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Foreign.
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Welcome to the Them Before Us podcast. I'm your host, Jen Friesen. And those of you who have followed them before us for a while know that talking about pornography has been an aspect of what we talk about, even though we talk about children's rights because we talk about how pornography, the industry is targeting children, how damaging it is for children. A lot of you probably know that we participated, we gave an amicus brief to the court when Texas was trying to do their age verification law to make the industry verify users ages to prevent minors from using the service. And we also wrote about this in our chapter Pro Chapter on Pornography and Pro child Politics. So this is a topic that's very important and that's why we're really pleased to have this guest on our show. Kristin A. Jensen is the founder of Defend Young Minds and the number one best selling author of Good Pictures, Bad Pictures, which I actually have a copy of here, as you can see, and Good Pictures, Bad Pictures Junior. Both are read aloud books to teach young children how to reject pornography. Her books have been translated in over a dozen languages and are now augmented by a guidebook for Counseling kids which supports child therapists and educators. Kristin and her team have developed a wide range of resources including the Brain Defense, digital safety curriculum, downloadable guides and timely articles to help millions of parents raise empowered, resilient, screen smart kids. So Kristin, thank you so much for joining us.
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A
It's great to be here with you, Jennifer.
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B
So this is such an important topic and a lot of the folks who listen to us are parents probably of young kids or the kids that are the ages that are being targeted or of teens. And so this will be a really helpful conversation, I'm sure to everyone. Can you just share with us a little bit about yourself and your background and then what led you to create these resources?
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A
Yeah, what's a nice girl like me doing talking about porn every day? Well, I never really show, I never really thought about this as a career or any kind of thing to do because I really didn't want to have.
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B
Anything to do with it.
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A
But I met a woman who is a mother of a large family and she had a really horrifying experience where her, she found out that her oldest son was not only looking at pornography, but then he was, you know, sexually abusing, sexually acting out on his younger brothers and sisters. So she told me this story one night, one evening and we talked till we the wee hours of the morning and I woke up in the morning and I just had this, this thought keep coming to me and it really led me to look for a resource like there must be a book. I knew there were all kinds of body safety books and other kinds of safety books for children. So I'm sure, I was sure there was a book for children that talked about the dangers of pornography, but there wasn't that I could find. And so I just had this crazy idea that I could write it. And I started to do some research and kind of went on from there. Took three years to get it out there. But that was the beginning of Good Pictures, Bad Pictures, porn proofing, today's young kids. And then parents started coming to me and asking me for a book for younger children. So we wrote, I wrote Good Pictures, Bad Pictures Junior A Simple Plan to Porn Proof. A Simple Plan to protect young minds. So that was the beginning. It wasn't anything that I saw coming, but there was a need. And I just felt like it was so imperative that parents have this conversation with their children at a young age when they were starting to kind of be, you know, have access to screens. A young age when it could make a difference, a prevention kind of difference. You know, you wait too long and it's still important to have these conversations, but then we're talking intervention. Right? So I always hope all my work focuses on prevention for the most part.
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B
Yeah, that's so great. And it's so, it's such a great idea to be focusing on helping kids be ready for when they see it because it, it will find them somewhere. It's going to be a friend's phone or a picture at a friend's house or the Internet, you know, a pop up and those sorts of things. And when kids are equipped with what your book talks about, they're going to know how to handle it, to go find an adult. And some other things I'm sure we'll talk about in your book. So what are the basic messages of your book?
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A
Well, the basic messages are the books give kids three things and so they. Three things that they really need so they have a real choice to reject pornography. The first is a definition. They need to be able to recognize pornography. And we want a simple definition, an age appropriate definition, just enough so that they can recognize it. Two, they need a warning. They need to understand that this can be dangerous, that pornography can hurt their brain and it can lead to an addiction and change the way they see people and the way they see themselves. So that's the second thing. And then third is a plan. They need to know exactly what to do when they see pornography, when they're exposed. So a definition, a warning and a plan. And both books do this in various levels of, you know, complexity. Obviously, the junior one's very simple. The one for older kids, that's for seven to 11, talks a lot more about addiction and how the brain becomes addicted to really anything. So it's a great primer on keeping your brain safe from all forms of addiction, whether it's a behavioral addiction or a substance addiction.
