down." And so they're volunteer like they're not being forced. They're choosing to put limitations on to protect themselves. Yes. But I want to emphasize that that's a process, a journey. That's not a one conversation generally. That's like you're going to have the conversation over a period of days, weeks, maybe even months. And then they're going to be like, "Yeah, you're right." But you have to be instituting it or in initiating it, instigating it. You have to be the one doing the research, finding it, sharing it, and leading out with those conversations because it's not going to happen by default or automatically. Now, if you have youth or a spouse that's like, "There's nothing wrong with it." No, there's like there's look everybody uses screens. There's no problem. Then at that point, you're like, "Oh, well, okay, let's let's do this. We're going to read books and then we're going to talk about this." For for you to blatantly say there's nothing wrong with it, there's no harm, there's not a problem, you're operating in absolute ignorance and naive. So, you're going to have to educate yourself before we even have this conversation because clearly you're operating in deep ignorance. And you can start with something like The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Hate or Glow Kids. Yeah, exactly. Okay, there's lots out there. There's another one about boys boys a drift. Yes, thank you. Boys a drift. Okay, second one. Use the tools wisely. So you can use filters, you can use parental controls, but you cannot re rely solely on them because that's not enough. Like if you just put it on and and like that's it. You never worry about it or think about it again, that's not enough. Because as we all know, kids are very good at figuring out passwords and getting around things. And they will, not because they're bad kids, but it's just the nature of what of what it's like to grow up or to anything like to push the boundaries, push the fences. And so, we are the ones that have to be holding them accountable and not just trusting that all of these tools are going to be holding them accountable. That's why I set up these things. I have screen time passcodes on their devices and and the filters and all of that, but I'm still regularly checking in on them and you're regularly asking them like, "When's the last time you saw porn? What did you see?" You know, it's it's having that ongoing conversation so they realize that there's open transparency here. Now, and how you react to what they tell you will determine what they tell you. Yes. you if your children are afraid to tell you the truth, who's made them afraid. And so you have to be wise in how you react and respond. Yeah. Okay. The third third tool is to create like practice zones or practice experiences. I think for at least for our two oldest boys, one thing that helped them practice and get into this, being able to have internal control of their device usage was actually when we allowed them to play Minecraft when they were younger and they broke the rules, right? Because we'd be like, "Oh, you're only allowed to use it for this long or whatever." And they would break the rules. They would sneak. We'd find out about it or they'd confess to us. And it it gave us this practice opportunity to be able to discuss, well, why do we have the rules in place and and how do you feel when you break the rules and and this and that and the other. And it really to me I think it really helped prevent for them any porn addictions because it's like they practiced with Minecraft and then gained the intern like they learned the lessons from it so that they gained the internal motivation to not overindulge in whatever in this case a video game and that then gave them the ability and the strength to be very open with us. they would tell us whenever they saw and then also to just have that had developed that self-discipline muscle of being able to control their own usage on devices. So it's almost like so my perspective on that is like we never should have done it. We never should have done Minecraft or video games. I honestly think it was a very important I think we got I think we got lucky because they realized it really young and they didn't like it and so then we removed it completely and went back to real living and that was what gave them the strength to stay real that was a part of the but I don't want people to hear this and think well okay I'm going to use video games as as this practice environment because video games are addictive right and it's it's totally so a video game does the exact same thing it it messes the dopamine baseline Yeah, cuz it's like blowing things up and killing things and wrecking cars and destroying all this stuff. Okay, so Minecraft is build, build, build, build build, build build, build build, and they get all these dopamine hits from building these awesome things. And what have they done except sit there on their butts doing nothing, wiggling their fingers, they've done nothing. They get this huge dopamine baseline. And so then you're like, "Let's go build something." Like, that's so boring. They can't actually build it. They can't take out a hammer and a drill and do the work and smash their finger and sweat. It's like this is so hard. So that so video games are the same problem. It's it's a very extreme problem. That was one of the things that they actually mentioned themselves when they were playing it is that they previous to that