Episode 134: Pornography and Parenting with Heather Frazier

You are listening to the Overcome Pornography for Good podcast episode 134, Pornography and Parenting with Heather Frazier.

Welcome to the Overcome Pornography For Good podcast where we take a research-based, trauma informed and results focused approach to quitting porn. This approach has been revolutionary and changed thousands and thousands of lives. I’m your host, Sara Brewer.

Hey, you guys, welcome to today’s podcast episode. I’m excited to share this interview that I had with Heather. Heather interviewed me for her podcast, she is an awesome parenting coach for parents of teenagers and has a lot of really great stuff. But this was an interview that she had me on for her podcast and is letting me use the audio to share with you, all of my listeners. So please enjoy this conversation that we have about parenting and pornography. 

Heather: All right, welcome, Sara Brewer, to the podcast. I’m so excited that you’re here. 

Heather: Thank you. I am so excited to be here. 

Heather: Yes. And for all of you who don’t know Sara, she’s phenomenal. We met in France this past summer and it was amazing. And she is a fantastic coach. We are both certified in trauma and all kinds of great things. But I’m going to let Sara introduce herself. 

Sara: Okay, yeah. So I am Sara Brewer and I own Overcome Pornography For Good. So I am a coach, we help people with our coaching programs and podcasts and all sorts of good resources to quit porn. My tagline is shame-free and sex positive, and so that’s really, really, really important to me. We do a lot of really, really good work and help a ton of people. 

It’s amazing how much progress people can make in quitting porn when we’re focused on the root of the problem and when we’re not using shame, and when we’re getting rid of some of the stuff, the icky stuff that we’ll talk about, probably, in our interview today. 

Heather: Yeah, I’m really excited. So how do you think porn and parenting teens comes together? 

Sara: Yeah, I mean, I think that’s probably one of the big worries that a lot of parents have with their teens. 

Heather: Yeah. 

Sara: For sure, right? Especially since they have the internet, I didn’t have the internet like they had. A lot of the porn use with my clients that we talk about, a lot of it starts in teens. So it’s very, it’s a big topic for parents, for sure. 

Heather: Yeah, they are very intertwined. I coach a lot of parents who find their child looking at porn or their child discloses what they’re doing. 

Sara: Cool. 

Heather: From a no shame, sex positive standpoint, if you discover porn, whether they come to you or you find it, how can a conversation look that isn’t shaming, that’s sex positive, but also age appropriately sex positive? 

Sara: Yeah. What do you mean by age appropriately sex positive? 

Heather: Like your 11 year old is looking at porn. 

Sara: Okay. Yeah, I see. Yeah, so the biggest thing that can help you protect your kids from pornography, and this is what all the research is showing, is sex education. And so if you want to help your kids be protected from pornography, the more sex education, the better. Which kind of might feel counterintuitive when we think about it. 

Heather: Just ignore it, la, la, la, la, la. 

Sara: Yeah. If I tell them about it, they’re going to know about it and they’re going to be curious and want to go look at it. And it’s actually the opposite. Kids who don’t have sex education, a lot of times that’s when they’re curious, what is this? And that’s when they’re looking stuff up. 

And then if you have an 11 year old you’ve got these new hormones and all these new, what is this feeling? What is this? They’re curious, it often starts from a place of curiosity. And so the best protection that we can have as parents to help arm our kids is going to be sex education. And then it’s just going to be perspective. 

I mean there’s a lot we can talk about, but perspective here is a really, really big, important key piece that if your child is looking at pornography or comes to you and says, oh, I saw pornography or I saw this thing, that’s okay. And that’s probably normal with this age of the internet. And that doesn’t mean that they’re going to be addicted. And that doesn’t mean that they’re going to struggle with it forever. And it doesn’t mean these big, big things that we make it out in our minds. 

It’s actually pretty normal and we can help our kids so that they don’t continue to do it. But that initial exposure, kids are just exposed. Kids are just exposed. 

Heather: Yeah. So I think it’s fair to assume, and you tell me what you think, that everybody sees porn? 

