I posted “On Sons and Porn” (click here) last week. There are no formulas or fail-safe how-to’s to solve your son’s problem, mostly because your son is not a problem to be solved. Obviously this is only the beginning of a conversation. In continuation from the last post, though, here are three more thoughts as you prepare to respond well:
Listen for Shame
If you believe your job is to enforce shame so that your son thinks twice before embarking on a Google search again, you will not earn his respect or attention. Assume he feels enough shame to bury his heart ten feet deep. If want proof, notice the eye contact or lack-thereof he makes while you talk about pornography. The more shame he feels, the more he will look at the ceiling or floor, fidget with his hands, or give you a cold dark stare. If you begin to shame him, consider this evidence you need to look at your own heart first.
His humiliation has already kept him in hiding. In fact, it is possible he wanted to tell you his secret, or someone for that matter, as a means of releasing his shame. He may inwardly rejoice that he has been discovered. An adolescent once told me, “Things are so much better since I was caught. I used to live in my room all the time, but now I am free to use the whole house as living space.”
Act as if he has wanted to tell you about pornography all along, but he could not find the courage to climb out of his own shame.
It’s Not About You
You set yourself and the relationship up for failure when you take your child’s actions personally. This is not about you. When you make it about you, you will react out of a place of woundedness rather than care for him. You can care for yourself by sifting through a few short questions:
Do I feel I have failed as a parent?
Is my son acting against me?
Have I processed through my own hurt and grieved my son’s loss of innocence?
To work through any of these for yourself will better enable you to make this about him. Your child needs you in this moment. If every relational encounter has a giver and a receiver, now more than ever you must be the giver. Do your own emotional work until you can lead with curiosity about him and the pain in his heart.
Stop It!
“I must make him stop” is a dangerous vow. Years ago Bob Newhart starred as a psychiatrist in a skit with a woman who could not control her claustrophobia, bulimia, and other fears. Newhart comically replies to each of her concerns with a violent “Stop It!”. The skit is well worth watching, and it speaks to our fear to respond to situations we feel powerless over. A natural yet unhelpful reaction to powerlessness is to enforce control.
In this place with your son, pay attention to your fear and wavering levels of hope. Unprocessed fear will derail any efforts to care for him. Develop vision for the journey. While this may be your first knowledge of his porn use, chances are this is not his first time. It won’t be his last, either. You will not solve the issue in one conversation. Work at the transformation of your fear into faith. There is a bigger and deeper story going on, and you have a role to play. Always give your relationship more of a priority than his behavior. You do not need to control his actions. You do need to check your own heart process. If you feel lost, ask for help. You are responsible (or response-able / able-to-respond) to shepherd his heart well. Rather than controlling him, spend your energy creating a vision for the man you can see him becoming in ten or twenty years as you guide his heart well now.