they love to create things and make things out of clay and build and all of that. And then it they noticed that then once they had Minecraft that was all they wanted to do. That was all they could think about because of the dopamine. Exactly. So even as little boys, their brains were so addicted and and they would tell us that like we're outside playing or at the beach. Things I used to like I don't even like anymore. All you can do is sit here and think about Minecraft. It's like cuz your Yeah. Your brain is literally craving dopamine hits. So, and yes, I'm not telling people that that's what they should do is go get Minecraft so your kids can practice, but I'm I'm using it as an illustration of the fact that we do have to allow our children to practice using the internet, using devices before we give them just full access. You just don't hand it over to them and be like, "Here you go." Yeah. And even then, but they should be using it as a tool, not a toy. Even then, expect that there are going to be because no matter what, like I don't care if you allow the games or not allow the games, more likely than not, don't do it. Let me finish my sentence. More likely than not, your children are going to sneak games. They probably will. Most children do that, including ours. They will sneak the games. My point is, don't view that as some massive failure. view that as part of this practice, this practicing that they're doing to learn how to have self-discipline and self-control in the use of devices. So, when you catch them that they were sneaking, great. Now, you have an opportunity to have the conversation the teaching moment and the teaching moment so that they learn the lesson. Yep. And they learn, okay, here's why I don't want to do that. Here's why I don't want to engage. Because more important to me than the fact that they sneak some game is that they're engaging in sneaky behavior. That's the issue. Because the sneaky behavior then can learn to more sneaky behavior which includes like the porn usage. You're using it as an opportunity to develop character and to develop resilience so that they practice in that way. And then when it comes to the bigger, more important things like porn, they've had the practice of learning what it feels like and why they shouldn't do it and this that and the other. And that to me is the real value of having these practice usage of So some good examples of of practice would be, you know, using AI or YouTube to learn something, to look up some information, do some research, to work on a project. So that's they're practicing that. And then, you know, of course, all the thumbnails that pop up and all the cool things and then they end up watching cat videos or stupid things for hours and then they've wasted time, right? They've wasted time in life and you're like like, "Okay, how how'd it go?" And they're like, "Uh, I end up watching, you know, these funny videos for, you know, 45 minutes. Okay. Which actually here is the fourth step and that's encouraging the self-reflection which has to be initially co-reflection. Right. Right. And this was something we would constantly do with our kids is we we had the devices locked down meaning they didn't have the password and they would say okay I want to get on the device. I'm going to get on for either 15 minutes or an hour and this is what I'm going to do. And afterwards then we reflect with them. Well, did you do the thing that you said you were going to do or did you get end up just watching videos for the whole time? Oh, yeah. I forgot. Yeah, I got distracted. And so, you're literally helping them train their own brain to think, I'm getting on to do this. This is what I'm going to use it for. And then when I'm done, I'm reflecting. Did I actually do that or did I literally get distracted off in no man's land? and they're they are then developing that thinking process so that every time they use their device because one of the things we always told our kids is it's a tool not a toy they're like okay I'm using this as a tool let me use it for the thing I'm getting on to use it for and this whole strategy this whole philosophy is built on the framework of living a meaningful fulfilling exciting life because if their life or your life is dull or boring are empty, man. Then if real life is so blleh that watching anything on a screen is is more satisfying, like you're fighting an impossible battle. Or it's actually complicated. It's complex cuz you or your kids might sit down and watch some empty entertaining thing for an hour and and you might think, "Well, so what? Why not? I really liked that. It was funny. It was fun." or your your son looks at porn or your husband or you look at porn, you're like,"I really liked that. That was enjoyable. It's pleasurable. What's wrong with that?" Because because you know, you and I are sitting here talking about it's a waste of time. It's a waste of life. You did this. But if if you don't think through this on bigger levels, you're just like, "Well, I liked that, right? I liked scrolling on social media for 90 minutes. I liked watching empty videos. I liked that, you know, whatever nolla, soap opera, drama, like there there was empty of substance like it added no real value to your life. But but that's the conversation you and I have been having with our kids since they were born. Living a life of value and purpose and meaning and and and living this great life and wanting to become the very best version