How can I protect my child from sexual images?

How To Protect Your Child From Sexual Images

Sexual images are everywhere – how to protect your child’s innocence

Children are naturally curious and soak up a lot of information through what they see and hear. As a parent, it is natural for you to want to protect your kids from violent or sexual images that you feel they are too young to see or too immature to process. Practically speaking, you are not going to be able to block all sexual images from your child’s environment. Instead, establishing age-appropriate restrictions, teaching media literacy, and talking to your kids about the media they consume can help you protect your kids from harmful images while conveying your values and earning their trust.

Assess the Problem

The first step is to assess how much media your kids are consuming and understanding the content of the TV, music, websites, and other media they see and hear. According to the Parents Television Council, the average eight year old spends eight hours a day on media and more than 58% of 14-17 year olds reported seeing a pornographic site on the internet or their phone (Parents Television Council). A study of 13 and 14 year olds found that heavy exposure to sex on TV increased their acceptance of non-marital sex. Another study reported that most children between the ages of 11 and 13, and some in the 8-10 group, understood sexual content in media, even jokes and innuendos (The Media Project). Furthermore, two out of three TV shows include sexual content. A University of Georgia study found that over 27% of ads featured sexual imagery to sell products ranging from alcohol to banks (Business News Daily). In order to combat this inundation of sexual imagery, minimizing how much your children see, set limits on how much media they can consume and where. If you’re not around, parental controls can help you set password restrictions on certain channels, or even enforce time limits.

Prioritize Your Values

As your kids get older, keeping a strict lock-down on certain types of media may create a “forbidden fruit” mentality, making it desirable for them to seek out what they aren’t supposed to see. It is important that as you establish boundaries for what media your child can consume that you convey your values as well.

Consider your own attitudes about sex and sexuality and how they developed. Are there some attitudes that you do not want to pass on to your kids? How do you want them to think about and feel about sex and their bodies? Take notes about these issues so that when the time comes, you can clearly express the values you want your kids to learn about sex, and why certain shows, music, etc. do or do not support these values. Having this conversation will help your children be more conscious of the messages they receive from media, and will teach them to evaluate media based on these values, whether you are with them or not.

For example, according to Miss Representation, the use of sexual images in the media sells “young people the idea that girls’ and women’s value lies in their youth, beauty, and sexuality and not in their capacity as leaders. Boys learn that their success is tied to dominance, power, and aggression.” Discussing the connection between sexual images and self-worth can help your kids resist internalizing these messages.

Teach and Practice Media Literacy

When your children start to have more freedoms around media consumption, one of the best things you can do to help them make healthy choices is to teach them critical media literacy. This means the skills to evaluate the content of a program and what message it is sending them about themselves, gender, race, religions, etc. First, you can test your own knowledge about controlling your kids’ media consumption using the Parents Television Council Quiz: How media savvy are you?  Then, to engage your kids in conversations about the media they consume, you can use resources such as Miss Representation’s Conversation Starters.

Keep the Conversation Going

Throughout your kids’ lives, keep the conversation open, so they can come to you with questions or concerns they have. Ask them questions about shows you watch or music you listen together, helping them evaluate the content. Teach your kids age-appropriate information about sex, alongside the values you want them to have. Having these conversations with your children—of both sexes—can help them develop a healthy understanding of sex and establish that they can trust you when they have questions. In doing so, you can protect your kids from trying to learn for themselves from all the negative sexual imagery in the media.

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