Sara: Yeah, for sure. For sure, for sure. 

Heather: Whether they’re seeking it or it just falls in front of their face, we find it. 

Sara: Yep. 

Heather: So I love the shame-free, of course that’s normal. It’s a great response because it actually is normal. 

Sara: Yeah, totally. We’re not just saying that, it actually is. 

Heather: No, it actually is normal to have this sexuality that’s growing within our adolescence. 

Sara: Yeah. 

Heather: So what are some misconceptions about teens and porn? 

Sara: Yeah, I mean, I just touched on one that if we don’t talk about it, it’s not going to happen. It’s not true. 

Heather: Yeah. 

Sara: And then another big misconception is that something has gone horribly wrong. If our kid, if our teen is looking at porn, something has gone horribly wrong. That’s just not true. And when we believe that and when we react from that reactive place and that shame place, what it does is it creates these shame spirals of hiding and avoiding. 

So Brene Brown teaches us that shame, when we feel shame we hide and avoid. And so a lot of teenagers will get into this pattern of, oh no, I did this thing. This is horrible. I shouldn’t have done this. I can’t tell anyone. Or I have to just feel so ashamed about it if I do tell someone. Like this is the worst thing I could have done. 

And it typically creates a lot more unwanted pornography use when we’re in that space because when you’re feeling shame and it just feels awful, awful, awful, awful, it kind of explodes out into more unwanted sexual actions if we’re using pornography as, you know – And I don’t want to go too much into this right now maybe, but a big idea here too is that porn is a way to escape emotion. 

And so it can become that later on for kids after the initial curiosity stage, it becomes just a way to escape emotion. And so if they don’t want to do it, but then they just feel so, so, so, so, so bad, how do you avoid feeling bad? Maybe you view some more pornography.

Heather: Yeah, because you get a huge dopamine hit when you view pornography, which feels really good, right? 

Sara: Yeah. 

Heather: What’s another misconception? 

Sara: Addiction. 

Heather: That’s one of the things I wanted to ask you. 

Sara: Yeah. Yeah, so that one breaks my heart is when we hear of kids, maybe in church, and they hear about pornography addiction and they’re sitting there in the pews thinking, oh no, I’m addicted. I’m addicted to porn because I like it, because I’m viewing it. Because this is something that’s come into my world. 

Heather: It makes me feel good. 

Sara: Yeah, it’s so harmful. 

Heather: Yeah. Right now, just for listeners, there’s a book called The DSM. I think we’re on the fifth or sixth edition, right? 

Sara: Yeah. 

Heather: And they are currently debating as to whether or not pornography is addictive. 

Sara: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I’ve done quite a few episodes on this with researchers too around this. Researchers, they just seem to fight in the porn world a lot, is it an addiction, is it not an addiction? And so there hasn’t been a lot of conclusive, like not everyone agrees. And so what I typically teach my clients is use that label if it’s serving you. But if it’s not serving you, you also don’t have to use it. 

And so what that looks like is if you think you’re addicted, how do you feel? Do you feel like maybe some sense of like a burden off your back? Or do you feel hopeless, lost, like I’m never going to be able to change? It depends, right? For some people that label can be really helpful, but for most of the time what I see is it’s usually not very helpful and actually keeps people stuck. 

I’ve had so many clients who tell me, as soon as I let myself let go of the addiction label, I was able to give myself permission to actually have more control around this and realize that I do have a lot more control around this. And it’s not always that simple, but it really can be, especially for teenagers. We have to be so, so, so careful not to put that label on them when that’s just not even true. 

And like you were saying, in the DSM, is it in the five right now? The DSM five? 

Heather: I think it is. 

Sara: They stopped classifying pornography as an addictive disorder and started classifying it as a compulsive disorder. And there’s differences there, there’s big differences there. 

Heather: There are, yeah. There for sure are. One of the biggest misconceptions that I’ve seen, and I would love your opinion on this, is only boys watch porn. 

Heather: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that kind of comes from our culture of boys and men are the sexual ones. 

