Are You Doing Enough to Educate Adolescents on Technology and Pornography?

By Adam McLane on February 23 2010

Rhett Smith, a Marriage & Family Therapist and part-time youth ministry staff member from Dallas, writes on his blog.

Adolescents. Technology. Pornography. The perfect storm according to many psychologists, addiction experts and theorists who are on the leading edge when it comes to studying this issue and working with the people who suffer from such an addiction.

If you work with adolescents…Or are parent or mentor to adolescents… Are you being sober minded enough on this issue? What are you doing to educate them about their use of technology and about issues of sexuality and pornography?

It's a great question. I think that many youth workers like to shy away from this topic. My own tendency is to either skip it altogether or talk about it with a sledgehammer. I'm afraid neither approach is helpful.

How are you talking to your youth groups about technology and pornography?

Comments

From bjbrinker on February 23, 2010

I think it’s something you need to address in the same way as you would address talking to them about sex.  No sledgehammer needed.  Skipping it doesn’t make it go away nor does it help.  It’s out there, whether you talk to your kids or not.  My personal opinion is teach them why porn is wrong and what it can lead to, of course you don’t have to go to the porn sites to do this.  If you are talking from the time they are young (age appropriate of course) it will be so much easier to talk to them as they get older. In our house nothing was taboo to talk about.  We often did it in a joking manner, but they all got the message.