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B
What would you say are the best ages to start? Are kids these days asking about things much younger? 3, 4, 5? Does this sort of need to follow a general birds and bees? Kids have these different body parts kind of conversation. Does that need to come before you would go through this book with someone?
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A
I don't think so. We created the book so that you could use both of these books with a child that you hadn't had that conversation with. However, having said that, we do recommend that you begin talking about sex earlier rather than later. Because what you're doing is you are competing with the porn industry and popular culture for the sexual templates of your children. And if you wait too long, you know the pornography is going to teach your children what sex is all about. And it's going to have the wrong messages. It's going to have toxic messages. So what I say is it's not like a particular age. It's when they have access to the Internet in any way. It. Any screen. Even if you think it's kind of locked down and safe, it's not. You can do everything and there will be a back door, I promise you. And these kids can learn it very quickly. I don't know if you've seen this video. There's a video that went around years ago that was showing, like, this kid doing 17 different steps. Maybe it was 15, I don't know. But it was a lot of different steps, from some simple art program on like an iPad or a tablet out to the Internet, out to YouTube. And they're very clever and they're curious, and that's why you need to start these conversations early, as soon as they have any access. So they have a gentle warning and they have a choice. Because if. If you don't prepare them, then they don't really have a choice. Now they still have a choice. Even after all you've done, they still have a choice, but they have a more informed choice. They have a real choice, and they have the ability and they know exactly what to do, what you've taught them to do in that situation. And I don't know about you, Jennifer, but when I'm caught off guard, I do not do well at all. I, um. So I. I like being prepared and it gives me more power and it gives me, you know, it helps me. And I think that children are the same way. We prepare them to face all kinds of other dangers. Why don't we prepare them for this danger? Yes, it's uncomfortable, but I think that tools such as good pictures, bad pictures, and other tools can really help parents get over that discomfort and do the thing that their child needs, which is really to give them, again, a definition, a warning, and a plan so they know exactly what to do when they're faced with something that can be very scary, confusing, sickening sometimes, depending on what they see. So let's. Let's give them a chance to reject it. Let's give them every opportunity.
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B
Yeah, that's a great point. I think it falls right in line with the them before us message, which is that adults need to do hard things and protect children, equip children. And as you're talking, I'm just thinking even the most tame version of pornography, which would be basically this typical sex act for a child without context, still feels very strange, icky, weird. There is something in us that knows it's something we're not supposed to be looking at. Right. Because it's. Well, for the first, it's other people's bodies and it's. It's a private, intimate moment that's not. You're not supposed to be voyeuristically looking at. Yeah. And like you're saying, unless a kid's been equipped to understand some context or, oh, this is what my parents told me about that sometimes I'm going to see these bad pictures, someone else's body that I shouldn't be looking at. Okay, I'm seeing it. Here's the plan. And maybe you can explain an example of what that would be. But now at least they have some context to go tell the adult. Or now I know mom warned me that this would happen, so now I can go tell her. Versus most of us got exposed to it at some level, and you feel all the same, icky, confusing. I don't know what to do with it, and I feel shameful. And you don't tell anybody because you're like, I must have done something wrong, so I'm just gonna shove it down.
