Parents need to be more vigilant in order to protect children from hardcore online pornography, a family psychotherapist has warned.
Viewing hardcore porn at a young age can lead to impotence, erectile dysfunction and an inability to understand normal relationship dynamics, according to Dr Richard Hogan.
He told The Pat Kenny Show that pornography can be found on all types of sites - even those advertised to children.
“It’s all over, it’s in nearly everything where there’s chat and where people can put images into chat – even in Roblox and all these kind of things,” said Dr Hogan.
“You have to be very careful about what your child is consuming. The iPad is another thing, parents think, ‘My child doesn’t have a smartphone’.
“Anything that can go online – I worked in a school there last year where a senior infant had consumed hardcore, extreme material through their iPad.
“So, it’s not just the phone, don’t get caught thinking it’s just the phone.”
Child on computer. Issue date: Thursday January 28, 2021.Dr Hogan said it is important to have open conversations with children about sex.
“We have to be open with our children – age appropriate, obviously,” he said.
“I have a seven-year-old daughter, I'm not talking to her about these kinds of ideas, really heavy ideas – but [discussions with] my fourteen-year-old and the ten-year-old [are] beginning now to happen.
“You need to have open and frank conversations. We have to move away from the stigma of this talk about sex and about images and what they’ll see."
Phones as a parenting tool
According to Dr Hogan, phones should never be used as a parenting tool.
“It’s very powerful to say to your daughter or your son, ‘Give me the phone, that’s gone now’,” he said.
“You’re cutting them off from their whole social world, and so if they see an image that they’re disturbed by, they won’t come to you, because they’ll think you’ll take the phone off them.
“What I’d say to my daughter is like, ‘We won’t take your phone off you, we’ll support you with whatever you’ve seen, but if you’re worried about anything, come to us’.”
Dr Hogan said early exposure can also lead to porn addictions.
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