So depressed found 12 yr old son is watching porn

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I feel like the worst mom in the world as I did not have enough protection on my son’s phone and found he was watching porn. My husband is in denial about it but I took the phone away and think I may cancel it entirely. My other children did not have a phone until they were older. When I am able I am going to sit my son down and discuss with him how addictive and dangerous porn is to your soul and future relationships. I feel sick and what he may have seen, it is so sad. I read about an app called Covenant Eyes, can anyone advise me on the best way to control this? We still have laptops and tablets which need protection.
 
Hi:) As a 20 year old who used to watch it too when I was your son’s age I can tell you it’s not your fault. Sadly it can happen. Your son is in a difficult phase, he is 12 so lots of hormonal changes are going on right now. I remember that once I fully comprehended in my heart that porn is wrong and sinful to God’s eyes I immediately felt a sense of disgust toward myself and stopped watching it. In my opinion taking away his tablet/phone is not the solution, he can still watch it from a friend’s phone or computer. I suggest talking with him calmly and try to make him understand God really dislikes it. Also it may feel better for him to talk about this issue with his dad instead of you, it may be less embarrassing. Keep in mind it is possible he will not get it right away, he needs to feel it is wrong in his heart, it might take time. I think it would be a very good thing if he could pray the rosary everyday asking for Our Lady’s help, I did this and it gave me great strength not to fall into temptation. Meditating the life of Christ everyday just makes you love God more and more and because of this love you renounce everything God doesn’t like. That’s the best advice I can give you.
 
Remember that the wrongness of porn is that it reduces the actors to body parts and the sexual act to mere selfish pleasure, rather than a life-giving gift.

Sexual feelings and curiosity are not sick or wrong, and your son is not sick or wrong for being curious.

Get the Covenent Eyes app, have your DH have a serious sit-down with your son, explain it all to him without freaking out (even privately to yourself) and move on.

I’m :pray:t2::pray:t2::pray:t2: For you all.
 
anneramones said:
I suggest talking with him calmly and try to make him understand God really dislikes it.
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This is a fine suggestion, OP, but I would also suggest something else. Assuming your son has some empathy about him (why wouldn’t he?), I would suggest embarking with him a little personal research project regarding how the porn industry works. It is typically a pretty awful thing. It does not treat those involved in it the way one would hope to treat a sister or brother or anyone. This may give your son more to think about then just telling him it is offensive to God. Once he sees where it come froms and what the lives of the people who do that are like, he may decide for himself there are better ways for him to spend his time. Finding it on his phone was a good thing. It is an opportunity, while he is still young, to help him learn why his time would be better spent on other activities.
 
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I understand it’s disturbing to find your kid watching porn on a phone, but please don’t overreact. It’s highly likely that even though your other children might not have had phones, they were exposed to some porn at a young age. The stuff is out there in society and kids hitting puberty will find it, or their friends will find it and share it. This happened back in my generation when cell phones weren’t even invented yet.

Dealing with hormones and puberty is a confusing time, and while kids need to be firmly told that porn is bad and why it is bad, it’s also not the end of the world if they make a mistake or two. Consider it a teachable moment rather than being depressed or deciding you’re the “worst mom in the world”.

You said his dad is in denial about it. I’m not sure what that means, but given that you saw the porn on the phone, I presume your husband isn’t calling you a liar. Would your husband be willing to have the talk with your son about porn and why it is bad? A 12-year-old boy might likely react better to having this type of discussion with his dad, a fellow male, who is also more likely to understand the issues surrounding young men and porn than a mom/ female is.
 
joyfulandactive said:
I feel like the worst mom in the world as I did not have enough protection on my son’s phone and found he was watching porn. My husband is in denial about it but I took the phone away and think I may cancel it entirely. My other children did not have a phone until they were older. When I am able I am going to sit my son down and discuss with him how addictive and dangerous porn is to your soul and future relationships. I feel sick and what he may have seen, it is so sad. I read about an app called Covenant Eyes, can anyone advise me on the best way to control this? We still have laptops and tablets which need protection.
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Bearself is right, as she is, oh…80% of the time or so. 😉

You need to take a deep breath. I’m not saying porn is okay, and having a talk with your son is a good idea, but you have to realize this is a problem for like 99.9999% of boys his age. He’s not weird or disturbed or perverted or anything (unless he was looking at super deviant stuff.) You dont need to treat him like he belongs in a psych ward and it certainly doesn’t mean you’re the “worst mom in the world.”