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A
And I don't have the vocabulary and I might get in trouble, or my friend that showed it to me might get in trouble. I mean, there's just a Huge high cost that these kids imagine that they're going to pay if they open up. Unless you have started that conversation first. And I just wanted to mention that, you know, you were talking about, you know, children have this kind of natural response. The thing about sex that pornography teaches, that sex is just, is a performance, right? It's, it's a performance. It's often violent, it's degrading, but it's a performance and it objectifies the people that are involved in that performance. And I don't know, call me old fashioned, but I think sex is a lot more than that. And really that's the least bit of it. It's, you know, it's an intimacy that builds a relationship. And so that is what, you know, I wanted for my children and for my grandchildren. I want my grandchildren to have a great sex life, you know, when they're ready and, you know, when it's the right time with the right person and they have the right level of commitment. So that, that's, you know, pornography really teaches such toxic ideas and concepts about, about it and talking. So you asked about a plan. So in the, in the junior book, it's the turn, run and tell plan. Sounds so simple. I don't know why it took me a long time to come up with that. But turn, run and tell, because we always want to make sure that a child knows they can go and who to go to and who's a safe person. So when you're reading this book or talking to them about it, you want to identify who are the safe people. You know, if this were to happen over at your friend's house, or if this were to happen at your aunt's house or whatever. And then the older book takes into consideration more of the, the brain kind of health. I would say, how do you forget those bad pictures? How do you, you know, I've seen some things and they just keep popping back up and they dog you, right? And so it's important to learn a cognitive kind of technique to minimize. And what you're doing is you're actually building a neural pathway away from those shocking, you know, memories. So that's all included in good pictures, bad pictures and both books. And you can get more explanation at the back of the book for, in the section, like tips for parents and caregivers, we explain that whole process and really. And you can use it for, you know, all kinds of things, like if your child saw, you know, an act of violence, you know, something very upsetting online, this is some way they can help to minimize those shocking exposures.
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B
It was interesting. I was just remembering an experience. So my sister has kids and they. The oldest, I think, was maybe six or seven at the time. And this is a pretty innocent example of something. But she came downstairs and a pipe had burst and so water was just flowing, spraying out of the ceiling, down into kind of the basement laundry area. And my sister kind of ran down, was like yelling at the kids, like, oh, go up and get this. And you know, so she's kind of panicky. And they fixed it, they sorted it out, whatever. And it was interesting. I think I came over the next day and my niece, you know, six or seven, was talking about it. She repeated it maybe three or so times. This recounted the story to me over the course of an hour or so. Oh, and then mom came down and she was yelling and the water was everywhere. And so it was just interesting how, I mean, in terms of, like, trauma, this is a very innocent trauma, but her experience is something very foreign is happening. My mom got pretty agitated and scared and was yelling and there's this chaos, trying to figure it out and then. And she's trying to process it by talking about it over and over. And that doesn't even. That doesn't have anything to do with the shame or feeling like you saw something wrong or weird. You know, that's way outside of your age appropriateness. So it's just a really good thing to think about that. Kids need, like you said, the language. They need the ability to be able to process what they've seen. And then the parents will have the tools from these books to help them retrain the brain away from that thing they saw. Can you give an example of that? I don't know how in depth that is, but let's say a kid sees a pop up on their iPad and they follow the plan, they turn, run, tell. Then the next day when they get on their iPad, they're like, oh, mom, what if a bad. Remember that bad image or something, you know, starts describing the image? What would a parent start doing in response?
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A
Yeah, so basically what you're doing is you're getting the child to find something, Think of something that is really exciting for them, that they love, that they want to think about. Right. If they're really into trains or horses or whatever, you know, maybe there's a certain show, maybe there's some songs, but something that will really kind of engulf their mind and it has to be pretty strong. And so what you do is you train the mind to think about that. To go there instead of over here. And the thing is, your mind will go back over to the porn and the shocking thing, but then you just bring it back over, and you have to practice this. You have to practice it. But eventually it works because it's basically retrain. It's building a new neural pathway away from that thing. Now, I. I love to snorkel, and I really haven't done it very many times, but I've gone to Hawaii a couple of times, and I've gotten to snorkel, and I just love it. I mean, the peace. You go down there, and you're looking at the beautiful fish, and it's so quiet. Just, oh, my gosh, I love it. That's what I do. I go snorkeling, and I try to see those fish and describe, you know, the colors and the patterns and all of that. And that actually helps. I've done this before. So is my husband. We've, like, tried this, and this is actually a recovery technique as well. People that are in recovery have to learn how to deal with, you know, especially, I mean, pornography. Once your brain gets kind of attuned to that, very sensitized to that which is part of the addictive process, you. You know, anytime you see something and there's so much sexualized imagery out there that it just lights up your brain like a Christmas tree, your reward center. So very important to be able to know how to deal with those images. And you're right, it's scary. Like, some things that don't scare us, they may just kind of like, oh, you know, upset us a little bit momentarily. But to a child can be very scary. There was a mom who posted on Facebook that she had read good pictures, bad pictures to her son. And three days later, he went to school, and a classmate had a phone, came over, said, hey, look at this. And of course, was pornography. But he. He turned away. He went home, and he told his mom, and he said, I was scared, but I knew what to do. I was scared, but I knew what to do. And isn't that a beautiful gift that we can give our kids, right? To know what to do and to have a safe person, you know, to talk about it with. That is a beautiful gift, and every child deserves to have that gift. Every child deserves to know what to do and to have a safe person to debrief, right? To talk about it with. And I'll tell you, I have so many parents that have said this, built so much trust between me and my child. And of course, none of Us want this to happen. We all wish the world were different. The world is set up for adults. It's not set up for kids anymore. Used to be. Not anymore. And so it's so important that our children have some training and that we open that conversation. That we open it. If you think your child's going to come and tell you that's the outlier child, the studies show that that's the outlier child. Most children, they're not going to say anything, and then it will continue to harm them, maybe even lure them into looking, you know, more maybe prime them to, you know, become sexualized. And, you know, we don't want that. That can really impede their childhood development. So, yeah, it's very important to open that conversation with these kids at a young age.
