✅ Sooner is Safer for Kids—How to Avoid the “Naivete Gap”
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Hello Reader, Our recent Defend Young Minds Parent Council believes that one of the most dangerous myths in parenting today is: My child probably hasn’t seen pornography. In fact, research shows that many well-meaning parents vastly underestimate what their children are exposed to online. Researchers call this the “naivete gap”—the gap between what parents believe and what kids actually experience. In one study done by the British Board of Film Classification, only 25% of parents believed their child had seen pornography, while 68% of their sons and 58% of their daughters said they had already been exposed. Many studies show that even young children are viewing it. And today, kids don’t only find pornography by searching for it. Much of it is pushed to them through:
In many cases, exposure is accidental—but the impact is still real. That’s why these conversations need to happen well before the teen years. The truth is that kids are being targeted and bombarded with explicit content. Earlier this year we documented 13 different pipelines to porn in 2026. (Our most popular article of the year.) If your child has internet access—or spends time away from you with internet-connected devices—it’s time to begin. Children need simple, repeated, age-appropriate conversations throughout childhood and adolescence. It can’t be a one-and-done talk. To help you get started, here are a few trusted resources that prepare kids to reject pornography and, yes–defend their young minds!
Sooner is safer. Start talking with your kids today so they won’t be caught off guard tomorrow. Kindly, P.S. We'll be at the Utah Coalition Against Pornography's annual conference on March 14th! If you're in Northern Utah, come join us at UCAP! P.P.S. Do you work with children? One of the resources we’ll be exploring at the Heal Young Minds Conference is the Good Pictures Bad Pictures Guide for Counseling Kids. This set of 15 artistic, kinesthetic and didactic interventions was developed and tested by child psychologists and is being used by hundreds of therapists, educators and other professionals worldwide. If you work with children in any capacity, please consider adding this resource to your treatment toolkit. Help your child build an internal filter that can help shape their future relationships. Resources like our Good Pictures Bad Pictures books give parents a simple, age-appropriate way to talk with kids about pornography before exposure happens. |
Defend Young Minds
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