Heather: Yeah, we don’t need to worry about our girls. 

Sara: Yeah. 

Heather: They’re good, just let’s shame the boys and talk to the boys about it a lot. 

Sara: Yeah. And so I recently interviewed someone, a really, really cute girl named Madi Davis and she’s at BYU. And it’s like her mission to help girls who struggle with porn because she did and she’s really open about her story. And she talked about how much it sucked when she would go to church and they would say, I know none of you struggle with this because we’re in Young Woman’s, but we need to talk about it. 

Heather: Yeah. 

Sara: She was like, oh, well, then what is wrong? 

Heather: I’m really broken. 

Sara: Yeah. 

Heather: Yeah. 

Sara: Yeah, and boys are kind of expected to be sexual, girls aren’t. And so there’s also these extra levels of shame and ickiness if you are a girl who struggles and looks at pornography or masturbates or whatever. 

Heather: Yeah. Well two words if you want to be technical, purity culture. 

Sara: Purity culture. 

Heather: So we have a lot of high demand religions, whether they’re Middle Eastern or Christian, we have these religions that shame around sexuality, around especially female bodies. 

Sara: Yeah. 

Heather: How does that interact with our children and porn use? 

Sara: Yeah, so in maybe high demand religion spaces and this purity culture pornography or sexual acts is like the worst thing. 

Heather: Next to murder. 

Sara: Yes, yes, next to murder. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that. And what that does is it really plays into this shame culture. And the shame culture is a lot more than, oh, we just feel like crap about ourselves. But also it really creates hyper sexualized individuals because the shame – 

Heather: Explain more. 

Sara: Yeah, so the shame, the repression, repression, repression, I am bad, I am unworthy, it creates these that I shouldn’t be thinking about sex. I shouldn’t be talking about sex. I shouldn’t even, like any desire for sex is bad. 

Heather: I shouldn’t want it. 

Sara: Yeah, I shouldn’t want it. That’s really what purity culture teaches too, is that we shouldn’t want sex. And so what that does is, a few examples here. So first, we think of a beach ball. If you hold a beach ball underwater, what does it do? It pops up. 

Heather: It wants to pop up, yeah. 

Sara: And so that’s with emotions, that’s with sexual desires. I mean, any teenager who’s been holding it in can tell you that’s exactly what it feels like, right? Lots of pressure. 

Another example here is sugar. If we think of sugar, well, actually let me start here. There’s a difference between physiology and morality. So physiology is normal, natural body functions like hunger and tiredness. 

Heather: One might even say how God created us. 

Sara: Yeah. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Yes, 100%. 

Heather: Yeah, totally. And sexual desire is part of that. 

Sara: Yes. Yeah. It’s physiology, it’s just a physical response in your body. Morality is what you do with those physiological responses. So when you’re hungry you can go make a sandwich, you can go steal some food, right? The morality is whatever you believe about, right or wrong, after those physiological symptoms. 

So with sex, those feelings, those physiological symptoms of desire are not bad. This is where so many people get really messed up because when we think that those symptoms are bad, it’s like sugar. So if you are someone who thinks that desire for sugar is bad, or that all sugar is bad and we should never even want sugar and what’s wrong with me for wanting sugar, right, that’s what creates eating disorders and that’s what creates binging behavior. 

So it’s very similar with sexuality, right? I should never want this, that creates a lot more unwanted behavior that can become more compulsive or binging. Does that make sense? 

Heather: Yeah, it totally makes sense. So what if you are in a high demand religion and that religion, because I have clients of eastern and western high demand religions that practice abstinence before marriage. 

Sara: Yeah. 

Heather: And some of them are so extreme that you don’t really even date until you’re an adult and like marriages are more arranged or more traditional. If we have the physiological desire, but because of culture we are unable to act on those desires, what then? 

Sara: Yeah, and I love that you’re asking this because sometimes when I talk about this people are saying, well, so are you just saying we should just watch porn all the time and masturbate all the time because that’s just normal? 

Heather: Right, right, because that’s just how we’re wired? 

