Guys, please help me figure out how to keep my son from ending up here....

okay, first.

Don't freak out. Your doing something that most parents aren't doing. So my hats off to you for caring about your kids. Remember this isn't just a guy thing, you gotta protect all your kids.

There are a lot of great software from K9 to covenant eyes, many others can offer other software that works well.
here are just a few of my thoughts

Having a family computer in an open area, No computers alone in a room. Same with any electronics that have access to the internet.
Limit amount of time on the computer
knowing and communicating with the kids parents, asking if they have porn blocking software.
I think the most important part is to talk about sex with your kids, having a safe place for them to come and talk to you. They will hear at school or somewhere about sex, and if they aren't comfortable asking you they will go to google or their friends. talking about porn would be a good idea, letting them know about why we have sex. etc. - although that might be a talk for a later age, but then again kids are smart and very inquisitive.

Hopefully this helps

 

We live in broken world, sheltering him from it won't do him any good. He gets to decide to be a positive influence on this world or not. I was home schooled by my Christian parents, and started porn at the age of 10. I was sheltered, I didn't know anything about the real world I had only heard about it. It's the difference between the map and the territory, I knew everything about what normal relationships should looked like, but once I experienced truly loving a real person, that was when I wanted to make a difference in myself. I promise you if you heavily shelter him from the world, he will fall into porn.

 

Well thats one end of the extreme. I just wanted to share that i grew up with my parents divorced and lived with my mom, So i had my own freedom and had a computer in my room with high speed internet. I would say their needs to be a balance, but they are kids and no one is going to protect them besides you. They do need to know what is out there and why they need to avoid it, just like why you teach them about drugs and why they are bad.

 

I know when your little there's a lot of need for protection, but we're talking about addiction, that comes when you can think for yourself. Basically, I would argue that my parents telling me why porn was bad never effected me. But if i ever loved somebody who was effected negatively by it, then I would never of watched it.

 

First of all I wanted to say that I know exactly how you are feeling! Thinking about porn and my two daughters keeps me up at night . Like Hope84 mentioned you are already doing more than most parents. I think this issue persists because no one thinks there is a problem and no one thinks their husband/bf/son/wife/daughter would ever watch that.

I think education is key. No one wants to talk to their kids about porn and sex but today it is necessary. There is a great book called "good pictures, bad pictures" that gets awesome reviews and I'm going to be getting it soon to read with my 6 yr old. The age now of seeing porn for the first time is 8!!!!

http://goodpicturesbadpictures.com

 

This is a very important dilemma. I think that putting blocks on the computer content is one way to start when the kids are at a young age. However, soon enough they will be at school or over at a friend's house and they will see it. As you know, eventually everyone sees it. Look at what we do here to stop this addiction and maybe that will give you some clues to prevent your child from all of this. We try to stop cold turkey. As I have read, the most successful people, change their behavior along with stopping. They use the time free up by no fapping to do other things. I'm reading the book...The Slight Edge. It has nothing to do with this site or fapping. It is about setting life goals, being accountable and enriching your life.

With that said, if I had a son, I would get him involved in activities (or maybe one activity) that have nothing to do with a computer or video games. For example, immerse him in a sport and play the sport all the time. Play the sport with him. Spend all of your extra time with your son and make it so he loves that activity. Set goals for your son that he wants to achieve in this activity. Make him accountable for these goals. Don't let him just sit around watching TV, playing video games or looking on the computer doing nothing. Keep him busy on that activity. Make it so he loves that activity. Make him love that activity/sport as much as you think that the people on this site "love" PMO. Some of us (including me) "love" it so much that we've wrecked our lives for it. I just think that if my attention would have been put toward another activity at an early age that I would not have had time for P or PMO. Maybe I'm wrong but that's what I think.

If P ever comes up, talk to your son about it. Make him realize that P is a drug, and just like any other drug, P is not good. Show him these sites. Show him what PMO has done to people. Read the experiences that we have had. PMO wrecks your life. PMO can basically turn you into a loser. PMO is just as bad as abusing any other drug except it can't kill you per se. It is much more insidious. It can make you hate yourself. It can make you humiliate yourself. It can skew and ruin your view of women. It can make you do things that you never would image that you or anyone else would do. Just be honest with him about P and how it effects on people. If I could dissuade just one child from doing this, I'd be a much better man.

 

You know, we know that porn is bad for us, because we experienced it, but believe me, that means nothing to most of the people, including kids. I mean have you ever heard that smoking is bad for you? After the negative effects of smoking became obvious, one would assume that everybody in the world would stop smoking. Did that happened? No, it didn't.

