Block pornography

Good Day!

Unfortunately, my wife and I had to make a very bad discovery. We have found out that our oldest child (13 years old) was watching filthy pornographic videos on the internet. Naturally, we talked to him about this issue and explained the dangers of pornography. He promised to not watch it again, but now realising how sudden such a problem can occur (we are a deeply religious family), I am asking you fellow brothers and sisters for help. We would like to ban all possibilities of pornography from our house, without completely preventing our children from using their smartphones. If someone has a solution, please please help us!

May the Lord protect us.

I would'nt be as worried about the internet as I would his habit's and who he is hanging around with.
Was he at all embarrassed about the conversation you had with him?

You may want to check with your cell phone provider on parental blocking, but I think there is really no way to block pornography unless you take away their smartphones. You can to get him a simple flip phone without wireless capabilities (I don't think this is harsh). To access the internet, maybe you can place a desktop computer in a public space in your home. It is important to get him off pornography, or else he may begin to view girls/women in a bad way. I think it is better if the dad handles this situation with him, rather than the mom.

Yeah. You can limit porn, but not stop it completely. Not unless you disconnect from the internet. Just go to Google and it's there in seconds. Sites that are not considered adult can still contain porn.

Using Parental Control software can help a lot. There are a variety of different choices that have different options.
Utilize sites like XXXChurch.com and FightTheNewDrug.org to learn more. FTND has a lot of shocking facts and real life stories about the reach of porn, as well as the reality behind the scenes.

First of all, thanks very much for the replies - much appreciated
Apparently, completely blocking porn and similar filth without turning off the internet is truly almost impossible. We found this guide on the internet and we will try it now. It teaches the proper way of dealing with kids in such a situation:
https://cutt.ly/GyJSUru

Is there a dad in the picture? And as far as the proper way to deal with a teenager?
This person would be a trillionaire!

I am so sorry your family is having to deal with this.

I've never used this personally, but I've heard a lot of good reviews for covenant eyes
https://www.covenanteyes.com/

around $15 month, up to 10 users and unlimited devices...

The battle between teenager's hormones doesn't tend to lean to logical thinking or to see far enough down the road to worry about what could happen. It is a live in the moment spirit.

But definitely by limiting the triggers and temptations, you may be able to slow it. But in reality, it is everywhere even Netflix.

So you did right by talking to him. Keep that open dialogue open. Don't shame him but speak with the knowledge of knowing what his body is going through. If you shame him, then he may completely turn away if it reoccurs in guilt and fear.

So in my opinion, your best battleground is the heart. Treat the source of sin.

He needs to be reaffirmed in love and try to keep the dialogue open even about sexually related topics. If y'all don't share with him your knowledge then his only source will be the world.

In my personal experience I will say sexual expression will take effect regardless of internet restrictions. The reason it’s so addictive is because it’s so powerful. We didn’t have internet when I was growing up. It didn’t stop us from finding pornography and girls willing to share themselves for attention. The control has to be based on your son’s desire for purity. Some of my friends told me their sons your son’s age were propositioned by girls for mutual sexual favours. Whether it’s a 13 year old boy or a 30 year old married Christian man. If you don’t make the conscious personal decision to keep your eyes and thoughts pure it’s hopeless. There is no end to way one can find to defile oneself. Think addictions. Usually a control substance is to feel better, or numb pain. What is your son like? Does he appear to be in pain or anxious? Does he like sports? Is he under a lot of pressure? I’m sure because of the Covid isolation there is loneliness. He’s becoming a man now. He doesn’t want to feel like a kid. When children start becoming adults and formulate their own morality and can no longer be bribed or threatened for discipline you will notice a difference in their personality, and not a favourable one. When you push, they will push back, and it won’t be fun. Power struggle is the result. Many parents see their kids make stupid decisions and try to stop them instead of letting them learn. Failure is a fantastic learning tool. I’m not saying throw them to the wolves but arm them with values and wisdom then let them step into the wilderness. Walk a little further behind them and call to them when you see danger. Let them face danger and overcome it. This is what builds independence and fortitude. Let them fall and pick themselves up. With my oldest son (now 16) I tried to make him a better version of me. We would fight and argue, I even thought he might be narcissistic and wondered if he was going to end up in jail. I can’t even describe the transformation that occurred when I backed off. I was making him feel so insecure and afraid. God told me to back off. He said since teens are more influenced by friends than their parents so be a better friend and less a parent. We got a ping pong table and played games together. I got him a job working with me and bought him some tools. We watched movies together and built stuff. Now this child who was failing at school and life, that I thought was going to end up going to jail wants to follow me into the trades. His marks are fantastic and he is very responsible. We have opportunities to talk and he continually asks for advice. Once I allowed him to take ownership of himself he became so much more than I ever expected. Now, I’m not saying you shouldn’t make viewing pornography more difficult but ultimately the decision he makes is going to be the one that he obeys.