Sara: Right, yeah. And no, that’s yeah, so such a good question. So the answer here is probably what you’ve taught in your podcast a lot, is just this idea of mindfulness around emotions and mindfulness around urges and instead of shaming them, becoming friends with them, feeling them, allowing them to be there without shaming them. 

So if we think about kids and anger, my kids are five and three, so they’re young right now and we watch Daniel Tiger. And Daniel Tiger, one of his songs is when you feel so mad that you want to roar, take a deep breath and count to four, one, two, three, four. 

So we can teach our kids when they have these emotions how to mindfully respond to them, to breathe into them, to welcome them. Okay, I’m feeling anger and that’s okay. And I can’t just go and hit my brother. It’s okay for me to feel this, but I can’t go hit my brother or whatever. And so we’re going to welcome it, we’re going to practice, we’re going to practice our emotional skills and we’re going to learn to feel this. 

It’s the same thing with sexuality, right? Yes, we can feel this and this is good. And this is okay, it’s not bad to feel this, just like it’s not bad to feel anger. And we can breathe into this and make choices that align with our value system. That’s going to give you so much more power to act within your value system than trying to shame it or make it go away or pretend like it’s never there. 

I have a whole other example I can go into if you want me to. 

Heather: Yeah, let’s hear it. 

Sara: Okay. If you think of a tiger, you pretend that there’s this tiger that you have and it’s wild and it’s angry. And you have choices, you want to protect yourself from this tiger, you can build a fence around it and try to pretend like it’s not there and try to protect yourself from it and try to just push it away and keep it contained. 

Now, if you do that, this tiger is going to tear down this wall and you’re going to have to be constantly rebuilding. It’s going to be a lot of effort and a lot of work. Or you can learn to become friends with this tiger and tame this tiger and train it up to do what you want to do so it becomes your friend and it’s not dangerous to you and you know how to live with it peacefully. 

That takes a little bit more work up front and you might get scratched and bruised and you might mess up. You’re probably going to mess up a little bit while you’re learning how to train this tiger, but the end result is a much more peaceful life. And so kind of with that with our kids and pornography and sexual, as they’re learning and growing into this sexual nature, you can’t expect them just to be perfect. 

You’ve got to acknowledge that there’s some growth here and we’re practicing this growth mindset. And so with purity culture we have to be careful because the message there is that sex is the worst thing. It’s like we allow our kids to make mistakes in other areas, but when it comes to porn it’s like a big no no. 

What if we could kind of level that out? Oh, it’s okay for my kid to make mistakes, I don’t know what that might be. If they lie or if they cheat we’re going to teach them and help them not to do it again. Same thing with porn. Like we’re learning, we’re growing. We’re learning, we’re growing, step by step by step. 

Heather: Yeah, well, that goes back to your first misconception, which is that something is horribly wrong. Which in purity culture that’s true. 

Sara: Yeah. 

Heather: So if you are in a culture that speaks to purity, how do you reconcile the two? If you want to remain in a religion or culture that preaches against the use of pornography and sex before marriage, all of the more purity things, which I think you and I both agree that pornography isn’t the best. 

Sara: Totally. Yeah, it’s damaging and can hurt our kids. 

Heather: And that we need to be careful with sexual relationships, right, however each individual wants to define that. Maintain your family standards and then also not believe that it’s horribly wrong. 

Sara: Yeah, I think that it comes down to this idea, like what’s our goal in parenting? Do we want to create kids who are afraid of making mistakes and who never mess up in the name of being pure and clean? Or, I mean, what do we really believe about the Savior? What do we really believe about God? And what do we really believe about grace and goodness? 

And are we willing to challenge some of the purity culture beliefs in the name of grace, in the name of healthy children? Because we don’t have to hold onto, like we can get rid of the purity culture beliefs and still raise kids and still have the same values. So purity culture is not equated to the same values of healthy sexuality. 

Heather: Yeah, in fact I would even say if we believe everything has its opposites, that actually is the opposite, not going and sinning. Sinning, I’m doing air quotes. 

