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We first found out about Blake’s predilection for pornography when a string of unusual charges began showing up on our phone bill and in our mailbox.  This was back in the days of dial-up internet, when these types of sites could find you through the address listed on the phone line used for accessing the web.

I remember thinking, “How bad could it be?”  I had older brothers who hid Playboys under their mattresses.  After all, boys will be boys, right?   That was my husband’s first thought too.

But then we started searching through the history on the computer.  Our son had quickly advanced from soft porn to really hard core stuff; he was now viewing heinous, sexual acts; perversion no one should look at, much less a child.  I felt sick to my stomach. Gone was my son's innocence.  

Until that moment when my husband and I received these bills, we had NO idea he was doing this.  In fact, we felt we had done all the right things by putting heavy-duty parental controls on his email and blocking software on the computer.  We had even moved the kids’ computer to a more central location with no privacy —in our case, the kitchen—as most

experts suggested.  How could we have known that where the computer was didn’t really matter and that he would figure out a way to go right around all of it?

I should’ve known something was up.   His behavior changed dramatically.  He went from being this happy-go-lucky kid to a crabby one, who lashed out at his siblings at the smallest provocation.  Oftentimes, it was so out of character, I would just stand there and stare at him.  His grades slipped and he wanted to spend more time alone—even turning down invites to hang out and sleep over at friends’ homes.  Initially, he would lie when we presented him with the latest evidence of his misbehavior, but eventually he stopped pretending to be innocent.

I confess, we didn’t handle it well.  We tried to guilt him into stopping rather than trying to understand the impulse that made it almost impossible for him to stop.  Little, if anything, was known at that time about addiction to Internet porn.  The internet was still pretty new, available resources were very limited.

Somehow we muddled through it, making the family computer password accessible only, while constantly trying to find a program that would prevent him to getting to those sites.  Nothing worked.  Along with catching him over and over again, we were having to clean up the hard drive constantly.

I worried about his lack of drive in school and sports.  I worried whether the stuff he was viewing would later affect his relationships with women.

During a psychological evaluation for ADD years later, we learned that he was mildly depressed.  The psychologist explained that depression follows addiction because an inability to stop it more often than not leads to self-loathing.  The doctor suggested we treat the depression first; the addiction second.  He also articulated that this was Blake’s battle, not ours.

Hearing that this wasn’t our problem but something Blake had to overcome was a turning point.

What I Know Now:

•   It’s incredibly common.  One thing we didn’t understand is the difference between something a child will look at compared to crossing the line and it becoming an impulse he can’t control.

•   Get your child help, immediately.  At the first sign of it, we should’ve gotten him into therapy immediately.  Initially, we really thought it was one of those “boys will be boys” thing, that it was just a phase he was going through.  We actually thought we could talk him out of it—guilt him out it, really.  But that only prolonged it.   If you have caught your son looking at pornography, he’s quite likely hooked.

•    There’s not a lot a parent can do to stop it but there are things you can do to deal with it.  My husband purchased two copies of the book “Every Man’s Battle – Teen Edition” and worked through the book with our son, one chapter at a time.  This didn’t stop the problem, but it certainly allowed us to have an honest, open dialogue with our son.  If your child is drawn to it, he will do whatever he has to do to see it.  We did move the computer into the kitchen and didn’t allow him to have a laptop while he was in high school.  But ultimately, this is something THEY have to work through;  this is their problem, not yours.  You just have to provide the tools to help them through it.  

•   This is going to be a life-long struggle for my son.  One or two appointments with a therapist, though helpful, is not going to miraculously make the problem go away.  We try to keep an ongoing dialogue with him about it, so he never feels like this is something he has to hide. 

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