Therefore I really think that there is no running away from PMO. If your kids sense that you hide anything from them, they will seek it out. Believe that. And they will sense it. So my best bet would be to create an open , non-judgemental environment. I don't have a family yet, but I know one with small kids, and the parents let them use every kinds of electronic devices. However they always ask them what did they see. They ask them if they saw something that frightened them, or upset them, or shocked them, or something they don't understand. And if they do see something, they tell on their own usually. This method had worked for now, and sounds good enough.

 

If you can get him into sports or extracurricular activities where he socializes more, and give him the honest talk about how bad porn can be.

 

The biggest mistake would be to think that he won't get access to it. Best you can do is limit it. I do applaud you for your efforts, continue doing the best possible.

The next biggest mistake, would be to think that you've failed if it becomes a problem. Sad truth is, P is a part of our world now. I echo the above posts on having a non-judgmental environment. Worst thing you could do is find out about it, and punish/ground/belittle/make him feel dirty. He needs to understand how normal, yet dangerous it is. Instill a desire in him to avoid it because of the damage it does. Help him understand the principle behind avoiding P, not a fear of getting caught again.

 

I agree with most of the post above . U cant limit him from porn , even if u set up blockers. Imagine ur parents would have tried a bit to shield u frm porn but tht didn stop any one . U will find a way to look around , friends , school, kids are smart and they will figure out a way because thts a natural thing to seek for the opp sex.
My opinion is , let him find out abt porn, and trust him, he is ur son. He will have the power to control it . But if he dosent then be there for him and help him with recovery because tht will make him even more stronger.

 

If you attempt to keep him from having a phone or computer he will rebel against you at some point and will do the opposite of everything you've taught him. It will separate you from him.

Instead spend a great deal of time with him talking about how you feel about the subject. Your opinion matters and he learns from what you say. In the end it will be his decision whether he chooses to use porn or not. Many of us weren't educated on the risks of watching porn. We saw it, it looked good and we binged. Of course theres a part of us that knows its wrong, but had we had an influential person talk to us about using it at a young age it definitely would have helped.

You should not shelter him but educate him the best you can so that he makes the best choices for himself, because in the end thats what lifes all about. He will need to decide on his own. He is now a person, an individual in this exciting and complex world, the more values and knowledge you arm him with the better decisions he will make in life.

 

As a porn addict, I can tell you that sheltering such as trying to hide the computer or stuff like that will make porn even MORE special and fascinating for your kid once he finds it. So step one, is be kool about it. I don't mean show him porn and stuff, but just let him be about it and as hard as this sounds allow him to express his sexuality as a man when he hits puberty. Don't try to force anything about sex being wrong and porn being wrong and sexuality being wrong to him or anything like that. American has the most porn in the world because of our shunning of sex.

Now onto the real advice, if my parents (btw you are awesome) got me involved with sports, extra circular actives where i could meet girls (yes it is normal it is okay) , and encourage other fun and social activities for me when i was young, i would not have spent so many years behind a computer screen. In other words, if he lives an active healthy life style and becomes the kool kid at school, he wont be the computer nerds like us stuck behind his computer all day.

 

I have been down this road with my 12 year old son.

I knew from his sister's experience that middle school was a cesspool. I knew that his innocence would be shattered with the things he heard and saw. So the summer before his first year of middle school we went away for a father son weekend at Stone Mountain GA. We followed the "Passport to Purity" curriculum. We would listen to the audio segments then discuss it openly. There were also activities to help illustrate the lessons. In between we went swimming, hiking and enjoyed the outdoors. It was a great weekend we will never forget. Since that weekend we have had many other conversations about masturbation and porn. We chose to tell him teenage boys explore their bodies and masturbate from time to time. I warned him about the danger of porn, the addictive poisonous nature of it. I told him it robs you of your identity and kills your ability to see women as God intended. I told him to strive to be worthy of his future wife instead of polluting it with porn.
A few months later he came to me and said he saw porn on the phone of other older kids at school. We spoke about it and I urged him not to dwell on what he saw allowing it to have power over him. A few nights later he woke me up in the middle of the night... He said just tried masturbating... then he exploded in sobs threw his arms around my neck said he was so ashamed. I just hugged him...kissed him... told him every healthy American teenage boy has done it and to not feel ashamed. I told him it's natural to want to explore these urges he's having, but i warned him not to allow it to consume him. I told him we're very fortunate that we could discuss these things so openly and I wanted him to always come to me to talk about it... and to never allow porn to become part of it... I told him that could ruin his life.
We've had many conversations about it since then and we still talk fondly about the Stone Mountain trip.

We have all the home blocking and filtering too. But information, open discussions and honesty have been our greatest allies.

 

Agree with the advice shared here.

I sometimes wished my parents would really share these knowledge with me, instead of having to satisfy my own curiosity finding out about it myself, and apparently getting hurt by the wrong messages. I just hope you wont take things too far, he still has to grow and make some mistakes (though in a controlled environment) to truly learn. Experience is the best teacher after all.