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What would you say to the parents listening that, you know, probably a decent amount of our audience, pretty conservative, homeschooled. We don't give our kids devices, and they maybe think, you know, the chances of my kids being exposed to this are pretty low. But if I talk about it with them or I read this book with them, I'm going to plant things in their mind that wouldn't otherwise be there, or I'm going to arouse their curiosity about pornography and sex. And in a way, I don't want to. What would you. How would you advise those parents?
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A
I would say that this is a very common concern. But I. I want to just start by saying that it was a homeschooling family. You know, I told you about in the beginning. They were homeschooling, and she was homeschooling for that very reason. I want to protect my children. And if you have any. If they have any access, if they leave, if they walk out your door and they go to a game or go to a friend's house, I mean, there's just so many opportunities for them that we don't see coming. I just heard about a kid that, you know, any screens, any screens you have in your home, whether it's on your refrigerator, on your treadmill. I mean, honestly. So we're not trying to raise children in a bubble. What we're trying to do is prepare them for the wonderful world they actually live in. There's so many wonderful opportunities that technology presents, but we have to help them navigate these dangers. But going back to your question about the, you know, will I, first of all, especially women moms, feel this, like, guilt, like, oh, my gosh, you know, it's going to be all my fault. But let me tell you, the World will expose them. You have two choices. You could cross your fingers and hope that, okay, I will have this talk before my child ever sees anything. Or you can be proactive and realize in a very humble way that you don't have complete control over this. And it just takes one kid with a phone at a park. I was. With my grand. I was. I took my grandson to a park. He's on this little thing, going around and around and around, and. And this kid pulls out a phone and puts it up into his face. You know, I mean, I could not control that moment. Now, I don't think he saw porn, but. And me, mama bear, grandmama bear ran over there and said, put that phone away. Do not, you know, do not show my grandson anything on that screen. But it happens all the time. So we have read these books to our grandsons, and their parents have since they were two. And so we are trying our best to prepare them so that they have a real choice. I just don't feel like. I mean, this plan of, well, we're not going to plant anything in their mind. We're going to wait, we're going to just not say anything. That's been the plan in place for decades, and it's not working. There's so many people that get into this, and kids feel betrayed. I was talking with a teacher who actually taught high school students, and she taught about pornography and pornography addiction and all these things. And these kids, you know, they said, we feel betrayed. Nobody warned us. And we're all into this. And this was a very conservative religious school. We're all into this, and nobody warned us. And why. Why weren't we warned about the dangers? So, like I said, you have two choices. You can just kind of, like, cross your fingers or you can be proactive. And I will always land on being proactive and teaching our children how to deal with dangers. The other thing is you can do everything you can to keep, you know, to use the parental controls, to use the filters and to make sure everything is locked down that with your router and your devices. And then you don't have any old devices sitting around that they can get to that are not, you know, protected. I've heard stories of that happening. And so, yes, we can do everything we can with the devices and the technology, but we also have to help them build an internal filter. And that needs to start young because there's just so much out there. And like you said in the beginning, it's predatory. There's a predatory aspect to pornography, and it's used by predators on our children. Kids are safer from actual hands on predators when they know to reject pornography.
