Why You Need To Protect ALL Your Electronic Devices

Would you buy your child or husband a Play Boy magazine for Christmas or their birthday?  No? I thought so.  If however you bought someone an eReader, tablet, phone, video game system, or computer with access to the internet and no safe guards that's exactly what you did.  It's just like giving your loved one a pornographic magazine and asking them not to look at it.  Most kids, and many adults won't be able to resist.

But I trust my family!  Of course you do, and my husband's parents trusted him when he was a teenager too. Unfortunately my husband was a teenage boy who had already been exposed to pornography and now had open access to it.

They told their son, "don't look at pictures like that."

And he went to the websites anyway.

They told their son, "those pictures are vile."

But he continued to view the images, and videos unchecked.

Only 3% of 18 year old men have reported never looking at internet porn.  We have a problem people.  There are plenty of parents in that 97% of boys who looked at pornography that were raising their sons in Christian homes, that "trusted" their child.  Now with other devices that easily connect to the internet, pornography can more easily be accessed.

My husband was on the surface a great kid.  He seldom talked back to his parents, he did pretty well in school, and he had "good friends."  He never went out drinking, smoking, or doing drugs.  He could have counted on one hand how many times he missed his curfew all through high school.  His parents trusted him, when they shouldn't have.

NO PARENT SHOULD TRUST A CHILD WITH OPEN INTERNET ACCESS.  THE TEMPTATION IS TOO STRONG.

2 things would have prevented my husband's pornography addiction in it's tracks.

1) Putting the Computer in a public place
2) Protecting the Computer with a password

So what about husband's and wives?  We're adults right?  We should trust our spouse.  Not so much, considering only 14% of young men say they didn't visit a pornographic website within the past year.  That means 86% of men did!!! I do not want my husband or any of your husbands to be in that statistic.  And let's not fool ourselves women are tempted by pornography too.

Any device that can connect to the internet needs password protection and parental controls.  Good ones too, not ones that can be easily disabled.  Depending on your device this might mean you need to pay for good parental controls.  It's worth it to keep your family safe.  I plan to write more about protection software in the future, but whatever type of software you choose to use be sure to search for ways to over ride it on the internet first, because your child certainly will and you don't want a moment of stress or weakness to lead to images that can never be erased.

What happens if you bought a device that truly can't be protected?  At least have a rule where it cannot be used behind closed doors, and your child/husband won't have access to it when no one is home.  Extreme?  Some people might say so, but the cost of viewing those images is simply too high.