I wish you all the best.

 

There's already tons great of advice here but just to add my own personal words, I'd say your best to limit his access and at the first sign noticing girls or is curious about sex, have the sex/porn talk with him. The earlier the better.

Explain to him your views on sex, whether that's waiting till marriage or just be safe, whatever, and then explain to him why porn is bad.

Tell him everything that people realize when they come to nofap. These are oversimplified (cause we're talking about children), but they're true nonetheless.
-if you use porn, you won't be able to have sex.
-porn turns men into people that women do not want to be with.
-porn is a drug. It's addictive and drains life and passion out of people. It literally prevents people from improving (Maybe you could have this talk with him, at the same time he's having the drug talks in school?)
-explain how technology as outpaced human evolution, and how that causes porn to be so harmful
-a million other reasons

You can also give him some good tips and motivation for dealing with when he comes across it.
-those aren't real women. They were real, until they put in front of a make up artist, camera, Photoshop, airbrush, etc. Real women are at your school, in your church, after school groups etc.
-you can't control the first look, but you can control the second.
-you will be way more successful with girls that your friends if you actively avoid using porn.


Personal experience: I'm 24. First used porn at 16 and was instantly hooked. I actually asked my mom about it and she had what I think is the mainstream approach. "It's not bad. It's just filmed sex. Just don't let it take up so much time that it interferes with school." In retrospect, she was hoping I would get bored of it on my own. Fast forward 5 years to my first time with a woman and i couldn't get it up. Then quitting was one of the most difficult challenges of my life. I know many fapstronauts are familiar with this kind of story. I just wanted to point how much of a potential difference it would've made if my mom had given any legit reason not to use. If she had known what I/you/we know now, who know where I'd be, but I wouldn't have had ED at 21, that's for sure.

 

Open conversation and education, to put it simply.

 

Couldn't agree more. Sports/Activities & Communication! Talk about it and get to know them. The thought that my boys would experience the crap that many of us are trying to work through now is a reality check! There with you JBird... Didn't see it mentioned but parental control board (https://parentalboard.com/) gives some fairly good control of the phone. Gives that edge to start some subtle conversations.

 

Keep him active. Get him involved in sports and outside activities where he can be with other kids his age. All kids eventually find porn. All kids masturbate. But if you start young like he is now and get him imbedded into these things, by the time he's old enough to where being addicted to fapping would be a problem, his desire to do these alternate activities will be embedded into him and he'll do those instead most of the time.

Also, and most importantly, have a thorough sex talk with him when he gets older. Sexual Education programs are surprisingly terrible at what they're supposed to do, so as a parent you have to make sure that he's properly informed about everything. This, combined with the knowledge that too much masturbation isn't a good thing for him, will help him a long way from ending up on here.

 

I know i am posting this kinda of late, protecting your children and educating them is the best thing you can do, i speak for myself here when i say what drove me to porn/online gaming/internet addiction was the loss of any meaningful emotional connection with my parents and siblings.

Emotional isolation is the root cause of all addictions (teal swan), giving your son a warm, loving connection - spending time with him, doing activities with him and signing him up for activities he can do with people his age group... but the most important thing is the emotional, spiritual and physical interactions with him.. Your son is 6 years old, its okay to be scared.. I don't have any children nor am i married but i've been teaching for the past year kids in fourth grade and i kinda learned how to interact and deal with children - you have to be the authority but you can't let go of small interactions with them. The parents i see give their kids everything they can materially need but they lack in the emotional department.. They might spend time out as a family but its usually the kids just witnessing their parents talk to other parents/friends, when the child wants an interaction they give him an iphone/ipad to play on..

So one thing i enjoy doing and the kids that do it with me enjoy it greatly is just drawing.. It has nothing to do with the teaching i give but its not just you draw and i look at you its i draw and you draw - we draw together looking at step by step guides or methods/videos..

Love your child.. you're awesome for doing this by the way, this is inspiring to see.. but remember if your son becomes addicted to the internet (gaming/porn/facebook/online dating whatever..) you can always help him as long as he wants to help himself, the best thing to do is lay the seeds for him to seek help (instead of forcing it on him) you can also force him to go cold turkey by removing the router/internet and switching from smart phones to normal nokia old phones (personally i use nokia 3120 19-rh, its awesome), when my parents did that to me when i was in 9th grade i turned from a person that was sleeping during classes ( I HATED THEM when they did it..) to a person that loved interactions with others.. but yet they failed in giving me the required outlet - they didnt help me build new hobbies ( i did some.. i grew up in a poor village, nothing to do) nor did they give me a proper emotional connection - which is why i've been dying to have a hug for almost an entire month and a half now.