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B
That leads perfectly into the next question. Just for kind of the final thought though it's a big question, is that pornography and child abuse tend to go hand in hand or it's a tool that abusers often use. And you also talk about how pornography fuels child to child abuse and inappropriate contact and things like that. So can you talk about that a little bit? Because that's another good reason to equip your kids is they, you know, it's not just a peer that might show them something on a phone, someone who you might trust, who you welcome into your home or who's at your church or at your school, could be using this sort of thing to groom your child. And if your child is not equipped, I mean if they're equipped, that thing that can get shut down quite quickly. But if they're not, like we talked about, all the fear and shame, especially if it's coming from an adult that's trusted, is, is really dangerous. So can you speak to that a little bit?
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A
Absolutely. Well, I'll tell you a story. A mom contacted us and told us how she and her family were invited to a friend's home for dinner. So they went over there, they were doing a little bit of a project, remodeling project. So all the toys were down in the basement right next to the stairs. So the kids were to go down there, pick out a toy, come back up. So this little six year old boy, she had read him good pictures, bad pictures. So he knew what pornography was, why it was harmful and exactly what to do when he saw it. He went down there and I guess he was the last one he was looking over, he was deliberating, you know, he couldn't quite find the right toy and meanwhile he's alone and a man comes up who they, who was actually living there, renting the basement apartment with a phone, showed him gay porn and started talking to him about how fun this was. Basically starting to groom him because he, he knew this is a child that was going to be over there, right? And that he might have access to. But that child was warned and recognized. That's porn. Oh my God, that's porn. Ran up, told his mom and got himself out of a very dangerous situation, whereas we don't know what would have happened. And I have other stories like that. I've had people come up and tell me your book, you know, protected my grandson from being abused. So I mean I can Sit here and tell you many stories. But the gist is the same if they can recognize it and know no adult should ever show them pornography and then get themselves to a safe person that is, or tell a safe person afterwards. That is really so key. Pornography is really teaching children to objectify themselves, to sexualize themselves, to objectify others. And the amount of self generated porn from children has gone way up. It used to be 40% was self generated, meaning children, and now it's 70%. So children unfortunately are making pornography even very young, young children, as young as three years old. So we all think, well, that won't be my kid. You know, my kid is different, my kid is good, our family is whatever. And these stories come from all types of families, all walks of life. Much better to be prepared and prepare your child so that they aren't. So they're much safer from child abuse. They can recognize the number one grooming tool and they don't become the child that perpetrates on another child. There was a woman who contacted us. She had been shown pornography multiple times with a neighbor kid. And then she started naturally. Children are imitative. She started to want to act out. So when she got together with her cousins, she did just that. And they finally caught her and they assumed that she had a hands on perpetrator, but she didn't. But they never asked about pornography, but that actually was the perpetrator, like porn was acting as the perpetrator. And then she went on to act out on other children. And this is happening more and more and more. So not only do you want to protect your children from, you know, being sexually abused, you want to protect them from ever, you know, being the person that would do that. And, and it's not that they're bad kids. They're not bad kids. They have been. Their, their mind has been programmed in such a way by porn. And then they're imitating. This is a natural thing. Children imitate what they see adults do. That's how they grow up. So we need to get in there and teach them explicitly that pornography, you know, is harmful and know what to do when they see it so that they aren't victimized in either way.
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B
Wow. So good. Well, Kristen, thank you so much for your book. Let me show again to both books. This is the one for the older kids and this is the one for the younger kids. And we will put all the links in. But where can people find you and your resources?
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A
Yeah, they can go to defend young minds.com and we have the books there as well. And guides. So you can download a free guide called how to Talk to how to Talk to Kids About Pornography. And totally free. And I'm also coming out with a new book for girls called Good Pictures, Bad Pictures Guide for Girls because they need different conversations about pornography. That should be coming out in early 2026.
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B
That's awesome. Well, Kristen, thank you so much, everyone. I hope you go check out defendyoungminds.com we'll put all the links to all the resources and to Kristen's books in our show notes. But, Kristin, thank you so much for your work. This is such an important way that parents need to equip their kids. So thank you for giving us those resources.
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A
Thanks so much, Jennifer.