there is a documentary called Nefarious about sex trafficking, if you can find it, watch with your son which will educate him about this horrible practice. It is a christian doco, and may convict him about what harm pornography etc does not just to men but to women, especially young girls not muvh older than himself. Does he have any sisters? will he be looking at them in this manner? or are girls merely objects and playthings to him?

you can set firewalls and browsers to restricted settings and also ban sites but if he uses a friends phone or internet that doesnt have those settings he may find out the stuff if he is hooked.

Duck duck Go is a search engine than google the problem with google is mostly ads too so if you block the ads, then that can deal with a lot of the problem as children accidentally click on those sites that lead them astray...as a preventative measure. But if hes deliberately searching stuff out, you have to keep blocking specific sites hes visiting. You can get a free chrome extension if you using that as a browser to block sites.

I use DuckDuckGo. It doesn't use any ads, nor does it track your every move online..

I agree, if somebody really wants to find it they will...although prayer for his deliverance is of course the answer and powerful... the problem with internet porn though, is it may lead a young impressionable person to darker things like fetish sites etc. It’s way too accessible. In my day it was magazines and soft porn films. Now it’s so explicit, I feel so sorry for this generation. Porn is the top reason for divorce now 😔

Yes prayer for sure. I will say porn and divorce are symptoms of much more serious illness. I will say in this respect correlation isn’t specifically causation. I think the bigger problem is that men and women just don’t care much for eachother anymore the way they are supposed to.

let's get REAL HERE!!!
where are 'the REAL PARENTS/LEADERS', and where have they gone wrong'???
absent parents are NO parents, they are those who have given, sacrificed their own children
over to the world's ways,= 's and g' - they have become captive to the supreme captivator=satan,
and are raising their off-spring to follow suit! -
just LOOK AT THEM NOW, in the streets = looting-destroying-hurting others, and at home, they
are being totally left alone, being exposed to ALL of the evils and perverseness and wickedness,
and ALL witchcraft pervasive in our 'modern world'!!!
this is NOT a good recipe for RIGHTEOUSNESS, raising our children...
IF we don't raise our children according to God's Holy principles and Commandments, then
then they will NEVER except any 'responsibility for their actions', and we are NOW WITNESSING
the very fruits of an 'un-Godly' society'...

I completely agree. A man at my church said leaving a child with a pc and no parental lock is child abuse. I found my parents porn stash when I was seven. Messed me up for 40 years.

=============================================
I was my caregiver's porn stash way before seven...
very sorry to share this with the tenderhearted, but, I had no choice, a victim,
but,
in my later life Jesus Christ, Yeshua, delivered me from the 'bondage of

I'm terribly sorry you had to endure that.

Exactly!

And nowadays, no stash is needed.

Go online.

The best weapon is to instill the word of God in the children; teach them what is good and what is evil according to the word.

Then they will have a conscience to either obey, or disobey. Hoping that a guilty conscience before God will steer them away from all evil (including pornography).

