It’s hard to know what to do when your child watches inappropriate things. One dad shares his thoughts about protecting children from pornography.

Discovering that your child has been exposed to inappropriate content, such as pornography, can be deeply upsetting. Many parents feel unsure of how to handle the situation—should you confront them? Punish them? Ignore it altogether?

At Betrayal Trauma Recovery (BTR), we understand the complex emotions and challenges that come with situations like these.

The reality is that these moments are opportunities to teach your child critical values that shape how they view themselves, women, and relationships.

If you’re searching for information about this because you’re worried your husband is using pornography and your worried about when your child watches inappropriate things, you need support. Attend a Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Session TODAY.

Why Should It Matter When Your Child Watches Inappropriate Things?

Pornography isn’t harmless. It often perpetuates violence against women, portraying them as objects rather than equals, and reinforces exploitative behaviors for monetary gain. If you’re thinking you might be emotionally abused, take our free emotional abuse quiz.

These messages will influence your child’s beliefs about gender roles, relationships, and power dynamics in harmful ways. Teaching them healthy perspectives early is crucial to healthy relationships.

Step 1: Stay Calm

Finding out when your child watches inappropriate things can be triggering, especially if you’ve experienced betrayal trauma in your own marriage. However, staying calm is essential. Overreacting can shut down communication and make your child less likely to come to you in the future.

Instead, approach the situation with understanding and curiosity. A conversation might start like this:

• “I noticed you came across something online that may seem confusing or upsetting. Can we talk about it?”

By fostering an open dialogue, you establish trust and create a safe space for them to express themselves.

Step 2: Teach Them to Be Feminists

Teaching boys to respect women as equals is one of the most effective ways to combat the negative influences of pornography.

Explain the importance of empathy, integrity, and valuing everyone as a person, not an object. Discuss what respect means in the context of friendships, relationships, and society. Share examples of strong women in your life or history who inspire you—they’ll start to understand the importance of equality in everyday life.

If you’re experiencing emotional abuse in your own home, it will affect your kids. So learning strategies to keep yourself safe is important. Enroll in The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free Workshop to learn these emotional safety strategies.

Step 3: When Your child watches inappropriate things: Explain How Women Are Exploited

Help your child understand the grim reality of the pornography industry. Many videos online feature individuals who have been coerced, manipulated, or abused. Explain how exploitation often fuels these depictions, and why making ethical choices online matters.

For example, you could say:

• “A lot of people in those videos are hurt or taken advantage of. Watching that kind of content supports something very harmful to others.”

Shining a light on the exploitation behind pornography can help children grasp its consequences, fostering a sense of responsibility and compassion. When your child watches inappropriate things.

Step 4: Teach Them Media Literacy

The internet is full of content engineered to manipulate and desensitize users. Equip your child with the tools to critically evaluate what they see online. Teach them:

• How algorithms work to feed suggestive content.
• The importance of questioning the authenticity of what they see.
• That their choices online reflect and shape their values.

When your child learns to think critically about what they’re exposed to, they gain the ability to make more informed decisions.

Step 5: When your child watches inappropriate things: Create a Safe, Porn-Free Environment at Home

When your child stumbles on inappropriate things because of your partner’s pornography use, it’s essential to address this issue on a family level. Some helpful first steps include:

• Using parental controls and content filters on household devices.
• Having regular conversations about internet safety.
• Setting clear family rules about technology use.

Remember, a safe home starts with respect from all family members, including spouses.

Step 6: Model Healthy Behavior

Children absorb as much from what they see as from what they hear. Demonstrate mutual respect, healthy boundaries, and compassionate relationships in your daily interactions.

If you’re in a challenging situation with a partner who uses pornography, listen to The Free Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast to learn more about how to keep your children safe from inappropriate things.

Support for Mothers Concerned About Their Families

At BTR, we understand the heartbreaking effects of a partner’s pornography use and the challenge of raising children in a world rife with inappropriate content. Our mission is to empower mothers to foster healthy, respectful environments for their families.

If you’re struggling with your husband’s pornography use and are concerned about its influence on your children, our Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Sessions are here for you. These live, daily sessions offer the validation, encouragement, and practical support you need to create a safer, healthier home.

You don’t have to face this alone. Together, we create homes where respect, equality, and emotional safety thrive.

Transcript: What To Do When Your Child Watches Inappropriate Things

Anne: I’ve invited a father to come on today’s episode to talk about what to do when your child watches inappropriate things. Welcome, Randy.

Randy: Yes Anne, I am a father of five children. I’m actually about to be a father of six children. We just found out we’re going to have a boy in March. So my family is super excited right now. I’m also, of course, a husband, who has six children, and I’m a soldier.

