What happened to Maddie, a mom of two boys, one afternoon has no doubt happened to countless other parents across the country.
Maddie’s computer was out of juice, so she hopped on her 15-year-old son’s laptop. She looked at the history of something she was working on and then, bam. There were links to 40 porn sites with topics too racy for me to print.
“I was freaking out,” said Maddie, whose name has been changed to protect her privacy and her son’s.
She immediately did something she has never done before during her nearly two decades as a parent: called her husband out of an extremely important client meeting.
“I thought, ‘Oh, my God, we need to talk about this,’ ” Maddie said. “There’s nothing I can’t handle with the kids. … This I cannot handle,” she added, remembering how she felt at the time.
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“It’s not like Playboy, which your father had hanging around, where you could just see naked women.”
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If the child doesn’t want to talk about that, which is entirely likely, Schroeder says, parents can leave out a book or a magazine such as Sex, etc., which is made for teens and by teens.
One of the most crucial things that kids need to hear from parents is why they are freaking out about their online porn watching in the first place.
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“Here’s what I’m concerned about, and let me tell you why,” Schroeder says parents can say. “The images you are seeing do not represent real life. They’re not made for your age group. However, here’s what there is, so it’s not cutting you off completely.”
Maddie says she still worries a little bit about what her son might watch, but she continues to keep tabs on him by checking his history, which he doesn’t erase.
“There are parents like us who believe that it’s natural for them to be curious but with parameters and caution.”
What do you think is the best way to talk to teens about online porn? Share your thoughts with Kelly Wallace on Twitter or CNN Living on Facebook.
