Porn Block: 3 Ways Your Kids Can Avoid Explicit Online Content

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“If it’s on the internet, you can never really escape it”. This is the case for deleted posts, pictures, videos, and even pornography. Even in today’s day and age, it’s impossible to avoid sexually graphic content on the internet. Even if one’s not directly or deliberately scrolling through sexually graphic sites, one can unexpectedly come across something of that nature.

Sometimes it’s through spam messages you receive from random accounts on social media sites and sometimes it just automatically pops up while you’re illegally streaming a film on a sketchy website. In short, no matter how hard you try you’ll always be stuck in a loop while searching for a safer scroll. But how can you really sit down and do nothing when your kids are involved?

Barely 3% of pornographic websites demand proof of age. Additionally, 25% of social media sites lack warnings for any content marketed towards adults.

Once kids turn a certain age their innate urge to snoop on the internet starts arising on its own. This is why you might want to ensure they don’t accidentally come across something sexually explicit while simply scrolling on a webpage. Sometimes simply having porn blocking software or turning on the “safe search” mode on your device can save you some trouble. Here’s more on why porn block is necessary and how you can achieve that;

Porn Block: 6 Reasons Why It Absolutely Needed

  • A wide share of online pornographic consists of stereotypes and violent acts. This may include; associating any form of physical or verbal abuse with the act of sex. Consenting adults possess more cognitive capacity to understand why that’s being done and what that means. On the contrary, a kid who has come across something like this for the very first time might assume that there’s a deep-rooted relationship between sex and violence. The association of these polar opposite aspects can alter their views on sexuality or sexual liberation. Someone who has learned to associate sex with violence from a very young age might have a bigger chance of being abusive in the name of sexual liberation. Thus early exposure to pornography can alter a child’s views on physical intimacy fur to their limited knowledge of the topic.
  • Intentionally or unintentionally coming across something this graphic can lead to sexual miseducation. At a certain point in life, every child receives the bees and birds talk from a high school sex-ed class or a parent. That’s the right time to discover this aspect of life. Exploring something at the wrong time and in the wrong form is a kind of miseducation that can lead to a lot of damage. It can strengthen a kid’s views on various social aspects; for instance, if a young kid comes across BDSM, he/she will surely start seeing physical abuse against anyone to be a socially acceptable thing. One way or another abuse against a woman would then be the least of their concern and a petty issue.
  • Our brains don’t fully develop until we reach our early 20s. Thus apart from being highly inappropriate, adult content of this sort can be extremely confusing for young minds. This can distort their views on sexuality. Thus they quite possibly would find it harder to participate in anything of sexual nature in their adulthood. Coming across something so graphic at such a young age can scare you away from that particular thing forever. These views, without any foreign involvement for improvement, can linger on for years.
  • An adult who’s been struggling with or recovering from a serious porn addiction will find the idea of porn block to be very comforting. It’s extremely helpful in the sense that it serves as a reminder. It’s almost like a wall between you and the endless amounts of internet porn that’s out there. Of course, you can go ahead and remove it whenever you want, since you put it in place yourself. But, when you truly have the urge to work on yourself even a shallow wall like this can push you back into reality. Porn block will also ensure that you don’t accidentally come across any kind of graphic content that could invoke old habits.
  • The true nature of an intimate act like this is exceptionally hard to grasp for young minds especially when it’s online and lacks any additional description. Children are exceptionally sensitive to these subjects thus some of them might find the whole experience very traumatizing at first. The experiences one has in the earlier stages of life can decide the trajectory of their later life. So someone who’s been traumatized this way can find even the idea of physical intimacy to be very repulsive. It can impact their general views on sex and may or may not leave them biased.
  • Exploring graphic material at a very young age directly contrasts with the fact that kids cannot practice self-control as swiftly as some adults. Everything that offers them a dose of dopamine, whether it’s an hour of online gameplay or cartoon shows, can soon become a habit. Precisely, they don’t understand the harm that doing something repetitively can cause. Consequently, the development of certain addictive behavior becomes very possible after a certain point. A child who’s been exposed to the world of pornography has a high chance of developing a porn addiction which can affect his/her psyche during developmentally critical years.

How To Detect If My Child Might’ve Deliberately Or Un-deliberately Came Across Pornography?

Although a child lacks the intuition to understand the gravity of the matter, he/she might still have a sense of guilt after watching something like this. So, he/she might try their best to hide their digital footprint. Some common instances would be refusing to share a device with you. The fear of being exposed and hiding what they are doing might even coerce them into password-protecting their device.

