Michelle Holleman is a Sex Addiction Therapist based out of Charlotte, North Carolina. Michelle councils pre-teens and teenagers about their porn addiction habits and teaches children the difference between reality and fiction. Young children are being exposed to porn and it can deeply impact their brain. Michelle shares seven tips parents can use to have a healthy conversation with their children about porn, and why they need to talk about it with them; not avoid it. 

TAKEAWAYS:

[1:45] Who is Michelle and what does she do? 

[3:45] Michelle works with a lot of teens who get caught with porn on their school computer. 

[6:25] Usually when Michelle gets called in, parents are very concerned. Michelle tries to calm them down and normalize the situation. 

[9:35] Anything that can turn into porn, will be turned into porn, which means that there are pornographic cartoons out there. 

[12:00] Parents are very bad at talking to their children about sex. They mostly explain how babies get made, but not the act itself. 

[13:35] Locking down your child’s phone doesn’t solve the underlying problem. If it’s not at home, they’ll be exposed to it through their friends. 

[18:15] How do the conversations differ between a pre-teen child vs. teenager about the conversation of looking at porn? 

[21:25] Between the ages of 8 and 16, 90% of children have seen porn by that age. 

[22:45] Porn changes our children’s brains. 

[24:15] It’s important to tell the truth when talking to your children.

[28:45] Don’t punish your child for looking at porn, it sends the wrong message and they will try to hide it from you. 

[32:55] The real problem with porn is that it takes the intimacy and connection in sex away.

RESOURCES: 

The Porn Panic: Is Porn a ‘Public Health Crisis’?

Sex and Relationship Healing

@RobWeissMSW

Sex Addiction 101 

Seeking Integrity

Cruise Control: Understanding Sex Addiction in Gay Men 

Prodependence: Moving Beyond Codependency

Connect with Michelle: Lifehealingcounseling.com & LinkedIn 

QUOTES:

• “The parents get called in and then they start to find out how much porn is on the computer, and that’s where it becomes alarming.”
• “There are ways we can teach our kids early on about pornography and the difference between porn and healthy sex, which includes intimacy.”
• “The average age kids are actually seeing porn is around 9-years old the first time they see it and the biggest consumers of porn are boys ages 12-17.”
• “Between the ages of 8 and 16, 90% of children have seen porn by that age.”