Online Pornography & Chinuch Part II

Here is Part I

The reason I asked experienced unschoolers about their thoughts on pornography is because in general, radical unschoolers don't restrict media.  Their attitude towards screentime, video games, shows, movies, youtube, is that it is all educational.  They aren't alarmed by violent video games, violent movies (if the child seems emotionally able to handle it), playing video games "all day long."  They also are relaxed about "junk food." And bedtimes.  And so many other things.  They are extremely sensitive to prioritizing relationships, and strive to have healthy relationships in the family and good communication, and responsiveness to the children's needs.  So I wanted to hear what unschoolers have to say about pornography.  Anything that society thinks is "bad" is not necessarily harmful, and unschoolers often have a very different way of looking at things, and I wondered about their approach. 

Before I get into that, I want to share a halachic approach.  I found this podcast extremely useful:
Intimate Judaism: Masturbation, Sexual Health, & Halacha: Is There a Conflict?

From the unschoolers I got advice:

• to definitely begin conversations about online content and pornography. 
• to be very careful to not be accusatory or to engender feelings of guilt
• that there is a lot of material online that a kid can stumble onto and be overwhelmed by
• that filters don't stop that, and conversation is probably the best approach

Given that, I had my first conversation about it.  I told E that now that his body is changing, it's time to talk about pornography on the internet.  (This is part of many ongoing conversations we've been having about changing bodies.)  I asked him if he knows what pornography is, and he said people having sex on camera.  I made 4 points:

1. When you get older, if you see pornography, you can feel sexually excited, which means...(I trailed off here and 7yo helpfully supplied, "like you want to do the thing that makes babies?") (7yo asked if he should leave the room when I started by saying, "Now that your body is starting to change, it's time to have a conversation."  But I said, Nah, he can stay if he wants.)
   
2. There is a lot of pornography which is disturbing or scary or uncomfortable.  We reviewed what to do any time he sees something that makes him uncomfortable: Close it and walk away, and come and get me and tell me if you want to discuss it. (I wonder if I should be more forceful about telling them that it's important to talk to me about it, or if it's okay to leave it to their discretion.  I guess it depends on how disturbing whatever they come across is.) (This is something that the unschooling ladies thought was very important to convey to my kids--that they could come across things that could potentially scare or disturb them, and they should be prepared for that and have agency to close it down and know that there is parental support available.)
   
3. If you ever see anything that you have questions about, come and ask me and we can talk about it. 
   
4. Pornography is usually acting, which means the women are acting like they enjoy it and not necessarily enjoying it, and the way things happen in pornography is not actually how it really is in real life.  (Conversations to follow about checking if someone likes it, both verbally and nonverbally, and more about communication and paying attention to what your partner likes and communicating what you like and don't like.  But that's not for now.)

Online Pornography & Chinuch Part I

So we are heading into the "I'm totally inexperienced" portion of parenting again.  Since my oldest is in her twenties, it's been a while since I've felt myself in this position, even though every child is different and there are always new challenges.

I have three younger brothers, so I have always had a sense of little boys and what they are like.  However, I got married young and did not live with them when they were teens.  I was already dating my husband at the oldest of my brother's bar mitzva.

So just as I never had a boy's education regarding mishna and gemara (though I did learn mishna in elementary school and some gemara post-high school), I really am not sure what I'm doing in terms of male puberty, male teenager-ness, all sorts of things.  Ari does have some strong ideas (one of the more salient that no 7th grade son of his shall ever be bored out of his mind in gemara) but day-to-day, I'm in the trenches with them.  And I'm kind of feeling my way.

It's been my experience that when I learn on the job, the oldest one suffers.  I can't get experience until I get experience, and that perforce means mistakes.

With that intro, I recently began the murky world of navigating online pornography.

We allow unlimited multimedia in our home.  (Here are our basic internet safety guidelines.) We do not have filters on our devices.  (I actually recently checked, and all of the computers default on the google browser to "safe browsing," and I changed 11yo's tablet to safe browsing, too.)  When they were young, we had only desktops and no tablets allowed in bedrooms.  But when teenagers start cocooning, they need privacy, they like to be on screens, and easily get around restrictions.

How to achieve self regulation?  How to achieve thoughtfulness?  How to avoid "going down the rabbit hole" of pornography?  Is that something a parent can influence?

As my sons get older, I've been wondering how to talk to them about it, what approach to take.  I have begun asking around and gathering information.

The first thing I did was ask a family with 3 boys, ages 17-21.  I got some very good advice:

• They don't want to navigate it alone; they want parental guidance [both secular and halachically]
• They want to be left alone to figure things out themselves without their parents angsting about what they're doing
  (I realize there is some contradiction.  I asked more than one person and it's important to remember that even in the same family, different kids have different needs)
• They do not want to feel like their parents are upset or horrified 
• It's really important to feel comfortable, like you can bring up questions to your parents and have a conversation about it, and they won't freak out.  And that the parents will give them information.  And that the parents won't be worrying about everything.
  
  Armed with that information, I asked some seasoned unschoolers what their approach is.  That will be Part 2.