Protecting Kids from Porn

 

In one of the cyber wellness seminars I held in a top tier school, one major issue that confronted the parents group and the school is the exposure to porn sites of 7-year-old boys. This incident happened when one boy chanced upon a porn link and subsequently opened it from their family computer’s browser history. After glancing it, he immediately shared the link to his classmates and visited the site. The school discovered it when a teacher overheard the discussion of these boys in the CR.

This incident can also happen to another family or school. The online activities of adults can be discovered by kids accidentally, and will be passed on to other kids who will explore the same.

While porn may have an effect on adults, we’ll focus our discussion on the likely effects to kids, and how we can protect them from accidental exposure.

First, let’s look at, the effects of porn to children:

1. Children who are exposed to porn will keep these images in their memories for the rest of their lives. These can be triggered and can surface without warning, and depending on other determinants, can lead to problems in future life.
2. Internet pornography, in our days, is often the first exposure that kids have to sexual images. These provided a perverse view of sexuality that is difficult to correct. These early learning experiences can negatively affect their future relationships and marriages.

In her work Mind and Brain, Dr. A. S. Gilinsky discusses the fact that humans pass through certain stages of development when they are maximally sensitive to certain kinds of stimuli.

“ For example, an infant imprints on his or her mother’s voice. We all know how deeply impressionable small children are. Children possess a huge number of cells throughout their brains and bodies just waiting to soak up and store information, experiences, emotions, etc.

Cellular-memory groups are being formed and linked together with other cell groups with great rapidity throughout a child’s mindbody. These cellular memories will act as a pair of glasses through which the child will see herself and the world around her. What happens if during a critical developmental time in a child’s life she is exposed to pornography on the Internet or in some other way? Or what if she is sexually abused by an older friend or relative who has been exposed to and been taught by pornography? Part and parcel with this abuse, cellular memories will be formed in this child that will affect him or her for the rest of his or her life. And because the child is so impressionable and at such a sensitive developmental stage, the cellular memories and linking pathways forged will be especially wide and very deeply etched. Hence her future growth and development-especially in the emotional/spiritual and healthy human intimacy vein-may be greatly retarded.”

Source: http://www.netnanny.com/learn_center/article/144

Before we proceed to the protection aspect, I would like to add though, that aside from Internet porn, children can be exposed to “grooming” and “live sexual performances” via anonymous cam to cam chat sites or Facebook applications. Yes Facebook is a source of risk too, if kids are allowed to have an account even if they are under 13, and parents are not monitoring the apps they are using. Facebook have virtual chat room application that allows, exchange of communication via text, audio and video chat. Kids can enter an adult room on this chat app.

Having understood this, how do we prevent our kids from exposure to porn?

Responsible adult behavior

Adults in the house may have more leeway in their online activities, but they should be responsible enough to ensure the family computer is “kept clean” for other users.

• They should keep in mind that some sites that provide downloadable porn materials are host to malware and virus too.
• They may opt too use the “incognito” or “private” mode of their browsers to prevent it from recording the visited sites. If this is not possible, just delete the cache and browsing history
• On the browser settings, block 3rd party cookies from being set.
• Always heed the browser advisor warning.
• Avoidance or abstinence from engaging on these activities is a better approach.

Use of an appropriate filtering tool.

As parent, you are not helpless in protecting your child from Internet porn and predators. There are digital tools, like open dns or the parental control of your OS computer, at your disposal to give you peace of mind even when you are away from your kids. There are also 3^rd party products that specialize on parental control and monitoring.

One third party tool is Tattoo@Home. If you are a broadband subscriber, you can avail of the “surf safe” bundle of Globe, with these, you can do the following:

• Create an account for each computer users in your household.

You can assign a user access for everyone, including adult users. They will not be able to surf the net unless they log-in.

• Define the appropriate filter setting

There are pre-defined age appropriate filters that you can use, from children, tweens, teens and adults. Or you can opt to individually customize the setting to filter access by category or block specific sites.

From here, you can block these categories- nudity, pornography, sexuality and alike.

• Maximize the reporting feature of the Tattoo@Home family protection.

To me, this is the fun. You can opt to be alerted immediately via email as soon as any member of the household attempted to visit a blocked website. You can turn this feature “on” to older children and adults if you want to. They may feel uncomfortable, but this is one way of ensuring you have the upper hand in protecting your little ones.