Sara: What’s the opposite of going and sinning? 

Heather: Truly moving into a mature relationship with the atonement, with grace, knowing that mistakes are the plan. And then the opposite would be purity culture, which is essentially perfectionism in a sexual way. 

Sara: Yes, I love that. Yep, totally. 

Heather: Yeah. 

Sara: And one thing I really want to make clear too is the reason that what I teach works so well is because it helps people view less porn, not because it gives people all this permission to go and view a bunch of porn and do a lot of sexual actions. It’s actually the opposite. It gives them control over if they want to do it, it gets rid of the shame and then they are so much more healed, healthy individuals. 

It’s not like preaching against purity culture creates more porn use. If we get rid of shame it’s not like there’s justification, those are two very opposite sides of the spectrum, right? Sometimes people will lean into that justification after getting rid of shame, but really, what we want to do is stay in the middle. 

So we don’t want the shame, we don’t want the justification on the two sides, we want something here in the middle, which is worthiness, which is hope, which is grace. When we get rid of shame, that’s when we’re allowed to become our best selves and our highest selves that are really acting from our value system, instead of just acting out of fear. 

Heather: Yeah. 

Sara: So it also is this idea as a parent, can we step out of fear and can we step into trust that our kids are good kids and that actually when they feel good about themselves and when they feel really good about who they are, they’ve got great values. 

Heather: Yeah, I love that. That almost sounds like something that’s not even in the middle of the two extremes, but like a higher plane. 

Sara: Yeah. 

Heather: It’s like a completely different third option of best self. 

Sara: Yeah, I like that. 

Heather: Okay, so with your clients who have been viewing since they were teenagers, I’m sure that you have heard stories of how parents behaved. We’re speaking to parents right now, so how with the shared experiences that you’ve heard, what generally needs to change with the conversations that parents are having or the approaches the parents are having with their kids around porn? 

Sara: Yeah, I mean, first I would just say offer yourself so much grace. So if you’re listening to this and you feel, oh no, I totally messed it up. 

Heather: I totally messed it up. 

Sara: You’re okay, there’s nothing that can’t be fixed here. 

Heather: Totally true. 

Sara: You didn’t know better. We’re okay, we’re learning. 

Heather: Yes. 

Sara: And going forward, the biggest things that can be changed, like I’ve said, just being really open about sex. Really learning for yourself, what do I want to teach my kids about sex? And if we’re doing, you know, not just abstinence only, never talk about it. What can I teach my kids about consent? What can I teach them about body parts? I mean, a lot of times people will start viewing porn just because they’re curious what bodies look like. 

There’s so many beautiful resources out there to teach your kids about sex. I love Shame Free Chastity, the Instagram account that’s my good friend, Meg who’s a BYU researcher. Shame Free Chastity, there’s so many good books, Kristin B. Hodson has some great resources and things on how to teach your kids about sex. That’s number one. 

And even if your kids are older and teenagers and you haven’t done that before, you can just approach them and say, hey, this is something I’ve been thinking about and I want to have more conversations about healthy sexuality with you. And it might be kind of awkward because I’m still learning, but hang in with me for a little bit. So here’s just like one thing, I want to talk to you about consent. What is consent? 

And just so you know, I know maybe I haven’t been open to questions in the past or you’ve made me feel awkward about asking me questions in the past, is there a way that I can help you feel more comfortable to ask me questions about things? Maybe you come up with an idea like having a notebook where your kid can just write questions in and they can leave it on your bed for you to write back to them. 

Heather: Yeah, so much safer when you don’t look at each other.  

Sara: Yeah. 

Heather: You’re talking about sex, wondering if they’re thinking horrid thoughts about you and your partner. 

Sara: Right, yeah. So that’s number one. I mean, the biggest thing too, is shame. So, oh no, big reactions, you know that this is going to ruin your life if you keep doing this. This is like so and so struggled with this and he lost his whole family, your uncle struggled with this and he lost everything. For as many stories there are of people who have lost everything with porn, there are 50 stories of people who have had beautiful lives and been just fine who have overcome porn use. 

