[MUSIC PLAYING] Thanks for tuning in for Gospel Solutions for Families on the Mormon Channel. This show is all about offering practical, relevant tips for raising children in faith. I'm your host, Amy Iverson.

Today we dive into a topic we wish we didn't have to discuss, but open communication, knowledge, and relying on the Spirit are key to preventing or dealing with this tough issue. I'm talking about pornography. In October 2010 conference, Elder Boyd K. Packer said: "We raise an alarm and warn members of the Church to wake up and understand what is going on. Parents, be alert, ever watchful that this wickedness might threaten your family circle." Joining me today are two women who feel strongly about the need to talk about pornography within our families. Sister Linda S. Reeves is the Second Counselor in the Relief Society General Presidency. Her degree is in special education, and she has 13 children. She loves to travel and learn about new cultures. Also joining me is marriage and family therapist Angie Cella. She is a sex addiction and trauma therapist, and Angie has four boys. Thank you both for being here. Thank you. Sister Reeves, in your conference talk where you addressed this a couple of years ago, you stressed the importance that part of the reason we're here on earth is to manage our passions. And I think we have to talk to our kids young. And when we do, how important is that to point out to our kids that these intimate feelings that they may be having are God-given? I think it makes all the difference in the world, especially as members of the Church, for us to know that Heavenly Father, as you say, has given us these feelings. They are the feelings that cause us to want to get married and to want to have that intimate relationship that we can with a spouse that causes you to bond to each other, to love each other more, and to plan together. And I think the key word there is manage, so we have to learn how to manage it. And Angie, you talked about, with pornography, even if kids go seeking this out, we have to remember, and treat them as such, that they're still good kids. Right. Right. I think it gets really easy because pornography is bad, and pornography is the enemy. It can be easy to sometimes pin that on our kids. But we've got to keep in mind, our kids are not the enemy; porn is the enemy. Our kids aren't bad; their natural curiosity is going to come up. They naturally want to know about these kinds of things, and what we need to do is help steer them away from that and towards us so that we can be the one answering those questions and help them know they are really good kids just having normal curiosity come up, and we're going to support them through that. It is true. We are all children of our Heavenly Father. Even those who have made terrible mistakes are good people and beloved of our Heavenly Father. And thankfully, He's provided our Savior and His Atonement for us, that we can be clean and good again. Let's start at the beginning. So we talked about the need to talk to your kids about this early. We hear, Angie, all the time, it's not if but when this will happen. Your children will come across it either by accident or searching it out. So when that happens, let's give some practical tips here. When that happens the first time, and either your kid comes to you or you catch them, what do we do as parents? First of all, take a breath. Take a nice deep breath because you're going to have some feelings about what happened. And so I would even back up a little bit more and say you need to get prepared. You need to know that it's not if but when, and so you need to be prepared as much as you can, knowing that that's going to be startling for you as a parent. Yeah. Before this ever happens, prepare. Prepare, right? So you find out, you take that deep breath, and then you say, "Hey, you've just seen some pictures. Do you know what that is?" Ask questions. Get curious. That's the number-one thing that I tell parents: Get curious. If you're curious, you're out of judgment. So get curious, be--learn to be comfortable yourself with being uncomfortable, because if you're uncomfortable, your kids are going to feel it, and it can't be an open dialogue. If they're feeling that your discomfort--that you're uncomfortable, they're going to want to not say anything to upset you. So if you can go into that being calm and saying, "Let's have an open dialogue about this," they're going to be calm. And now they're going to start to talk, and you can ask, "How are you feeling?" Help them make sense of their feelings, because they're going to be having feelings. Normalize, like you said. "These are God-given feelings, and this is the wrong time and the wrong place and the wrong atmosphere. But one day"--right? "One day this will be a beautiful experience for you, but this isn't that." And help them understand the difference between a healthy, loving sexual relationship and pornography. They're not the same thing. And I love the two words you said: "Hug them." I did. When this happens, hug them. Show them love. And also, those are some great things to do--there are some certain things we should not do, certain ways we shouldn't react. Tell me about those. Well, the dialogue that you have is so important. And to overreact, to make them feel shame, to make them feel like they're doing a bad thing, I