of yourself. If we're just here to exist, if we're just here to pay the bills and live, and then we try to tell our kids like, "Well, that didn't add any value. Yeah, but it was funny. Yeah, but it was fun. Yeah, but I liked it." I I know you're not trying to do this, although people might think it's like you're downplaying the value of just having fun or just laughing. And you're not trying to do that either because that is a valuable experience to just have some fun or to just laugh. But I guess what we're saying is that but it's not just cheap entertainment. If we're not careful about how we're having fun or how we're having a good time and we allow ourselves to just continually be entertained to death, right, with funny memes and funny and scrolling and endless mindnumbing stuff. It's like virtual cotton candy, right? At some point, you're right. it it's lacking the nutrients necessary to create something that's actually meaningful. And so then we have people that come to us, you specifically, feeling vapid and frothy and pointless and their life is completely empty. And their life is completely empty because it's all fun and funny and frivolity. Yeah. And I guess that's what we're ultimately talking about is if we're not careful, that's where we end up because we think, well, there's nothing wrong with that. And and in some ways you're right. There is nothing wrong with it unless that's all that there is in your life and then your life now has no meaning. I guess for me personally I've I've come to view it in a similar vein of of like food and junk food and candy. It's like you know you you might eat junk food because it tastes good and you like it but it's not good for you. And so you might watch or consume listen to empty entertainment because you like it but it's not good for you. And so ultimately it's like well you're living on a mental, emotional, social diet, a media diet of junk. Yeah. It's fast food and junk food and garbage and some of it downright poison. Well, it just like if you poison your body, you're going to get sick. If you poison your mind, you are going to get sick. Period. And so we have to look at media like that. like is this is this a good nutritious substance that I'm putting in my mind because it's gonna affect my mind, body, and spirit. Yeah. So, that really summarized in number five, which is modeling healthy tech use and modeling a healthy lifestyle for our teens. Because if we we can't lead out in living in a healthy way and using tech in a healthy way, then we can't expect our t our teens, our kids to do any better than us. So, we really have to be modeling this for them. Exactly. If I come home from work, I plop on the couch and turn on the TV. I'm like, "Son, go do something with me. Your life, Josh, get off your phone. Go have an adventure." And I'm sitting there watching sports or the news or whatever. It's like, what a hypocritical, pathetic example. But if you know, and and I can hear some of you like, "But that's so expensive. They want to like have motorcycles and mountain bikes and boats and YouTube." You're like, "Yep. They want to go have adventure and go scubing. Yep. Take them. Yeah. If they had a scuba diving addict addiction, wouldn't you rather have that than a porn addiction? All day long. It's like, this is going to cost me tens of thousands of dollars to keep my kids away from porn. Yep. Buckle up. That I would all day long. And that's what we've done. We've invested in living an amazing life. And our kids love to live it. Yeah. Along with teaching them the reasons why it's important to not engage in these activities. for the reasons we've mentioned, the biological, physiological, psychological reason. So, constantly teach your kids and constantly model good behaviors and model self-control and self-discipline, self-mastery and give them outlets through workouts and adventures and healthy social interactions like fill their lives with good things and then empty their lives of of the negative things constantly teaching them. And and the reason the teaching is so important, I got to keep reiterating this, is so that they choose it. Right. Exactly. If you just if you are the one that's simply enforcing this on your children because maybe you understand why it's important and so you're like, "Oh, I'm just going to make them do it." That doesn't create the internal motivation or resilience that's necessary. That then protects them when they're not under your control. when they one day leave or move out, they need that internal guidance. Otherwise, all of your work is for nothing. Yeah. It creates resentment instead of resilience. Yes. And I think that's a really important distinction. And as soon as you turn your back, as soon as they go to the friend's house, as soon as they move out, they're into all that crap you tried to keep away from because it was your decision, not theirs. And they're sitting there all along going, "Why? Why is he or she so adamant about that? Why are why are they so restrictive? Why are they such terrible, cruel, horrible, strict parents?" It's because you're not teaching them. Yes. If you teach them, they're like, "Oh, man. I totally get it. Thank you. Yes, help me." Because right now at 15, I'm too weak to discipline myself. I want to have the entertainment and the fun. I want to look at the naked girls like, "Okay, help me." And then then lead them through this whole journey, right? And so as we close, I think it's important