Heather: Yeah. 

Sara: So we want to be careful not to go into that. 

Heather: Yeah, one thing that came to mind when you first mentioned having the conversations, talking to your kid about sexuality and then just now, is a mantra that is huge in the school that we both went to, the Life Coach School, which is discomfort is the currency of our dreams. 

Sara: Yeah, love that. 

Heather: And in the way that it is uncomfortable, if you’re not used to it, to have conversations about sexuality with your kid, especially if you fear that they’re doing something that you don’t necessarily want them to do. Whether it’s porn or being intimate with somebody or any of those kinds of things. 

But that discomfort, embracing it does lead to the stronger connection, the better protection to keep your child safe that studies are showing. 

Sara: Yes, totally. Studies show over and over and over again, for safe kids around sexuality, you have to talk to them about all the things, about protection. Even if you’re like, my kid is never going to have sex, you’ve got to have the conversations about protection. You’ve got to have the conversations about consent. You’ve got to have the conversations about what healthy relationships look like, what healthy sexual relationships look like. 

Because just not talking about it doesn’t keep kids from exploring it or from learning about it. They just learn about it through TV. They learn about it through porn. They learn about it through Google and their friends and through TikTok. We don’t want that. 

Heather: No, and it is the way that God made us. Could you imagine if nobody had sexuality? We would have stopped existing millennia ago. 

Sara: Yes. 

Heather: Because we wouldn’t have had the drive to procreate.

Sara: Right. So you’re growing up and you might have these feelings and these are called sexual feelings. And here’s how sex works, here’s the pleasure stuff, here’s the pleasure hormones. You might start to notice this or experience this, you’re going to have wet dreams if you’re a boy, right? If you’re not, you might be making out and you might feel these things. This is what this is. Here’s what our family value system is around this. Here’s how we want to keep you safe. Here’s what we believe will help set you up for the best future. 

And whenever we talk about sex, we always want to talk about our values and our beliefs around grace, around the Savior, around forgiveness, around all of those things to really try to combat that purity culture that they’re going to be receiving outside of the home. 

Heather: Yeah, I love that. We just had such fantastic conversations in our week together. But no, I just, I loved getting to know you and the work that you’re doing. It’s so important. And it’s important that parents don’t just tell themselves, not my kid. 

Sara: Yeah. 

Heather: Because that is just an avoidant behavior. And their kid might not find porn, but I don’t know, do you have any interesting statistics on how many? 

Sara: I don’t. Like years ago it was like 95% of kids by age nine or something. Now I know that’s changed to like all kids. And now a lot of kids are getting nudes from their friends. And so I know that can be like, oh no, that’s so terrifying and so horrible. And yeah, I never had to deal with anything like that, that’s a little bit scary. And it’s also okay. 

It’s also okay. We can teach our kids and we can use this as an opportunity to teach them about safety online and about respect. And when we don’t, that’s when the unwanted sexual behavior happens, is when we don’t. 

Heather: Yeah, and about what to do, I think is really important. Because, yes, my kids have – Various children have come home from junior high, it’s always junior high. High school they seem to have figured it out, but junior high is a tough one. They always come home, and they’ll be like, oh, this kid, the cops were there and he was distributing pictures that this girl sent him. 

Sara: Oh no. 

Heather: Right? And he got his phone taken away and the cops took it and he’s in big trouble. I think it’s also really important to have conversations around local and like what is child pornography? 

Sara: Yes. 

Heather: If an underage girl or boy sends you something, that’s illegal. 

Sara: Yes. Yeah, and I’m talking to you about it. I’m happy to talk to you. If it ever happens, just come and show me. And with your reactions they’re going to know you’re not going to freak out and you’re going to keep them safe. Like, oh, I can take this to my mom, she’s going to keep me safe. She’s going to tell who she needs to tell. She’s going to help me do what I need to do to keep people safe. 

And then, yeah, it is illegal for you to send pictures of yourself. And you shouldn’t, that’s not safe. That’s really dangerous, here’s why. And how can we set boundaries with people? There’s so many opportunities, this is like a big thing here, too. 