mean, it's--all of us, we know. We go to the grocery store. No matter where you go all day, you're going to run into it, it seems. And I think there's a point at which children start to recognize, often very young, that there's something wrong. This does not feel good. And so for them to come to you, like you're saying, is a huge plus if they do come to you. And I love what you say about asking questions, Angie, because that, as you say, also opens up the dialogue, but it helps them to feel that you are interested and concerned about them. And listening is so important too. Yeah. I think we have to be so careful not to react with anger, which can be easy to do, or shock, that shame that you talked about. All of those things. You have to make sure that you are ready when it happens so that you don't react that way. So those are some great tips for parents, I think. Breathe, hug, don't judge, love. What about for that kid, though? What do we tell them to do now? Now that we've kind of gone over that hump that everyone's going to go over, what do--what do we tell our kids to do next? Well, in my own situation with my own children, when this has come up at different stages, especially if they're feeling guilt or shame or embarrassment--and often it is not their fault. But in any case, to kneel down and go to their Heavenly Father and plead with Him and ask for Him--His help--is the first thing I have said to my children. And to do that together is a sweet thing as a parent and a child. I like that. I like to do it together. So you're not just going, "You need to go pray," but do it with them and guide that. And you also talked about having them kind of examine what happened when it happened. So are they spending too much time alone in their bedroom with their phone, or things like that too? Well, absolutely. To have them recognize, "When am I having these feelings, these temptations? Where am I? Who am I with? What am I doing? What are the things that are likely to bring this on again?" Those are the things that, especially as a child gets older, they can list and really think about, and then make a plan. Having a cell phone in the bedroom and a door shut is always a bad idea these days. We used to not have to worry about that, but you do now. And, if I could say, I love the idea of--Elder Ballard gave a wonderful talk in the April 2016 general conference where he talked about family councils and to counsel together with your children and to set boundaries, set rules with them. In fact, the more that they're involved in that, the better. And to have them even choose consequences is a wonderful thing, too. Yeah. My children always kind of get shocked when I say, "What do you think your consequence should be?" But usually they choose something pretty appropriate. And it often is even harder than-- What you would have done? Yes. And Angie, you talked about the importance of teaching them to talk to a grown-up about it. So it may not even be you if they don't feel comfortable. Right, right. I mean, you know, there's a grandparent, there's maybe an aunt or an uncle, there's maybe a close family friend. Someone that you know is going to give good, solid advice and support. The most important thing is--you know, I think there's two--you asked the question "What do we do now that they've seen it?" And I think there's kind of two situations. One is the child who's just seen it and is shocked and doesn't know what to do with it. Right. It pops up from a game or something. And the other is a child who's been viewing it for a while and actually may have a problem at that point. So I think there's a little bit kind of different tactics to take. But in either one of those situations, we want to help our kids understand what they're feeling. So that trusted adult, someone who's already navigated the complexities of understanding feelings and emotions and problem solving, to have that person to sort of anchor with and ask those important questions and problem solve. Because we want to raise kids to be functioning adults, right? We're not raising kids to be kids. So teaching them, asking those questions, "What do you think?"--that is an amazing life skill. And of course, let's put it to work on the topic of pornography--anything. We're going to use it for anything. But helping them make sense and make meaning of what they felt, how confusing it is to feel excited and interested and curious on one hand and heavy and dark and sick on the other, and they're feeling it at the same time. And usually it's going to take an adult to help someone who hasn't navigated this to get through those murky waters. Let's talk about those kids who have been viewing it for a while and they like it, and they don't--maybe they don't want to stop at this point. And I have heard kids ask, "Who does it bother?" I've heard adults ask this. "Why does it matter? Who does it hurt if I'm just--if nobody else knows and I'm just doing it?" What do we say to them, Sister Reeves? Well, the consequences, or the negative consequences that come from pornography are wide and broad. First of all, loss of the Spirit is one of the most negative things that happens. But along with that, our self-esteem suffers, our relationships with other people, future relationships, future dating and marriage relationships. People become objects instead of this loving relationship.