I’m not saying you shouldn’t be concerned but at the same time don’t make it more than it is.
 
Good advice above.

While it is difficult, remain calm and don’t “freak out on him”. You are demonstrating how you will react if he comes to you with other mistakes, sins, etc in the future. You want your son to know that he can trust you and that you love him unconditionally.

This is a dad talk, or a godfather talk, or a talk with the Priest. It is a man-to-man thing.

Is he in the Youth Group at your parish? If not, time to get him involved. A peer group and a Catholic Youth Minister will help your teen to grow in grace.
 
Covenant Eyes is the best software on the market for filtering, blocking, and accountability. I highly recommend it. Look up Matt Fradd on YouTube and podcasts, he is an amazing Catholic speaker who specializes in masturbation and pornography. He runs a podcast called Love People Use Things which has great resources for you and your son, I will link some stuff for you at the end of this post.

I am a 20YO guy who started my struggle with porn at around 12 and it stayed with me for years and years, was the hardest thing I have ever done to break from it but I couldn’t be happier and more thankful to God that I am free of it. What your son needs is compassion and mercy not anger and punishment. Yes porn is bad and he should have his phone taken away if he’s using it wrong (I use to smash my phone, iTouch, iPads when I was his age because I thought that was the only way I could be free of porn, to literally smash my devices against a wall and break them).

I think if he learned about who these actors and actresses in porn are, it would help him feel sorry for them. Most people turn to porn because they have some void in their lives and they are using porn to fill this void. For me, I didn’t have really any friends male or female, and females in particular didn’t like me at all while males would at least say hi sometimes. So I felt very lonely and felt worthless so I turned to porn believing those images and such wouldn’t judge me and they offered me a false sense of belonging. Your son probably has a reason he turned to porn, it would be helpful to find out the reason, otherwise he will just find other ways to find porn.

Your family and your son will be in my prayers. It was such a terrible, long, and sad struggle for me for years, wanting desperately to stop what I felt I couldn’t. Luckily for your son, you and your husband know about it. That’s a very good thing. Nobody knew about me becauee I took great measures to hide it so I struggled alone. Your son doesn’t have to struggle alone!

podcasts.apple.com

‎Love People Use Things: 42: Advice for parents on Apple Podcasts

‎Show Love People Use Things, Ep 42: Advice for parents - Sep 16, 2018
podcasts.apple.com

podcasts.apple.com

‎Love People Use Things: 36: 10 Questions for those wanting to quit porn on Apple Podcasts

‎Show Love People Use Things, Ep 36: 10 Questions for those wanting to quit porn - Aug 5, 2018
podcasts.apple.com


www.barnesandnoble.com

The Porn Myth: Exposing the Reality Behind the Fantasy of Pornography|Paperback

The Porn Myth is a non- religious response to the commonly held belief that pornography is a harmless or even beneficial pastime. Author Matt Fradd draws on the experience of porn performers and users, and the expertise of neurologists, sociologists, and psychologists to demonstrate that...
www.barnesandnoble.com www.barnesandnoble.com

www.barnesandnoble.com

Delivered - True Stories of Men and Women Who Turned from Porn to Purity|eBook

Deliverance from pornography is possible—and these true stories prove it. The pious man whose fairytale marriage was almost destroyed by his fierce addiction… The young woman who escaped a broken and abusive childhood only to become ensnared in porn’s seamy...
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If you use the code “Matt Fradd” or something like that on Covenant Eyes, you get a month or two free. Matt Fradd will mention it in his podcast I linked and other podcasts he does. Lastly, in addition to Covenant Eyes, make sure any private or incognito searches are disabled on every device in your house and make sure safe-search and adult content blockers are in place. Covenant Eyes will so pretty much all that already but make sure there is nothing left, from my experience, someone who is addicted will find any loophole possible to find it. If you need more resources just let me know

God Bless your family and your son, you will be in my prayers, St. Michael the Archangel, pray for us!
 
