ST. FRANCIS — In the workshops Fr. Greg Greiten presents on pornography addiction and sexual addiction, he asks participants, “Did anyone’s parents ever take them to an adult bookstore, drop them off, and say, ‘OK, the next two hours, you can look around. I’ll go shopping and then I’m going to come back and pick you up’?”

Ongoing communication between parents and their children is one way to help protect children from pornography. (thinkstock.com)

Ongoing communication between parents and their children is one way to help protect children from pornography, according to experts. (thinkstock.com)

The question elicits laughter as everyone realizes what a ridiculous scenario it is, but it’s a set-up for the priest’s message.

“I say, ‘No, because they safeguarded you from these places,’” and continues, “Yet today parents think nothing of saying, ‘Here’s a smartphone; you can have it for two, three, four hours,’ and you have no idea what your child is doing on there. Then it begins to sink in: ‘Oh, my gosh, what’s happening? What is it being used for?’”

No denying what kids will find

For Fr. Greiten, pastor of St. Bernadette Parish, Milwaukee, and certified in sexual addiction from the Institute of Trauma and Addiction Professionals, and others concerned about the harm pornography has on children and youth, one of the biggest obstacles is getting parents to realize that their children can easily be exposed – intentionally or unintentionally – to pornography on their smartphones.

“Some parents will tell me, ‘My kids aren’t looking at that,’ and all I can say is, ‘Wow,’” Fr. Greiten said regarding parents’ denial.[su_pullquote align=”right”]Resources for talking, protecting
Parents seeking help in talking to their children about pornography will find it among the 
following:
Susan McNeil, (414) 758-2214, https://jpiihealingcenter.org/
Fr. Greg Greiten, (414) 358-4600, www.sehealingministry.com/about-me.html
Tim Shininger, (262) 284-5789, www.compcounselingservices.com/-tim-shininger
• The National Center on Sexual Exploitation, (202) 393-7245, Installing software on electronic devices is one way to protect children from being exposed to 
pornography. Among those that might provide the protection parents seek are:
Covenant Eyeswww.covenanteyes.com/
Net Nannywww.netnanny.com/mac
Total Net Guardwww.afo.net/
K9 Web Protectionwww1.k9webprotection.com/
WebWatcherwww.webwatcherkids.com/ Additional information about how to talk to your children and sites that aid in blocking pornography are available at www.endsexualexploitation.org/resources-parents and www.endsexualexploitation.org/filtering-software/ [/su_pullquote]

Fr. Chuck Schramm, a senior priest in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee with a master’s degree in social work, said that boys sneaking peeks at Playboy — what he termed “part of adolescent curiosity and part of the developmental process” — evolved into a huge problem with the advent of the internet.

“It just mushroomed and became an epidemic really,” he said, noting that in the ‘90s he would talk to parochial high school students who would tell him about kids getting pornography on their computers.[su_pullquote align=”right”]You found your child with pornography! Now what do you do?[/su_pullquote]

“There are probably middle school kids out there who know more about pornography than some of our priests,” he said. “We know that for a fact, even in our parochial schools, that kids are sexting and these are good little Catholic kids who, if they don’t go to a Catholic school, are in the religious formation program.”

Fr. Schramm likens the “not my kid” approach some parents take to pornography to what he experienced as a parish priest in the 1970s.

“There were parents at social gatherings and I would bring up the drug problem at Whitnall High School at that time, and it was like, boom, ‘Not my children.’ Yet almost every one of the kids at the middle school was smoking pot at that time,” he said.

Protective steps for phones

Tim Shininger, a licensed clinical social worker and licensed marriage and family therapist for 21 years and a member of Divine Savior Parish, Fredonia, noted that the highest incidence of internet pornography use is by teenagers.

“Part of that is curiosity. It’s not always because they’re bad kids who are seeking these things out,” he said. “They’re curious, it’s a time in their lives when their hormones are active … it’s new and exciting and they’re running with their emotions.”

One thing that can prevent children from accessing pornography on their phones is software that blocks it, Shininger said.

“One of the most important things for parents to do, especially in this technological age, is don’t give your children free reign to electronic devices,” he said, referring to smartphones, iPods and computers. “Make sure you put parental controls on your electronic devices. … That’s one very important area parents need to educate themselves on and be aware of.”

Shininger and his wife Anne are the parents of sons age 21, 19, 17, and a daughter 11. He said he understands parents might have a “not my kid” mindset when it comes to their children accessing pornography.

“Believe me, as a parent, I’ve been down that road of you think your son’s a good kid and he’s not going to do that sort of thing and, to be honest, sometimes it happens by accident (that the child is exposed to pornography),” he said. “Sites are so easy to get to. Pop-ups happen; they click on something and before you know it they’re seeing something that’s like, ‘Wow, that’s kind of fascinating’ and down the road they go.’”

Susan McNeil, director of the Nazareth Project for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee and coordinator of its “Break Free of Pornography Use and Addiction” initiative, said families need to do a better job of monitoring what their children view.