to emphasize, you know, what they to do if they are struggling or if they do struggle with this because that's most likely going to be the case that there's going to be a struggle with this. But we have to, as you already talked about, we have to be calm. We have to react with calmness, with kindness, with love, with non-judgment, not accusing them of being a bad, horrible person because, you know, this has happened. It's unfortunately in many ways inevitable. Like we can do a lot to prevent it, but if and when it happens, let's not overreact. Let's not shame them for this thing because it's just a part of the journey. It's a part of the world they live in. So, let's have an open conversation. Let's keep that open conversation. Let's create accountability. But it should be done with love and acceptance of them and not in instead of like this judgment or rejection of them as a person for making mistakes or for inadvertently being exposed to it or what not. While I 100% agree with what you just said, I also want to point out that our society has moved like we've we've taken on this this attack against this word shame. Don't shame. Don't shame. Don't shame. I hear it everywhere. people use on social media. You can't hold a standard at all. And if you say, "Hey, this is a good thing. People should exercise. Why are you shaming people who don't?" Like, whoa, we should eat healthy food. Why are you shaming people who eat unhealthy food? And like, you know, we're so adamant about homeschooling. And then the reaction is, why are you shaming people who send their kids to school? And so, there's this major social reaction to shame. And and I want to bring some shame back because there are shameful behaviors and when you do them you should feel ashamed. But I think that that is very different than you shaming your child. If your child feels shame, let them feel shame. Perfect. Yes. That's what that's what I'm saying. So don't don't take it away. Like there's a there's a place for guilt and shame and and like sneaky, slithery, slimy behaviors naturally feel shameful. Like a man feels pathetic when he does sneaky, slimy things. That's it's supposed to be that way. We're supposed to feel shame when we do shameful things. So what I'm saying is don't go too far to where you remove all shame. It's like attach the shame to the shameful behavior, not to your child, not to the person, but say, "Hey, that those kind of behaviors are shameful." And to me, it's it's more of the overall, let's say, authoritative parenting approach where you have this underlying unconditional love, but involved in that is a validation of the feelings they are having. So if they have a feeling of shame, you essentially validate like, yeah, that that's normal to feel this feeling in this situation, the circumstance. Go ahead. Go ahead and feel the weight of it because it comes with those choices. But that's different than me projecting shame because of my judgment of what they've done. It's a very different approach. And so it's a healthier approach to simply validate the emotions that they're having rather than to try to alter or change that. So in in a hypothetical example, a child might come to you and say, "Hey, mom, dad, I want to tell you this. I did this thing and I feel so ashamed. I feel so horrible." And in that point, I'm not going to say, "Oh, don't feel ashamed. Don't don't feel bad. No, no, no. You can't." I'm going to say, "Yeah, probably more like, "Thank you." Yeah. Thanks for sharing that. Sharing that. And that makes sense. And it makes sense. You you sit with that pain, you feel ashamed because it's it's it's your mind, body, and spirit telling you like those things aren't healthy and good and and that's not in line with you as your best self. And so it's your body, your spirit, God, and his universe letting you know some behaviors and actions are shameful. And I think that I would maybe ask more questions. So help them articulate that themselves because that helps with the process of internalization so that it's it's less about me telling them why they feel that way and more about them becoming aware of why they feel that way. Yes. And recognizing and owning it, feeling it, like sitting with it. So that's where the lesson comes from. So the next time without anyone there, they say, "I'm not doing that because last time I did it, I felt horrible. I'm not doing that again." But the more the more often that they can have that sort of experience, even in small ways, it doesn't have to be about something like porn, but in small ways, the more awareness they can develop about what they're feeling and why they feel that way and and how they got to that point and how to prevent it, that's how we develop this internal guidance system in our children that we all want them to have. Exactly. And that right there, that is gold. I mean, that's like one of the things you talk a lot about in the habits class for a successful life. You know, it's helping them just become more self-aware so that they realize the process that's going on and how how it's all coming about. And the more aware they are of that process, then the better choices they can make, the better decisions, the better outcomes they get. I mean, that's where the power really lies. Yeah. I love it. So powerful cuz then they start they're really building out and strengthening their own inner compass. Yeah. That's so good. Yeah. Okay. So, just I'll share one last thing. This is