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joyfulandactive said:
I feel like the worst mom in the world as I did not have enough protection on my son’s phone and found he was watching porn. My husband is in denial about it but I took the phone away and think I may cancel it entirely. My other children did not have a phone until they were older. When I am able I am going to sit my son down and discuss with him how addictive and dangerous porn is to your soul and future relationships. I feel sick and what he may have seen, it is so sad. I read about an app called Covenant Eyes, can anyone advise me on the best way to control this? We still have laptops and tablets which need protection.
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One thing that disturbs me in your post is that your husband might not be of the same mind?
Pornography can destroy a person, and your parental instincts are good.
And you should not be timid or fearful of going overboard as a parent.

Do what you have to do in order to fix this problem.
And I will quote my own wife in regard to this issue in my own life.
“It’s either me or that stuff, you choose. But this will not happen in my house”.
The “my house” part of that made me think pretty hard.
 
Matt Fradd’s “The Porn Myth” is available as an ebook in epub or Kindle format on formed.org if your parish offers free access. There’s also another book on the subject “Lost on Planet XXX” by Jay Lampart, on formed.org
 
Just to reinforce some of the advice above, many of my friends have sons in this age range and have experienced some of this recently.

Looking it as a teaching moment is a good idea. Often, boys this age stumble upon this accidentally either by clicking through links or even searching for terms they might hear and not understand.

The way my friends have handled it is that the father sits down and talks with to son openly and honestly about what pornography is and how dangerous it can be. They do not “punish” or try to make the son feel like a bad person for having viewed it. It may be different for others, but at least in their situations, it truly was just happenstance and curiosity that led the boys to those pages. In their situations, the conversation was really a great teaching moment and encouraged them to stay away from porn and to become more adept at learning to avoid it (which is a skill everyone who navigates the internet will need to learn eventually).

Certainly, if your son keeps finding ways to access porn and shows no desire or willingness to avoid it, you may need to change your approach. But for a first offense, I would not presume that’s where he is at.
 
Thank you everyone, you have definitely helped me feel less alone and understood. I would just like to reassure you that I am not disgusted by sexuality or think that my son having sexual feelings and actions are bad in themselves, I think it’s a combination of seeing a change in my son in terms of him becoming “meaner” and believing as parents we have not been responsible to protect him from what I know is a powerful temptation for young people, female as well as male. I don’t have any intention of berating him or shaming him, that is just not who I am as a person.

I have always been open and frank about human sexuality in a age appropriate way and answered questions and had discussions with my children. My husband and I have been happily married for 22 years. What happened was my son’s behavior made me suspicious (quickly acting like he was trying to hide something when I entered his room) that lead me to check his phone history. A lot of the problem of course is my kids are way more sophisticated generally about gadgets and IT than me (!) isn’t it always the way, so not being sure how to protect his phone I waited too long to act. My husband just wanted to believe he “accidentally” came across it and with difficult things like this my husband has a tendency to just ignore it. My husband, like many men these days has also been tempted to look at porn himself during our marriage and I don’t believe he really wants to acknowledge how destructive the porn industry is for women and human relationships. The crazy thing is in almost everything else my husband is, I would say, OVERprotection of our kids and yet in this does just not want to face up to reality, preferring to stick his head in the sand.

I also appreciate what you say about me not being the one to talk to my son. Maybe it should be my husband. I’m just not convinced that my husband wouldn’t give him the “it’s no big deal” message. Also, I am not massively keen on the idea that kids see their mothers as non-sexual and someone that you all pretend has never had sex and doesn’t have an inter grated sexuality. I don’t mean I am going to have any drawn out discussions with my son about sex! I just think me pretending I have no idea he looks at porn is part of the problem where women are divided into “good” and “bad” and the sexual ones are the women in porn and not the ordinary women in your life. I want to help my son have a healthy relationship with girls and women and not objectify them.