Often deceit and lying is involved. [INAUDIBLE] And I think your self-mastery, your ability to control your life, becomes--it just continues on a downward spiral. Yeah. I think those are all so clear to us as we're looking at it. But how do we help our teenager know that that is actually true and that that is going to be a problem later in their life? I think our teens are so smart. They really are. They are bright, and they are curious, and they are--they want answers, and so we need to give them answers. Legitimate answers. We need to be able to sit and break it down and say--one of the things that I would say is, "This is changing the structure of your brain. This part of your brain that puts on the brakes, that says 'Slow down, maybe not right now'--you're weakening that." And that's what you just mentioned, their ability to make other life choices, to weigh consequences. It's actually changing the structure of the brain once an addiction is in place. And that midbrain where we feel our emotions, and there's that impulsivity and the part that says "Yes, go, now," it hijacks the whole brain. So I think we need to help our kids understand. It's hard because on one hand, our teenagers--their prefrontal cortex, it's not done developing. Right. And that's their ability to weigh. So we're talking to them about weighing options when they are not quite fully developed, but they're learning. Well, I like that because while they may not under--or maybe they don't value even, at this point, losing the Spirit, maybe that makes sense to them because there are kids who will say, "Oh, I would never do drugs because then it takes control of your life," that this is so similar. Well, and I think keeping in mind, it's not a--it's not a one or another; it's not the body or the Spirit. It's everything. This is impacting you spiritually, talking about how does that impact your spirit, how does this impact you physically in the brain? And then how does that translate into your behaviors and your feelings and your emotions? Pornography is not something that just impacts one angle; it is impacting every single angle of a person who is viewing it, from emotions to thoughts to behaviors. So you are a professional therapist. How do we know--because like we said, every family is going to have to deal with this. I think that we all know that at this point. But there is a difference between someone who looks at it once and then done, or even the kid who maybe a couple of times over a couple of years, and the child who is having serious problems, or an adult. How do we know when to seek professional help? You know, there's a few--I get a lot of people coming in saying, "I have an addiction, I have an addiction." And I'm going to do a complete assessment. And often I say, "Actually you don't meet an addiction criteria. But what I hear you telling me is, you're participating in things that are against your values system. How do we make that align?" Right? So we do need to make space that viewing pornography does not necessarily indicate addiction. Addiction, I'm going to be looking for, you've tried to stop but you can't. Your behaviors have increased in frequency or in content over time. Maybe you start looking off--looking at swimsuits, and pretty soon you're into this, and next you're into hardcore pornography. And so there's movement; it's progressively getting worse. And also there's sort of, like, a secrecy factor. You're hiding it. Why? You're feeling really crummy about it. You're not feeling good about yourself, and over time to hold that, it's going to just aggravate the behaviors even more. You're going to end up using more porn and more porn because it's going to numb your brain, and then you don't have to feel that shame. So looking at frequency, how often is the behavior escalating? That's what I would want. At least seek a professional's counsel at that point. They may tell you no. "Just do this for now." Yeah, for now. But at least you're getting some consultation, and it kind of helps you stabilize and ground. And what about approaching a bishop? Yes. We have so many great leaders, and a bishop has great leaders around him. It may be that a Young Women president or Young Men president could step in and help. Confidentiality is huge with this issue, however, and we recognize that. But bishops do want to help, and they have a feeling, I think, for "I can't handle this anymore," although there are other people within a ward that could be great mentors. Again, that confidentiality, especially with youth, is so, so important. And there are some great resources. And I want to make sure we cover resources for parents, but there are also resources for spouses, whole families who are struggling. Sister Reeves? Well, the addiction recovery program is a wonderful program that the Church has. There are physical meetings that people can go to. They're not just for the addict but for spouses and family, as you're mentioning. But if a kid is just too mortified to go to a meeting, what is the next step? And even with our youth, it gets really tricky. We've had some pilot programs for youth, but the confidentiality, again, and laws protecting them, which are wonderful laws, prohibit us from doing a lot along those lines. But the Church magazines do have a lot of great articles. The overcomingpornography.org website has a lot of wonderful articles. If you check with the Friend and the New Era, there are articles coming at a fairly regular basis that are really helpful. Yeah. And what do you think about the resources? What resources would you suggest, Angie? There are some really great books out. There's books more for younger kids, like maybe 12 and under. There's some books more for, like, 12 and above that either teens can read on their own, or parents and teens could read together, or just parent read it because it's just great information. There's wonderful websites where we're really helping our parents, kids, teens, all of them understand, "Here's what's really happening to the brain," really making meaning and sense out of this. And those are the kind of resources I would be looking for, how to make sense out of it. There's so much research. Donald L. Hilton, he is a neurosurgeon, and he has written a book called He Restoreth My Soul, talking all about the brain, talking about how it's impacting things. Jill Manning, she wrote a book called What's the Big Deal about Pornography Anyway? And she goes to really speak to teens and parents within the book. There's another book called Good Pictures Bad Pictures. Excellent book for--I mean, even my 12-year-old can sit down and read that. We've read it together, but I can hand it to him and say, "Go ahead." And it's safe, and I know there's nothing in there that I wouldn't feel comfortable with. And there's websites. Jill Manning has put together an amazing organization to combat pornography, along