What should I do if I discover my teenage daughter watching pornography?

It can be a massive shock to walk in on your daughter and see her using pornography, or to look at your browser history and know beyond any reasonable doubt that your teen (or child) has been investigating those kinds of sites. The temptation is to panic, cry or react out of anger—but none of those things help. Here are some tips on how to approach the situation: 

• Pray: you will need God’s perspective, love and strength.
• Fix a time to chat: somewhere quiet, maybe out of the house, certainly without other family members being in earshot.
• Love: tell your daughter that you love her, and that will never change, and that God loves her too.
• Listen: ask her to explain what she has been doing and to outline why. Did she simply open a link sent to her by a friend? (The culture of sexting—sending provocative photos or videos to peers—is rife, and it may be that she didn’t intend to watch anything specifically pornographic at all.) Has her porn use been a one-off, regular, or is it an addiction? Is she simply wondering what sex is like, or trying to keep up with what her friends know or are doing (or are claiming to be doing), or trying to find out how to do something to try with a boy (or girl) at school, or trying to compensate for loneliness? Try to work out which idol(s) is at play in her life. And check to see if she has been watching porn elsewhere—is there a particular friend who is encouraging porn use?
• Explain: that porn is not what real sex is like—it’s a poor teacher and a pointless substitute. Using it will damage current and future relationships. Show what the Bible says about God’s love for us, his forgiveness, his call to purity and his Spirit’s enabling to be faithful even when we are struggling.
• Ask: what she would like to do next? See if she asks for help to stop. See if she offers an apology. Or see if she is more interested in excusing it, belittling it, or covering it up (“You won’t tell anyone else, will you?”)
• Enforce boundaries: beef up the security setting with your ISP (internet service provider), set up Covenant Eyes and, most importantly, tell her that you will be asking her how she is getting on in avoiding porn; say that you will need to check her mobile phone regularly to help her pursue purity. Talk to other mothers if appropriate, so they can support their children.
• Memorise Scripture: pick a verse and learn it together over the coming days.
• Set aside regular time: to talk and pray about the underlying issues (her idol of experience or her feelings or loneliness and so on).
• Pray: with her and for her.

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Of course, if she has rejected Christianity, some of the above may fall on deaf ears, but it is good to give a biblical perspective anyway.

This article is an extract from Purity is Possible by Helen Thorne