One thing I do want him to know is that porn is almost always catering to men’s desire and what he is viewing is not what women want or how they should be treated. If I ignore it when in all other things we talk openly and frankly I feel it’s sending him the wrong message. He also has two older teen sisters (and by the way I am not naive enough to think they have not viewed porn) and he generally relates well to them, so I want him to continue to grow in an understanding of how to love and relate to women that is not constantly objectifying them for his pleasure.
 
If I could channel my inner Dr Ray, let me encourage you to not overthink this. Your parental instincts are good and you should act on them wisely but unapologetically. Parental instincts are a gift. Take the advice you have from others and act because it’s a serious issue.
Pornography can be very addictive.
 
Thanks goout, this forum is just my opportunity to unload as obviously I am protecting my son’s privacy and haven’t talked to anyone IRL. I feel some guilt as I was diagnosed and treated for cancer (now in recovery, thank God!) in the past 8 months and I am concerned I neglected my parental responsibilities, which I know I am not necessarily culpable for but it’s a mom’s job to feel guilty!
 
By the way, of course it’s to be expected that my son will be experiencing sexual feelings. He has always been very tall but hit puberty full on in the last year and is now 5’10”. So pretty much the size of a grown man already except he doesn’t have any facial hair yet and his face is still that of the 12 year old he is! So I have no idea how huge this guy will grow to be - actually another very important reason I want him to know how to treat women as in the future he could clearly physically over power an average woman. On women’s chat forums there is a lot of discussion about how violent “typical” porn is becoming with frequent apparent demands/popularity from users of women being, strangled, raped and generally how linking sexual arousal to extreme violence and aggression toward women is being normalized.

Do you think this something I should talk to him about?
 
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joyfulandactive said:
Do you think this something I should talk to him about?
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I still think it should be your husband, but maybe both of you. I do think it might be good to mention from a female perspective that porn can be really violent and aggressive to women. Just know he’s going to feel incredibly awkward and embarrassed and the presence of his mom there is going make it worse, no matter how much you try to put him at ease.
 
I’ve done quite a bit of research into the porn culture and the addictive nature of it, for one the research helped me escape it but also I help people out with it at my college and such and use the info I have researched and collected.

Almost all porn from my research is being increasingly violent and many contain rape or some level of sexual assault. Most are not consented to. Most of the women are human trafficked. Most of the women are abused. Often the women are strippers or prostitutes and have pimps forcing them into these acts. Not to mention these acts are void of all love, affirmation, respect, and dignity as you know.

Porn addiction is very real and it’s a disease as is any other addiction. It is not something to sweep under the carpet. I wish my parents were more involved in this stuff when I was growing up. I was very good at “hiding my tracks” but I also think they weren’t very vigilant in this regard or thought I was “above this” or something. Keep in mind they are very holy people and I am grateful for them, but if I have children in the future, I will be certainly more involved in this discussion of porn, Covenant Eyes is an absolute must.

Also very possible your daughters struggle with it so maybe you want to have a talk with them? Not like “do you watch porn” but rather just talk about how “if you ever have or do watch porn never be afraid to tell us because we won’t be angry and we want to help you. In fact we would be proud that you would come and tell us about something embarrassing like this. It’s a sign of maturity.”

One of my older brothers also struggled with porn for years and I had no clue until just a month or so ago when I told him in the past I struggled and how it’s tough for me to talk to girls now because of it I think and he said he too struggles for years and nobody knew but he also fought out of it like me.

So perhaps your daughters are struggling and want to quit but just can’t. And as embarrassing as it may be to reach out to you, they may secretly want you to ask them and offer that help 🙂
 
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I’m so sorry you are going though this. My kids are 7 and 4, and this is something I greatly fear.

I would highly suggest Covenant Eyes.

I would also highly suggest checking out Dr. Peter Kleponis’ website and reaching out to him.

Protecting Families, Peter C. Kleponis, PhD, LPC. SATP, CSAT-C, Licensed Professional Counselor

Protecting families from the dangers of pornography, Peter C. Kleponis, PhD, LPC. SATP, CSAT-C, Licensed Professional Counselor, Conshohocken, Pennsylvania
www.peterkleponis.com www.peterkleponis.com

God bless and Godspeed
 
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