What Do You Do If Your Child Is Addicted to Porn?

What Can You Do If Your Child Is Addicted to Porn? 

You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t already know—or strongly suspect—that your child was watching porn. And the odds are VERY high that he IS using and has been using for a while.

It starts by admitting the truth. As parents we do not like talking about this subject, but our children can’t afford our denial.

We recognize addictions in adults—alcohol, drugs, sex—but surely our “little boy” isn’t an addict, right? Probably wrong. Studies now estimate that as many as 80% of young men regularly use porn. And the average age where it begins is ELEVEN—yes, eleven.

And a huge number of those users are addicts, because today’s porn has been designed to be as addictive as cocaine. Behavioral scientists and computer algorithms are working feverishly to keep your child on the screen.

The incidence of porn addiction is now so high that it’s the major reason boys are having less real sex. That might sound like a good thing, but boys are now avoiding all the emotional and social risks of actually having to relate to a girl—or anyone else.

I’m not advocating that boys have more sex, just saying that porn is isolating them. More and more. This pattern is crippling to boys and should be sobering to us.

ONE porn site had 100 Billion views last year. 30% of traffic on the Internet is porn, and the sites are proliferating, with more options—including the infinite possibilities of AI.

What Happens to My Child on Porn: The Effects of Porn

Oh my, how we—including the experts—have underestimated the effects of porn use. They include, as now substantiated by a great number of studies and entire books (Google it):

• Disrespect for women
• Normalization of sexual aggression and violence
• Increasing incidence of true addiction, to the point of emotional, occupational, and social incapacity
• Sexual dissatisfaction with real-life sexual partners
• Astonishing incidence of erectile dysfunction—including complete non-function—during sex with real-life partners
• Increased anxiety, anger, and social dysfunction
• Increased detachment from life—isolation
• Users become more emotionally dead, as they depersonalize everything in real life.
• Virtuality. Addicts increasingly can’t function except in a virtual world of porn and games and social media.

Porn is finally characterized by many health organizations as a major health crisis.

Can a Child Be Addicted to Porn?

Taking everything that we’ve said to this point, look at your child. If he’s older than 12, the odds are greater than 50% that he IS using porn, if not already addicted.

A Child Addicted to Porn

A child addicted to porn isn’t just having a problem. He or she is in crisis, just as real as that of a cocaine addict. Addictions easily overwhelm a child entirely and make them miss out on the ability to develop relationships and learn skills that are absolutely essential to success and happiness for a lifetime. 

If a child misses out on simple algebra in school, they WILL fail at geometry and trigonometry later. Similarly, if a porn-addicted child misses out on emotional development at a young age, they are almost certain to be impaired as adults.

What do you need to know, and what can you do? Did you know that kids naturally WANT to be responsible, loving, connected, and happy?

The primary reason they fail—the reason they use porn addictively—is that they’re missing one thing, and I will teach you what that is and how you can give it to them. When you really learn all that, they’ll NATURALLY stop using porn as an emotional crutch. They’ll be happy, cooperative, and responsible instead—and your relationship with them will become far better. Imagine that.

Why Is My Child Using Porn?

THIS is THE question. Until you can answer it, you will be confused and helpless with your child. And almost no experts can answer it.

We cannot understand our children until we first realize that what we all need more than anything is to feel LOVED. As proven by many studies, love is THE ingredient necessary for happiness, and without it we WILL be in pain. We feel small and helpless, and we HATE that. So do our children.

Listen closely: Our children are in pain because they don’t feel sufficiently loved BY US. Yes, I know you love your children as well as you can, but YOU were not given the KIND of love YOU needed as a child either, so you don’t have that kind of love to give. LOVE is both the reason for our children’s pain and also the answer. But we must understand that NOT just any kind of love will do.

What we all need is UNCONDITIONAL love—or Real Love®—which means to care about another person without any thought for something in return. In Real Love®, there is no disappointment or irritation. You didn’t get that kind of love—with no disappointment or anger—so you don’t have it to give your children. How do I know that you didn’t get unconditional love?

Remember in your childhood how many times:

• your parents and others rolled their eyes at your mistakes.
• they criticized your performance, especially with a “tone.”
• they told you they were disappointed in you—with their words, their facial expression.
• you just needed to talk to someone, but there was no one there.

On each of these occasions, you were not being unconditionally loved—whether aggressively or by simple neglect—and you FELT the message, “I don’t love you.” Really, whether you consciously remember each event or not. It was like being poked with a sharp stick. Our children have the same pain.

All of us—including our children—MUST be unconditionally loved and taught:

• how to maintain our feelings of worth
• how to develop our creativity, and
• how to identify and be responsible for our feelings.

When children don’t feel unconditionally loved, they try ANY behavior that will earn our approval or protect them from feeling disapproval. They try to please us, to earn praise. When that wears off, they try whining, complaining, disappearing into screens, anger, fighting, resisting, more pleasing, and on and on. 

When everything fails to make them genuinely happy—not just entertained or briefly satisfied—they become emotionally discouraged. They feel emotional pain, and one way of dealing with that is by using the sexual and emotional excitement of porn.

To be plain: the reason your child uses porn is that you simply were not loved unconditionally yourself, and now you don’t know how to give that lifegiving ingredient to them.

And yes, you’re doing your best, but your disappointment, irritation, or simple lack of nurturing with your child—all of which happen much more often than you might think—are crushing and painful to them. Do not feel guilty. It all began with the love you did not get yourself.

Take the first step right now. Say out loud these words: “My child uses porn because of MY disappointment, irritation, or lack of emotional connection, which proves that I simply don’t know HOW to love my child unconditionally.” Yes, ouch, but now we can talk about truly effective solutions.

How to Help a Child Addicted to Porn 

You have already learned that the usual solutions for porn use—talking, nagging, shaming, parental controls on the computer—don’t work well.

But you can learn how to find the Real Love® your child needs more than anything. You can learn how to give it to your child in a consistent and reliable way. You can learn what happens when your child is happy and free from pain.

• Watch your child’s addiction disappear naturally—along with improvements in school performance, chores, and relationships—without pushing, nagging, and controlling. 
• Watch your child turn to you more for affection. Allow the tears to fall as you see your child feel loved and even become more loving to his siblings. 
• When children are not in pain, they become who they were meant to be. They become their true selves: curious, creative, cooperative, involved, and connected.
• They become more responsible in ways you can’t imagine until you see it happen. 

How could you want more for your children than that?

You don’t have to figure out all this on your own. It’s already been figured, thoroughly tested, and written. Go to RealLoveParents.com and click to watch the free chapter of The Ridiculously Effective Parenting Training. 

The entire training teaches you how to help your child with his pornography use, BUT it begins with teaching you how it all began and what YOU need to learn before you can help your child. The Training specifically teaches you about responding to porn addiction in Chapters Four and Eight.

We all want a quick fix—who doesn't?—that involves a short list of things to do, but that never, ever works with significant problems. What I’m offering in the Training works consistently—not kidding—IF you are committed to doing it.

But it involves learning on your part, and right there is where most parents quit. I hope you keep going and find the relief—even the joy—that you are looking for.