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How Good Pictures Bad Pictures Came To Be A Resource For Protecting Children From Pornography Addiction

Protecting kids became Kristen’s mission after she received a late-night phone call from a traumatized mother who was dealing with the tragic consequences of her porn-addicted son. That’s when she linked arms with Dr. Gail Poyner and spent the next three years writing the Amazon #1 best-selling book, Good Pictures Bad Pictures: Porn-Proofing Today’s Young Kids.

Since then, Kristen has become a frequent speaker and guest on podcasts and radio broadcasts. She's a member of the Prevention Task Force of the National Coalition to End Sexual Exploitation. She actively blogs at ProtectYoungMinds.org where she helps parents empower their kids to reject pornography. 

After hearing tragic stories of kids getting exposed and addicted to pornography, Kristen wrote Good Pictures Bad Pictures; Porn-Proofing Today’s Young Kids to fill a much-needed resource gap.

“It all started when I received a late night phone call from a traumatized mother who told me about her 17-year-old son. He had been sexually molesting his younger siblings—imitating the pornography he’d been viewing from the time he was in elementary school. The next morning I searched for a children’s book to explain the dangers of pornography addiction and provide an action plan for how to keep kids safe online.  But I couldn’t find any. So I linked arms with my dear friend and licensed psychologist, Dr. Gail Poyner and we wrote Good Pictures Bad Pictures to fill this much-needed resource gap.” 

Learning How To Check Cookies Isn't Enough

Anne:  Why did you start Protect Young Minds?

Kristen: I started Protect Young Minds to begin educating parents about the risks of their young children seeing pornography.  So many parents are not aware of how young  children are when they begin seeing it and how accessible it has become.  Also, I was writing my best selling book Good Pictures Bad Pictures. I have a friend who called me one night and started pouring out her heart.  Her 17-year-old son was molesting his siblings and was involved in pornography. When she called me and told me this sad, tragic story, because not only did he have to leave the family and go into a program and be prosecuted, the younger children had to go into counseling--and I realized what a huge trauma this was. When it got out to their friends, the kids became more isolated because no one wanted their kids to play with them. When I woke up the next morning after hearing her story, I realized there needed to be a resource to help parents teach their young children about this danger.  So I went on line and did searches and I could not find anything.  I began doing research and felt compelled to write this book. I thought, “Even if it’s for my own future grandchildren, there needs to be a resource out there.”  Happily, it became a number one bestseller on Amazon and it’s growing and growing and getting out there!  We are really happy that it is helping so many families.

Anne:  It’s on our bookshelf and sometimes we pull it out and talk about it.  My son talks about his frontal lobe and if he’s throwing a fit I’ll tell him his frontal lobe isn’t working.  He’ll say, “Let me reattach it!” So is your book for kids or parents?

Kristen: Both! I have parents tell me all the time that they learn as much from it as their kids are because what we are trying to do is start a conversation.  It’s a read-aloud book that gives parents a script.  You and I inherited scripts from our parents to deal with certain problems. When I was a child and I got bullied or teased, my mother had a script that she got from her mother. She told me, “Kill them with kindness. Don’t let them see this bother you.” This is a script that she learned from her mother. But we don’t have any scripts about the reality of internet pornography. Parents don’t have a script in dealing with this so I thought, “I will write a script.”  It took us 3 years.  It models a proactive approach so that parents get in there and begin the conversation, hopefully before their children are exposed or soon after so that they know how to process it and respond.    

Kristen:  The first year we sold the book I thought our sales would plummet in December because who wants to think about this during the holiday? But actually they went up a little because people were giving this as a gift. I’ve heard from so many that they give this as a gift. I want to tell you a few of the things we do in the book for parents.There are five things: 
 It defines what pornography is.  If a child has a simple definition they can recognize it and have a vocabulary to tell about it.

It gives kids a plan for when they see it. We have the CANDO plan.  It includes closing their eyes, telling a trusted adult or parent about the exposure, naming it when they see it so they label it and recognize it. How to deal with the memories. Pornography creates shocking memories.  Many of us can still remember when we were first exposed and can call up the memory if we want. 

The third is it gives children the power over porn by teaching them how their brains react to it. You were telling me about your son and his frontal lobe.  Kids learn about their thinking brain and their feeling brain.They learn to keep their thinking brain in charge so that pornography can’t hijack their feeling brain.

Number four is that it protects kids from addictions of all kinds. Although we are focusing on pornography, the addiction process is very similar, no matter if you have a behavioral addiction like pornography or gambling or video games or a substance addiction.  It’s really important for children to understand about all addictions and how they can avoid them.

Number five may be the most important. It unifies the family to fight the dangers of pornography together by getting it out in the open.This is a common danger for all of us.  We need to fight this together. You aren’t going to be alone. Kids whose parents aren’t talking about this are fighting this alone, whether or not the parents know it. These kids are fighting alone and many are losing the battle.  So let’s pull together and help our kids and hopefully Good Pictures Bad Pictures will help parents to begin this conversation and empower their kids with the skills to fight the effects of pornography.

Anne: Absolutely. If we want to protect our kids, the number one thing we can do is be in recovery ourselves. If we need to be in recovery, we are attending our meetings and we are becoming healthy. For me, this is a process and I am still in the process and I am on the path but it is a process.

The second thing is to be able to talk about anything. Your book helped me to have a script to talk to my kids. One day we were watching some simple show on Netflix and my son said, “There isn’t any pornography in this show!” I said, “Nope.There’s not. It’s a great show!” This is something he could say and we could talk about.

Kristen:  If you can talk to a 4, 5, or 6 year old about pornography, when they are 13 it’s not going to be awkward. If you wait until they are 13, it is going to be more awkward. We’ve been asked to write a junior version. Good Pictures Bad Pictures: Porn Proofing Today’s Kids is geared towards kids ages 7-11. Although many have read it to their young children, many parents have asked for something simpler because every 3-year-old is on the iPad.  We’re coming out with this in February 2017:  Good Pictures Bad Pictures Jr:  A Simple Plan to Protect Young Minds.  It’s a picture book, all good pictures, a simplified version of our original book.

Anne: If you’d like to read more about Good Pictures Bad Pictures, you can visit Kristen’s site protectyoungminds.org.

If you'd like to purchase Good Pictures, Bad Pictures, visit our supply page: btr.org/supplies

Kristen, thank you so much for being on our show today!

Kristen: It was wonderful talking to you Anne.  I’m so glad for people like you who are getting out there to help others with this problem, helping women to recover from betrayal trauma, and then in turn helping their children get healthy. It’s a challenge in today’s environment. There are a whole lot of problems because of pornography, as you know.

Anne: Yes. My family was destroyed because of pornography. It’s a mess. So many women all over the world and our children and the addicts themselves are dealing with the effects of it constantly in our daily lives. We have true heroes who are healing from the trauma and setting good boundaries to keep themselves and their children safe from the behaviors of active addicts and learning to heal.

Kristen, you are a true hero! Keep coming back.  It works when I work it.