“I was like the worst parent in the world,” the mother of a daughter, 25, and sons, 22 and 7, said with a laugh. “When my kids got cellphones, I turned off the texting, I turned off the pictures, I monitored everything, and I regularly checked their phones. And they hated it. I would do it again in an instant.”

McNeil admitted parents can’t control everything their children do.

“But you sure can sure make it hard. And I think that’s the ideal. It’s got to come from multiple, different levels,” she said. “I have a 7-year-old – to think how he could, if I weren’t absolutely vigilant, be connecting into these things.”

McNeil isn’t advocating “helicopter” parenting, but rather mindfulness.

“I’m talking about how I’m aware of what he’s in contact with, and I make sure I have conversations with him about what he’s viewing and what other people show him,” she said.

The ‘must have’ conversations

While monitoring children’s electronic devices is one way to protect children from pornography, another protection is helping children develop a healthy sexuality.

“It is about having conversations; it is about talking with your children not just about pornography but (about) healthy sexuality, modesty – for fathers to talk with their sons about how to look at a woman, how to treat a woman,” Shininger said. “For mothers to talk with their daughters about modesty in dress, modesty in how do you want a boy to look at you.”

Talking about pornography, he said, is part of that conversation.

“To just have those conversations as part of dealing with this whole area of developing healthy sexuality and talking then specifically about pornography, about why it’s damaging, that it objectifies the person, it makes us look at somebody as a utilitarian, as an object for our pleasure versus an authentic, healthy sexual love,” he said.

Zabrina Decker, chancellor of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee’s tribunal and office for ecclesiastical processes, said parents should approach the conversation about pornography in the same way they would talk to their children about the use of drugs and alcohol, about pre-marital sex and about sexual relations in general.

“When they have that talk with the kids, it should include talks on pornography. It should include why it’s wrong, damaging … why it damages them, why it hurts them,” she said, adding parents have a responsibility to provide their children with that information.

“It is our challenge in the church to give them all the tools and support we can to do it correctly. That’s how I see us helping through Catholic education, and I know there is always a debate on sex education in Catholic schools, but I wish every parent had the ability to have that conversation with their child,” she said. “Some do, some don’t. Some are aware of what the church teaches, some aren’t. Our responsibility is to assist them with that discussion.”

While parents may dread having these talks with their children, McNeil sees the positive in this communication.

“Some of these are the best conversations parents have with their kids themselves,” she said. “A lot of it is equipping families to have these conversations with their kids to know why this is an issue.”

Ongoing communication

Fr. Greiten said the conversation has to be ongoing, and that there should be “a whole educational piece around giving someone a phone.”

“Is it just a phone or is it a full smartphone? At what age do they get the full smartphone over just a phone to call home? … Is my child ready? Have we been talking about all of these issues?” he said were questions parents need to ask themselves.

Parents also have to be ready to approach conversations about human sexuality with their children, Fr. Greiten said.

“I’ve known parents who have done a wonderful job, whose child can come and talk to them about anything,” he said. “If there is any issue about sexuality they want to bring to the parents, they’re willing to do it because they’re not going to be shamed; the parent will give them an appropriate response so their children are not in a world of secrecy.”

The priest has also known families where there is no discussion on the topic.

“What the child is getting is either what is taught in the school or they get it from their friends or they learn it on the internet. If that’s what’s happening, there’s a lot going on there,” he said, adding that the “lot” is not necessarily good.

Obstacles might block conversations

Fr. Schramm noted two obstacles that might block those conversations from occurring.

“It’s very difficult because one or the other parent might be involved in online cyber-sex, and there is still a tendency in families to avoid this as an uncomfortable topic,” he said. “If Johnny or Susie comes home and says, ‘Mom, Dad, what’s sexting?’ they might get a good lecture about it and be told, ‘Don’t ever let me hear you talk about that again.’”

Because pornography gives a distorted picture of reality, families need to be challenged to talk about it, Fr. Schramm said.

“Kids still are very naïve and ignorant. The only information many of them have is what they get from the technology and from their peers,” he said. “They don’t have anybody to sit down and talk with them and to put it into the big picture: Why is it wrong? What is the harm that can be done? And why you should avoid this. These are all things parents need to address.”

Fr. Schramm said there’s even a reluctance on the part of some parents to attend an expert’s presentation on the topic.

“They say, ‘I don’t even want to go there,’” he said. “They’d rather stay in blissful ignorance, denial.”

If parents need a reason to educate themselves about what impact pornography can have on their children, McNeil has one.

“From our Safeguarding All of God’s Family efforts, we know pornography is one of the key tools that pedophiles use to groom children,” she said. “It’s always being aware of who’s in your child’s life, what are they seeing, where are they seeing it and talking about that with them. A lot of that is equipping families and making sure we have information that is out there over and over and over again.”

What is pornography?

The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines pornography this way:

Pornography consists in removing real or simulated sexual acts from the intimacy of the partners, in order to display them deliberately to third parties. It offends against chastity because it perverts the conjugal act, the intimate giving of spouses to each other. It does grave injury to the dignity of its participants (actors, vendors, the public), since each one becomes an object of base pleasure and illicit profit for others. It immerses all who are involved in the illusion of a fantasy world. It is a grave offense (CCC, 2354).