Heather: Yeah. 

Sara: We just get to use this as opportunities to grow and to teach. And what I tell my clients all the time, like the things you’re going to learn with quitting porn are going to completely change your life. You’re going to learn about emotional management. You’re going to learn how to really create an amazing result in your life. You’re going to learn how to stay committed to yourself. You’re going to learn how to build an amazing relationship with yourself, with your body, with other people. 

It’s going to completely change your life. And porn is just the way you’re going to learn how to do that. And so it’s like the porn isn’t the end all. The end all is everything that we’re learning here and that we could experience and that you get to show yourself and that you get to become. 

The porn is just the way that for whatever reason, you were young when you started and you didn’t know these things and you were shamed pretty heavily and there’s a lot of healing that needs to be happening. And porn is just the way that you’re going to learn all these things. That can be a really helpful way to look at that for my clients and for parents, right? 

So all this sexuality and all this sex stuff, it’s just a way that I get to practice with my kids and teach my kids and help my kids stay safe. And if we can really take that scripture to heart that – how does it go? God is not – 

Heather: A God of fear. Yeah, he’s not. He definitely is not. And it’s important too that there’s nothing that he can’t help us out with. 

Sara: Yeah. 

Heather: There’s nothing where he’s like, oh snap, you’ve gone and done it. I can’t help you now. You’ve gone too far. 

Sara: Yes. And the heartbreaking, soul-wrenching, gut-wrenching stories of kids who do something and then feel like they can’t go back. They send that picture and they feel like they can’t go back. And then they do just – 

Heather: Well, just on the news there was a young man who committed suicide because of images that he had shared. 

Sara: Yes, right? 

Heather: Yeah, it’s terrible. So having conversations like that too, letting your kids know that you love them no matter what. 

Sara: Yeah, they’re going to be okay. They’re going to be okay, here’s sexuality. You, as a parent, might need to learn more about mindfulness and sexuality and emotional management with kids. So you just get to grow too and they’re going to be okay. They’re going to be fine. 

Heather: Yeah. What ages do you help in your programs? 

Sara: Right now we’re 18 plus, but I have some great referrals for anyone who’s under 18. And sometimes we’ll have, like if you’re almost 18 we’ll have them come in. And then I have a really great podcast that is great for teens too. 

Heather: What’s it called? 

Sara: Overcome Pornography For Good. And we dive more into buffering, so you use porn as an escape for emotion. We dive into over-desire, what the dopamine does. We dive into identity stuff, we dive into a lot more tools on why you might be viewing porn and how to quit. And we do talk about shame a lot, but it’s a lot of tools too. 

Heather: Okay, cool. How can my listeners find you? 

Sara: SaraBrewer.com/Masterclass. I have a great class for anyone who wants to quit viewing porn without using willpower. And then I just released a new class, Without Shame and Fear Tactics, and it dives into all of the basics that you need to know. 

I have Instagram, if you just look up Sara Brewer Coaching. Just yesterday, we talked about masturbation and how masturbation is a part of development and how we can take that data and also use it with our value system, right? If part of our value system is having kids that don’t masturbate, how can we kind of reconcile the data and that belief? We talk about that a little bit. And it’s just a lot of unshaming, a lot of that too in my Instagram. 

And then, yeah, so the free class, the podcast, Instagram is where they can find me. 

Heather: Okay, thank you so much for coming on. 

Sara: Yeah, thank you so much. So fun. 

I want to invite you to come and listen to my free class, How To Overcome Pornography For Good Without Using Willpower. We talk about how to stop giving in to urges without pure willpower or relying on phone filters so that you can actually stop wanting pornography. 

We talk about how to stop giving up after a few weeks or months. And spoiler alert, the answer isn’t have more willpower. And then lastly, we talk about how to make a life without porn easily sustainable and permanent. 

If you’re trying to quit porn, this class is a game changer. So you can go and sign up at Sarabrewer.com/masterclass, and it is totally free.