I’ve been in the military for, 16 years. Currently my assignment is as a chaplain with the 19th special forces here in Utah. I’m also a former police officer. I was a police officer for almost seven years in a small town of Southern Utah, where I had tons and tons of experience of what we’re about to talk about.

Anne: So, let’s talk about how your experience as a husband, father, military chaplain and former police officer helped you realize how important it is to talk to our kids. And know what to do when our children watch inappropriate things like pornography.

A Life-Changing Moment in Iraq

Randy: Yeah, I was in Iraq with my unit, and during my time there, one of my battle buddies, a fellow soldier, got struck by an IED. During that event, he lost a limb and eyesight, and just tons and tons of damage to his body. And when he’s laying there on the ground, bleeding out, believing he’s about to pass away. His friend held him and cuddled him, and just, you know, gave moral support to tell him, you’re gonna survive.

You’re gonna survive. But during that moment in his life, he gave instructions to his friend. Saying, hey, this is where I have pornography hidden in my locker, computer and these other places. Make sure you destroy it all. Delete the files, get rid of everything before you send all my stuff home to my wife and my family. I don’t want them to know I look at that. When that happened, it was a mental shift for me. A huge mental shift.

Anne: My jaw just dropped, by the way, that that was like the number one thing on his mind. Like, not like tell my wife, I love her.

Randy: No, no, it shifted my life. Now I wish I could tell you, like after that, my kids will not have any issues. Well, guess what? We had issues in our family. It just again, it was a sucker punch to the gut. It was like, oh my goodness. Like what is going on? I know the science. I know what it looks like. Why did this happen? And so it sent me into a frenzy of studies, research, and interviews. And I searched everywhere for the answers.

When your child watches inappropriate things: The Metaphor of Battle

Anne: So in your culmination of all your research, you decide to frame the issue in a metaphor. Can you talk about why you chose this metaphor?

Randy: Yeah, absolutely. In the physical battle, the main thing a soldier does to their enemy is funnel your enemy soldiers into an area. You funnel them into a smaller area where they have to move slower and can’t fight back as well. They’re bunched together that way, as you’re firing on your enemy, it’s so much easier to hit them. That’s a quick analogy or metaphor, however you want to call it.

I remember as a child playing tag, and every once in a while, someone would forget to set the boundaries. And so kids would run all over the place. It was really, really hard to tag other kids. It’s almost impossible to tag other kids, because they could go anywhere and spread out all over the place.

However, when we play tag, we set the boundaries. No, don’t go past the playground. Don’t go past the sidewalk. Don’t go past mom or that tree. You set the boundaries that way. You bring all the other kids really close, and they’re easier to hit. They’re easier to tag. And the same thing is done in the pornography industry. They funnel us in, we’re easier to hit. And we get struck and we get struck over and over again.

But when I saw this, it just blew my mind. It’s the exact same tactical strategy.

Understanding the Battle at Home

Anne: Many listeners to this podcast are women who are married to or once were married to pornography users. Men who exhibit abusive behaviors of lying and gaslighting and emotional and psychological abuse. Related to their pornography use, affairs or other compulsive sexual activity. We have seen the battle in our own homes. We’ve witnessed it with our own eyes, and it feels like a battle. In fact, here at Betrayal Trauma Recovery, it feels like I am on the front lines of a war zone every day, all day long.

So the metaphor of a battle is apt, and I appreciate it. I think women think of it that way. And as we try to protect our homes, and worry when your child watches inappropriate things, what tips would you have for parents to help educate their children about pornography?

Randy: You’re exactly right. This is a true battle. I mean, this is the battle and be very, very clear. I love technology, and I’m not telling anyone to remove technology from your life. I’m not telling you kids can’t ever use it. Nothing like that, because we need our children, our youth, to use it wisely. The number one tip I have for parents is that they have to have an open, honest, and frequent conversation with their children.

Now what I mean by that open is they have to be completely open to their youth, telling them everything about their life. Whether it’s masturbation, wet dreams, changes of the body, pornography, it has no prerequisites.

Viewing Children as Victims of Pornography

Randy: I know that sometimes in my life, my kids come up to talk to me, and I say, okay, I’m not going to talk to you until you do such and such thing. You know, it’s usually like go clean the room or something of that nature.

But we have to have a very open relationship with our youth, where there’s no prerequisites, where the youth can come and just spill everything out and get it out on the table. When your child watches inappropriate things, there’s not going to be any anger. There’s not going to be yelling. We want our kids to come to us and be open about what’s going on.

