Scared About Children’s Exposure to Sexual Content?

Sexual content is freely available in many forms. Though knowledge about sexual matters is necessary for children, early, unhealthy exposure can create a misunderstanding or misinterpretation in the mind of the child regarding sexual matters.

They may get intrigued by the sexual acts or description shown on television, or in books. They may feel curious to experience the pleasure or feeling derived by sexual acts as they see in porn videos circulating on the internet or mobile phones. They may be unaware of the real consequence of sex and may feel a pressure to indulge in it due to over exposure and also peer pressure and sex based discussions between schoolmates.

It can be startling, shocking and of concern for parents to realize that so much of sexually explicit material is freely available to children. Children may access these sources when parents are out working, when parents are asleep at night, when parents do not know what the child is watching on internet and so on.

Some kind of regulation will help parents in reducing the child’s exposure to sexually explicit content. For example, you can block all the channels on the television that show a lot of sexual content, block particular movie channels at night so that the child does not have access to blue movies.

Similarly you can get some sites blocked on the internet by approaching software professionals. You may allow some knowledge-based sites for the child to use so that they cannot browse through unknown or provocative sites out of curiosity or innocence.

Be aware about the medium through which sexual knowledge reaches children, by discussions with other parents or friends so that you are not ignorant about it.

Talk to your child about sexual matters in a polite and matter of fact way so that the child does not feel awkward about talking to you about sex or something he/she has heard, seen or read. It will help children to confide in you better and you can use this opportunity to disseminate correct information to them and instill safe practices.