The fear of God will do more than anything else to dissuade men from darkness.

A guilty conscience isn't going to change much. Plenty of people feel massive shame using pornography and still use it.

Bear in mind, that because he was "caught" it is a possibility that he will cover his tracks in the future. This could be anything from selectively deleting history, to using private browser sessions (which you can ask for that info from your provider). Unfortunately there are more "clandestine" methods for this issue.

I don't see any reason why they need to have a smartphone as someone else said. A flip phone works just as well for emergencies (in my view better). They are not gone and I could find you many place in the US where you can get one. Grocery stores in fact. That's just my opinion, but I didn't need one when I was 13, it was a status thing. Could have easily had an emergency phone with only texting/calling.

It really depends on their needs, but there aren't too many practical uses for a smartphone as a child other than games and social media...which a LOT goes on there that is hard to monitor. Sure they might moan and complain, but "friends" is a ridiculous excuse because a lot of those people aren't "friends" they are internet friends and out of all my time on the net, actual friends are pretty sparse.


With Tmobile they have an explicit content block. I'm sure that's standard across carriers. The issue is wifi though, do you have wifi? If so, you can easily track everything that is visited on your wifi. You also have broad discretionary spying ability on your children's phones through the network.

You could try that if you want to...they said they'd stop, so there ya go. However, this is like crack and quite difficult to resist initially, I don't care what kind of christian you are, it's a new thing that hasn't really existed before. It wasn't until the advent of the net that it was "practical" and nowadays almost all of it is free.

Almost all these content blockers can be proxied, and I'm guessing that children are getting smarter. There are ways around all of these blocks.


Adsense I had at university and it blocked a lot of sites, but any explicit site it would hijack the speakers and blast a loud alarm system...pretty effective.

Also, if you use a home computer option...there are ways to hide history and bypass censors.

However, I will say that there are ironclad ways that no child is going to be able to get around and if you are interested I will share them. Unless they are a tech genius ofc...you would have to know how to program to bypass some of these things but it requires you to be the monitor, not some other program. To put these protocols in place requires very little know how...but some understanding so you don't leave your own system vulnerable.

It could be simple history monitoring works for a while, but there is a very secretive element to this particular type of sin


Oh, friend of mine was required to use the computer in the family room, and as an administrator just change the password after you go to bed, pretty simple. What they miss out on from lack of internet pales in comparison to what is gained. It will chafe for them, but I would do all these things without a second thought. My own personal methods, are very akin to "big brother" and since I am not a parent I can't make that call right now until I'm there...but I imagine, it will be no privacy with technology but hopefully not militant to the point where they rebel and ideally they can see how I am protecting them.

This is an extremely difficult issue for some, so while it could be that simple measures are effective, it's a shortcut to fake sexual experiences that cannot ever be had in a similar fashion in their lives, to the point where you also cannot take it lightly hoping the Lord will work it out. He can, but based off my own life, it's more of a reap what you sow thing after a certain point and if he does bless me with children, well...I'm not sleeping in the same room with them, but they won't have the internet behind closed doors. Ideally, by the time they are adults, they see the wisdom in that and have made solid purity commitments.

When I was that age, videos were VERY hard to find. You won't be able to stop all pictures or softcore with these apps though as a fair warning.



With what technology actually can be used for, if they have a phone on them it would be very unlikely you wouldn't know exactly what they are doing at any given moment, it's just privacy is a personal decision.

Looking back, I would have liked for my parents to have been more savvy. I'm not going to give a testimonial at present, but there was no reason I needed an unblocked cell phone or my own laptop. Even in college, I had library computers to get work done, and I had a few times where having my own was uh not wise. If a child can give a legitimate reason why they don't need monitored internet, I'd love to hear it.



Oh and btw, today as a 16 year old, one could just walk into any supermarket, buy a phone with cash and service with cash and have internet, you would have no control. It is fortunate I didn't live today as a child. Then again though, the Lord has a way of blocking rebellious children, so there is that