going to sound crazy extreme, but I'm just going to share it in case it's helpful for anybody. And no, I would never ever use it on my sons. Then why are you sharing it? I'm sharing it as a principle maybe for men listening or even even some of the boys. And this is this is what helped me stay away from addiction. Cuz when I was living out on my own in rough neighborhoods, I was quite literally surrounded by easy access to drugs, sex, and alcohol and crime. I could have participated anytime I wanted initially without cost. Like it was readily available and I didn't touch it. And because I I thought through this, I'm like, "Okay, my life is already hard. I'm not going to make it worse. and that's not in line with who I want to be and how I want to live life. Right? So, I got clear about that. But then the temptation, you know, when you're sad or lonely or frustrated or discouraged or, you know, whatever whatever symptom you're happen to be feeling at the time, the temptation's there. So, for me, and I don't even I don't know how I figured this out, but I just realized I'm going to set really hard consequences up for myself. Like, cuz there's not enough people in the world to police us. And nobody's going to be with you 247 to stop you from doing stupid. So we have to learn how to control ourselves. And the way I did that, it's like, you know what? I'm gonna set up really really severe consequences that if I make a mistake, I not not anybody else cuz I was already away from my parents. And I mean, I had I had nobody. There was nobody to punish me if I did something dumb. So I'm like, well, what's going to keep me from doing dumb things? Well, it has to be me. I have to be the enforcer. And and this is powerful, especially as we're helping our teens grow up when they become their own enforcers. But that's the most powerful thing there is because they are selfdirected. It's it's insanely powerful to have a a young person say, "No, I don't do that because I don't want to do it, and if I slip up, I you know, put the consequences in place." And so I set up really severe intense consequences on myself for mistakes. And occasionally when I would make mistakes, I would put the consequence on myself and I didn't like it. Right? And so I was creating this neuroassociative conditioning, right? I I had this neuro connection to no, if I if I say I'm going to do something and then I don't do it, I get a hard consequence. And it's so hard that the consequence deters me from making the mistake again. So in some ways though when you're talking about this, you know, I'm getting images or people are getting images of like self flatulation like you're whipping yourself. Flatulation is like not flatulation. Flagulation cuz there was a lot of flatulations when I was a teen too. But that didn't deter me. Okay. So yeah, I'm not like taking a a stick and and whipping myself or a whip and whipping myself. Um, maybe you need to give some examples what you Well, but some of my examples I'm hesitant to give some examples because it's gonna be like what? That's like that's like a weird abuse. You're wacko. And I don't want to be misunderstood here and this is for me. I'm I'm not recommending this to anyone. I this is crazy important. I am not recommending this necessarily to anyone, but some people who might be similar to me might realize, okay, there's some real value in that. And if I set up a severe consequence for myself, that's going to deter it. So, okay, here's some examples of like you you a certain amount of money and it's enough money is like, oh my gosh, that really hurts. And so, if you mess up, that money is gone. And maybe it goes it just is gone to somebody else. I've heard of people saying, oh, pay it to the charity you hate, you hate the most. You like this organization you absolutely despise. You're going to give them a big enough amount of money that really pains you. Uh, I heard other ones like they had to they didn't hit, you know, they set a commitment. If they didn't keep their commitment, they had to eat cat food in front of their buddies. Um, or just something disgusting, right? Or you had to do something hard or like, okay, you I if you you don't get to eat for 48 hours or whatever. Like, just set up set up things that you're like, no, I'm I'm going to hold myself to that and it's going to pain me. it will pain me to do this thing. And because what you're doing is you're setting yourself up for success by putting in hard consequences like no there choices have consequences and I'm going to put that in place by myself. Nobody else has to do it for me so that I can keep myself in line. And that has helped me develop self-discipline and self-control. But I can at least maybe this is me or other people saying like well but how does that work? Because the whole problem is if you don't already have self-discipline. So, you do the thing you say you don't want to do. Well, how do you then actually discipline yourself to do the consequence? Cuz it's easy enough to also just be like, "Well, never mind. I'm not not going to do that. That's terrible." So, there's there's kind of this challenge there of you need discipline to implement the consequence in order to have more discipline. Yeah, it is. It's a it's a real conundrum. And I I guess for me, I I just realized, look, I don't want to do that. in order to stop myself from doing that. This will be the consequence. And this was me. So you generally didn't have to do the