Another noticeable instance would be deleting their search history and rendering it completely clean every time they use it. If your child’s a bit more on the smarter side, he/she might try their best to find a way and remove parental control options. Furthermore, another prominent sign is if your child starts using language all of a sudden. A visit to explicit sites can be the reason behind that. Kids often scroll through such sites while no one’s around them. So, keep an eye out if your kid insists on using a mobile phone, tablet, or computer in reclusive sections of the house or till late hours of the night.

Moreover, some explicit sites might even start showing notifications and pop-ups while you’re using the device you share with your kid. This could be the result of your kid’s screen time spent on those sites. We’d also recommend keeping an eye on the spam emails you’ve started receiving in bulk ever since your kid got hold of your phone.

Porn Block: Conventional & Unconventional Ways You Can Solve This Issue

Get In Touch With Your Internet Providers

A large majority of internet service providers give parental control options to maintain a loyal customer base. For instance; you can use this added privilege to pre-decide your kid’s online activities. A great example would be blocking out all the porn sites you’re familiar with. So, even when your child searches for it, he/she won’t be able to access it. So, log into your internet provider’s customer portal or app and you can simply search for parental controls, content filters, website blocking, etc. Your internet provider may or may not charge extra for such features but that depends on the company or the package you’ve selected for yourself.

Set Some Limitations

Keeping a check on your kid’s screen time is necessary for so many reasons. First and foremost it ensures that they are not spending the maximum amount of time sitting around while skipping on actual physical activities. Secondly, it also saves them from being near-sighted or far-sighted at a young age as white light emitted by screens can be harmful in the long run. But a highly unacknowledged advantage is that not spending way too much time on online forums, reduces the risk of coming across sexually explicit content.

When a dedicated amount of time is given, your kid might never really find the time to deviate and snoop around some unexplored regions of the internet. Thus, a conventional but easy way of blocking porn could be anointing a pre-decided screen time for each of your kids.

Safe Search Mode For The Win

Generally, kids accidentally come across online pornography. You can avoid this chance by turning on the safe search option present in every internet browser. Consequently, every time your child unintentionally searches for something that can lead to adult content, your browser will simply filter their searches. So, no chance of coming across any explicit pictures, posts, or sites.

Take Advantage Of Parental Control Settings

Setting parental control restrictions work out pretty well because most kids don’t really know how to undo them. Tap on your privacy setting and toggle through restrictions for each app. For added impact, click on those apps’ privacy settings and check content preferences. Some apps tend to inquire whether or not the user wishes to see adult content. You can simply turn that setting off and it will add a content filter for the future. Some password-protected devices restrict online activities and device usage. Thus they will automatically turn off or shut down once that limit is exceeded. You can also try and block some sexually explicit words or try to set alerts for them. Consequently, each time your kids use a device’s browser to search for “porn” you’ll be well aware of the situation.

Take The Tech Savvy Route

If your device lacks this feature, do not worry because there are plenty of apps available on the Play Store & App Store which provide these services for free. Right on top of this list are Bark & Fenced.ai. The former can provide you with a long list of features such as screen time management, web-filtering, and other parental control features. While you’re monitoring your kid’s electronic device activities you can remain alert about any digital danger through multiple apps.

Its 24/7 detection system can even skim through messages and emails while filtering out any questionable words, images, or links. Various educational institutions also utilize the extension in question to keep the devices in their labs virtually covered. Fenced.ai on the other hand is an amazing online extension that keeps you up-to-date with your kid’s search history. Thus if they’re using a device to search for explicit content under the guise of a school assignment you can always stay one step ahead.

Both of these are paid apps/browser extensions that can be accessed through a wide range of packages according to your budget. We’ll also recommend installing an ad blocker for your browser. This will make sure that even while scrolling on a sketchy movie or song downloading site, your kids don’t come across porn pop-ups.

Final Words

Hope this article helped you find a suitable remedy for this inescapable concern. Remember, as a guardian you’re always trying your best to keep your child sheltered. But, sometimes no matter how hard you try, it’s impossible to truly fathom a way that ensures 100% success. Provide your child with the space and support system which gently coerces them into sharing things with you. This creates the room for a discussion that can undo the damage sudden exposure to explicit stuff would’ve done. If your child insists upon asking explicit questions on this topic and is old enough to understand the answers, respond appropriately. Shushing the matter away can have worse repercussions so, answer their queries on the matter in a more easily digestible manner before moving on.

 

 

 

Ava

Ava

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