with authors of Good Pictures Bad Pictures. They've done the same things. And that PDF, I notice, is available online for free. It is. It's free. They've got three different types of PDFs for parents, for kids, for teens. There's been a lot of research by a man named Dr. Patrick Carnes. He was kind of the founding father of treating sex addiction. There is just--if you want to find it, it's there. And you should want to find it, as a parent. Angie, you talked to me about something I thought was so important. And it's a little more preventive in a way, but you talked about modeling the way our Savior is to our children and how important that is. When we act as a loving Heavenly Father would or as a loving Savior would, they then will be more willing to seek out our Heavenly Father in their struggles. Can you talk about that? Yeah. You know, as we're trying to teach our children about Heavenly Father and this all-powerful, loving Father, what they have to relate that to is these all-powerful parents. So what happens is, as we parent, if we're the kind of parent that we are judging and criticizing and then we say, "Go pray," they are going to start to formulate the image that their Heavenly Father is critical and judging and vindictive. And so as parents, I just love the example of Jesus Christ with the woman who was brought to Him in adultery. And one of the things I loved is that when everybody sped up, and you can just imagine the energy was high and everybody was picking up stones and they were ready to throw them, He scoops down and draws in the sand, and very quietly says, you know, "Those of you who haven't sinned, cast the first stone." And people quietly walk away. When everybody sped up, He slowed down. And He didn't make her feel tiny or small; He didn't tell her she was bad or undeserving of love. He didn't say, "Now go pray to your Heavenly Father and ask for forgiveness!" He said, "Where are thine accusers? Go your way; don't sin anymore." I just imagine that being such a loving encounter, and that's the tactic we need to take with our kids. And as we model that, they will learn a loving Heavenly Father. Now, if we don't model that, guess what? They're resilient, and there is that loving Heavenly Father, and hopefully they're going to find a way to get to know Him as He really is at one point in their lives. So there's always hope, no matter what. Yes. I love the idea of hope in every topic we talk about. And Sister Reeves, if we messed up when our kids were young, we can still change and tell them, "Oh, I messed up." And we can say we're sorry and tell our kids we're going to do better, too. We can. I love this because I agree so much that we are our children's image of our Father in Heaven and our Savior--beautifully said, thank you--and yes, that our Father is so loving. He knew when we came to this earth that we would mess up, and that's why He provided our Savior for us and why our Savior was willing to do what He did for us, that we can receive that forgiveness and that healing. And something lovely you said, Sister Reeves, is that something parents can do, which I feel like gives me power, is pray to help--pray to know how we can show our children that we love them. Sometimes we as parents think we're doing it right, but we just need that extra help. And He will always help us. Well, He will. And you bring to mind the things that we need to do in our home to help to keep the Spirit there and to help the children feel that love of our Heavenly Father. And certainly our daily scripture study and our prayer and having family home evening and these things that do bring love in the home, that do cause parents to step back and say, "Hey, are we doing the important things that will help bring the Spirit in our home and help our children feel this love?" And sometimes, especially when we have kids dabbling in pornography, they don't want to come. They don't want to be part of family prayer; they don't want to be part--what do we do then? You continue to have it, and you continue to invite them with love. Not with coercion, but with love. And I know that as we do those things, that there is a spirit that comes into the home. And whether those children feel it today or next week or years from now, it will be there somewhere in their hearts and in their minds and draw them back. Angie, you deal with this every day. What hope is there for parents and spouses who feel paralyzed, who feel like they don't know what to do and there's no hope? Well, I think, start off by knowing that your kids are resilient. They really are. And just like we've been through really hard things, they're going to go through hard things and they're going to learn how to come out on top. They're going to have to wrestle, and they're going to have to struggle. And as much as we want to prevent--boy, do I want to prevent my boys from struggling--we can't prevent all of it. There are going to be some wrestles they're going to have, and so we do the very best that we can, knowing that Someone else above knows our kids far better than we do. Someone knows what to bless them with and when to bless them with whatever it is that they need. We do the best we can knowing our kids are strong, we're strong. And if the number-one thing we put at the priority, always number one, is this relationship, not image managing--"I want to look like my family is OK"--not fear and anger, but if the most important thing is the relationship between me and my child and doing nothing to damage that while being firm and holding fast to what your beliefs are and your values system--years later, it might take years, right? You can't--it's the whole plan. Agency, right? But they have something. They have roots to come back to if they need to. And Sister Reeves, I think also we can take some comfort as parents in knowing that, as you reminded me, Heavenly Father trusted us with these children and will help us. He has so much love for us and is so--I am convinced--so anxious to give us the answers that we need. But it's not an immediate thing, is it? It's an ongoing--it's a lifetime of effort and seeking that inspiration. But knowing that our Heavenly Father wants us back, He's not putting roadblocks in our way on purpose. And we sometimes wonder, why all this evil at this time? But He has given us solutions and help, great help. Thank you both so much for your insights on this today. I appreciate it. We want to thank both of these ladies for their insights on protecting our families from pornography. Sister Linda S. Reeves is the Second Counselor in the Relief Society General Presidency, and Angie Cella is a marriage and family therapist who focuses on sex addiction and therapy. And thank you all for tuning in. Gospel Solutions for Families on the Mormon Channel. Subscribe to the podcast on mormonchannel.org, the Mormon Channel app, or on iTunes. [MUSIC PLAYING]