consequence. It was just the threat of having the compensation. Yeah. But but occasionally I had to. And and I committed to myself. I'm like, look, if I mess up because I understood. I'm like that is not something I want in my life. And if I do those things that that won't help me. It won't make me a better person. It'll lead me down a path I don't want to go. So that's where I was clear. Those choices lead me down a path I do not want to go. I want to go over here. So if I do that, I deserve this. And there was a couple times I followed through and I gave myself a consequence. I'm like, yeah, I am never doing that again. Right? And it's for me at least, it was a formula that really worked and worked well to say cuz all human beings are drawn towards pleasure and to we want to avoid pain. And so I attached pain I attached real pain to my consequences. Well, and that is through my choices. That is also a legitimate strategy. Like I know Tony Robbins uses strategies like that. He had that guy smoking. He had smoke like a whole pack at one time. Tell the story. Okay, go for it. There's a story of a guy who and this was early on in his his days like in the famous right and he had this guy come to him and like I need to quit smoking. And so Tony Robbins literally locked himself in this room with this guy. And this is back I guess we could smoke inside. And he made him smoke like five packs of cigarettes. Like right then he literally put them in all of his fingers and was like he was smoking from everything and the whole room filled with smoke. It was like he smoked him into sickness and was like so vomiting. The guy was vomiting. He's like keep smoking keep smoking. You know and the guy's like cuz he locked the door like and he's he's a huge man and he's like no put down your ass. Stop go now. And he was purposely using massive pain consequence to be associated with smoking. This guy never smoked again because he mentally psychologically associated with that like that's the association with smoking rather than an association of pleasure that many people have. That's why they keep smoking. He gave it a lot of pain. So yeah, that obviously is also an extreme example. But I think you're right. There are some people out there I did that all the time. Yeah, it wasn't a one. That's how he became famous. And I think he does it with private clients. Like they come to him with a problem and he he full on just does like unconventional like unheard of things and it works. They stop because they create a new association of of real pain with this thing that was they thought was pleasure. And so there are definitely I think people that like that's what they need is something like that. that may be the only thing that would help them to stop. And so it's important to at least be aware of that as a option, a reality, a tool that could be used in certain extreme situations. But the most important thing I think to understand is that it has to be something that's voluntarily taken on. Even in this scenario, the guy came to him and was like, "Help me stop. Help me stop. I got to stop." He's like, "Are you willing to do whatever it takes?" He's like, "Yeah, yeah." And he's like, you know, maybe got his thought. And so it has to be voluntary, which is why you were talking about for you it works because you voluntarily chose to accept hard consequences, right? So I wouldn't do it to my boys. I wouldn't do it to someone because then it wouldn't work. Abuse, right? Yes. Exactly. So for me, like if if I looked at pornography, I would literally squirt myself in the eye with pepper spray like eyes open because I know who I want to be. I know how I want to live. I know how destructive that is and that punishment would cause so much insane pain and I, you know, tying it like I looked. So, pepper spray in the eyeball like and also this this is intentional looking, not accidental looking. Okay. And I wanted to make that distinction. I thought about that earlier. We will all be exposed to pornography. It's everywhere. So, we're going to see it. There's a big difference between seeing it and looking for it. Yeah. Right. And going and looking at it. So, I'm referring to if if I went seeking for it. Sneaky, slithery, slimy. I'm going and looking. And we have that distinction with our teens. Like, if they see it, great. Just let us know, you know, tell us. If you went looking for it, well, that's a different conversation. Yep. It's like, let's talk about why. Yep. And what to do. Powerful. Okay. This stuff matters. So, work on it a lot. And if you're sitting thinking, this is so much work. Yep. Yep. But you have kids, so there's no getting around it. And if you have teens, you can get them in the habits for a successful life class because that helps anything that develops character, grit, discipline, which is this month's and having conversations with mentors and other youth and talking through all this stuff. It's so powerful. That's the specific theme of this semester is character and grit. So that definitely helps because it's another witness of these principles. Exactly. And if if you as parents need help and strategies and tools, that's why we have our extraordinary parent mentoring method. That's literally what we're doing is giving parents the tools, techniques, the systems, strategies to make it easier and better and more successful. So, love you guys. Thanks for listening. Reach upward.

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