Anne: I think one thing that might help parents is that you’re talking to an abuse victim. So when a child has encountered pornography, the pornography has sexually abused them. It will always be an abuse issue. And if a child has seen it, the pornography has abused them itself.

You would never get angry with an abuse victim. Well, some people do. In fact, we have that happen all the time at Betrayal Trauma Recovery. Where wives of users go into maybe clergy or a therapist, and they’re told like this is your fault, so we know how that feels. But when it comes to our children, if we think of them as victims of the pornography, rather than that they have done something wrong. Then it will help us know how to respond to them in a more effective way.

When your child watches inappropriate things: Open communication with children

Randy: Yeah, you’re absolutely right. When your child watches inappropriate things, there’s a reason they return to it. And you know what? It’s completely natural. It’s a completely natural reaction to be like that. And there are ways we can circumvent it, and work with our youth. They are not evil, bad people. So you’re exactly right. We have to have the open conversation with that in mind.

Anne: And that being said, if someone is abused as a child, it does not justify them becoming an abuser as an adult. So that being said, I don’t want to say that adult men who abuse their wives through lying or manipulation. Or other forms of psychological abuse through pornography use are the “victims” here. Because their wives and children are the victims.

But I think it’s important to think about children in that way. It will also help reframe this pornography fight that we’re having across the world, to help other people see that this isn’t just something like that all 12 year old boys see. And it’s sort of this, graduation into sex ed or something like that. But this is genuine abuse, and children deserve an abuse free childhood.

Randy: Yeah, I agree. And we have to help our children be ready for that.

Anne: And having that open door of communication is important.

Randy: Oh, amen. It’s imperative. You can have every block and everything on the phones and technology you want. Your youth, your kids can break through it in probably, 15 seconds. No matter what filters you have on your technology, if they want to, they will break through it.

The Importance of Honesty with Kids

Randy: So you have to have a conversation. That is the fail safe. That is the number one thing that’s going to keep your youth protected. When your child watches inappropriate things. They come to you and say, Hey, I made a mistake, and this is how I felt. And then you can help them protect themselves. I wanted parents to be empowered. I want them to talk to the youth. And I want to create that dialogue with their youth.

If they ask you, hey Mom or Dad, have you seen pornography? And you say, no, you have just lost the battle. You just lost. It’s all around us. It’s in the world. Your kids adore you more because you are honest with them. And my kids are the same. I have a much better relationship with my kids, because they know that I’m a human and make mistakes. They can come talk to me about their mistakes, because I talked to them about my mistakes.

Anne: My sons hate mermaids because they think mermaids are pornography, which I think is cute. And they’re like, we hate mermaids. All they wear are those dumb shell breast covers, Mom. And so my daughter, who is five, loves mermaids. So currently in our home, there is this sort of mermaid debacle where she would like to watch the Barbie mermaid show. And they’re like, no, that’s pornography.

It’s very cute that they’re all having that discussion. And I don’t know what the answer is. I’m like, I don’t know you guys, I don’t know what the answers are, but I’m so glad that you’re considering this. Right? I’m so glad that you’re bringing this up and saying, she shouldn’t watch mermaids.

Pornography as Landmines

Anne: Those are the types of fights I love to see, I guess. Yeah, have an open dialogue. So I just let her watch her mermaid show that she wants to watch that is age appropriate when my sons are not around.

Randy: Now in life, in battle, everyone knows what landmines are, right? They’re little explosives. You put them under the dirt or grass. You hide them. And later on, a person walks or drives by, and it explodes. That’s what pornography is. The industry, the internet, there are individuals out there laying landmines everywhere. And when we did our research, it blew our minds. Where many of these landmines are hidden.

They’re being hidden in the craziest places all over for our kids to step on. Just to give you a little tidbit, I have spoken to about eight youth and their parents in the last week. Who have told me they’ve become addicted to pornography. They were exposed to their first pornography at school on the computers at the school.

So this is huge. I mean, this is where we feel kids should be safe, and the closed systems, yada, yada, yada. They’re not. I guess some of the most shocking, but in places where our youth are being hit with landmines. Landmines are placed, hidden, and stay there. They stay there forever until someone steps on them. And that’s what pornography is on the internet. People are going out there and placing them all over the place, and they just sit there and wait until our youth step on them. And then we have a huge mess to deal with.

Additional Resources

Anne: Yeah, it is a huge mess. Well, Randy, thank you so much for coming on today’s episode. We didn’t talk about this, but I put some things that I would recommend in terms of how to teach them gender equality. And about abuse in the text before the transcript of this episode: Why should it matter when your child watches inappropriate things? You can read my suggestions on this. I’d love to hear your thoughts about it, so please comment below.

Thank you so much, Randy.

Randy: Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.