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Welcome to the Nimble Youth podcast, where we provide expert insights and valuable resources for parents navigating the complexities of their children's mental health. We empower parents to nurture healthy minds in children, teens, and young adults through real conversations.
Our team of seasoned professionals, including physicians, therapists and educators, delve into pressing topics, share research-based strategies, and offer practical advice for fostering mental and emotional well-being within your family.
Welcome back to the Nimble Youth Podcast, where you explore the challenges facing children and adolescents today and give parents, educators, and clinicians tools to help young people thrive. Today's topic is one that many adults feel uncomfortable discussing, but it's one that counselors, teachers, and parents are increasingly confronting head on. Online pornography and its impact on teenage boys, especially. Research shows that nearly three in four teens (seventy three percent report having been exposed to online pornography, whether intentionally or accidentally. The average age of first exposure is around 11 to 12 years old, with boys often encountering it slightly earlier.
Matt (host):In one large study, over ninety five percent of boys reported seeing internet pornography at some point highlighting how widespread exposure has become. Studies also note that the median age of first exposure typically falls between 12 and 15 years with more than half encountering it by age 13 or younger. And boys are more likely than girls to intentionally seek out pornography and to use it more frequently. And clinicians are increasingly concerned because adolescence is a time when the brain's reward system is highly sensitive to novelty stimulation, making repeated exposure potentially habit forming. And access is easy, as we'll see later in the episode.
Matt (host):About 58% of teens say pornography is easy to find online. So this isn't just an abstract cultural conversation. It's a developmental, psychological, and relational issue that many boys are navigating. And unfortunately, they're navigating this often alone and without supervision. To help us understand what's happening and how adults can respond, I'm joined again by counselor Jared Hoffman, who works extensively with adolescents and families, and who has also shared that he first encountered online pornography himself at age 12.
Matt (host):Jared, welcome back. Hey, thanks.
Jarrod Hoffman:Thanks for having me back, Matthew.
Matt (host):You bet. So I appreciate your willingness to talk openly about this, and you shared that you were you were exposed to to online porn at a young age. Can you tell us a little bit about that experience?
Jarrod Hoffman:Yeah. When I share my reasons for even getting into counseling, three sentences, my parents were divorced at 10. I found porn for the first time at 11, and I didn't find counseling until age 25. And even reflecting on that before our conversation today, it is not an accident that my parents were divorced at 10, and it was within a year that I remember seeing my first explicit image. Yeah.
Jarrod Hoffman:Yeah. Do you understand kind of what you were seeing at that point? I don't think so. I think that's what is so challenging about this particular topic is that at the time of exposure, children's brains are not wired to be able to handle that. I think even a mature 20 year old brain might not be able to handle the flood of what's available today.
Jarrod Hoffman:Yeah, so I would say not at all.
Matt (host):So, was your your first exposure there, was it something that you sought out or was it accidental or maybe somewhere in between?
Jarrod Hoffman:Yeah, so, there may have been things before this for sure. Think, you know, I was growing up in a time where probably the listeners on this podcast grew up in, which is there were a lot of hard copies of things. The internet, I remember the dial up noises, and so that is really paired with, I had an email address, why a 10 year old, 11 year old Jared needed an email address? No clue. And I remember getting an email and I clicked on it and it was a picture of a naked woman.
Matt (host):Yeah. Yeah. So a little bit of a some background here. Apparently, more than half of young people reported their first exposure was actually unintentional. And that happened through things like pop ups, you know, unintentional predatory exposure, things like links or or shared devices.
Matt (host):Maybe maybe another person in their family, you know, had been been looking, and they they have to pull up that site, that that sort of thing. So how did that early experience shape your understanding of whether it's relationships or sexuality at the time?
Jarrod Hoffman:Sure. I would say that it was it's unintentional for the child. It is not unintentional for the person perpetrating in this case, whether that's an individual or an industry. How did it shape me? I think in that moment, I don't remember going to my parents to say, hey, I found this thing.
Jarrod Hoffman:It was weird. Can I show you? What do you think I should do about it? I think the nature of of unwanted sexual behavior, whatever that looks like, and I'll use that word throughout here, is hidden. We've been hiding unwanted sexual behavior for our whole existence.
Jarrod Hoffman:I read that I mean, there was erotica being printed after the printing press. It didn't look like it does today, but I'm sure you weren't walking around showing that book of what you were reading. And so I think when it's so shame based, what that lesson taught me was there's something something interesting about this, but I don't
Matt (host):think I can tell anybody. Yeah. And so let's let's talk about boys specifically. It's a you it's a problem for both sexes, but it is heavily in the, teen boys camp for sure. So the research consistently shows that, the that boys are more likely to intentionally seek out pornography.
Matt (host):And then after that initial discovery to to then begin to use it regularly. So so why do you think that teenage boys are particularly
Jarrod Hoffman:I'd be curious. I think I think the numbers have shifted. Yeah. One of the things that came out recently that I think supports this is that for the first time in history of taking this survey, high school girls want to get married less than high school boys. Right?
Jarrod Hoffman:I I mean, I think it was part of the reason we were holding back in high school, was like, oh, this girl actually wants to get married, I just wanna have some fun. And I think that's a trend. I also think we're just seeing the effects on, and, you know, we could talk about this later on like how porn is impacting the behaviors of young men. Why is it impacting them more? I think, you know, people argue that men are more visual, but I think even that's kind of going away because we can talk about the niche forms of pornography and how I think maybe the traditional porn from twenty years ago really did target boys and men, kind of what interested them.
Jarrod Hoffman:But with these niches, I think that girls can very easily be targets as well.
Matt (host):Yeah. That's a very good point because they they, you know, they're very sophisticated in the methods they use to to target their audiences, and and they can create content that, you know, completely gives them what what their sort of unstated desires are even. You know, they they can they can look at biometric data. They can look at at psychographic data and and make a very sort of scientific determination of of their target audience, which is Yeah. Frightening in a way.
Matt (host):Yeah. For sure.
Jarrod Hoffman:Let me give you an example here. I think we use this as a metaphor throughout the rest of our conversation. I was thinking about this, how do you explain what's going on? Imagine your family is in a car, and you're driving on the highway, right? I have this weird thought, you know, I think there's something about this where you kind of imagine worst case scenario, so you don't do it.
Jarrod Hoffman:And so, this idea that like, oh man, I don't wanna drive off this bridge, what would happen? Hit the water, I'd start to sink, the water would come in. I have that kind of recurring thought, and it's like, keep your hands on the wheel and drive down the road. So imagine your family's in this car, and you've hit the water, and it's slowly sinking. I think we can use this as a metaphor for what's happening with pornography particularly.
Jarrod Hoffman:The water is gonna start trying to get into the car. Imagine that water is all of the bad stuff you don't want your child to see. It's gonna try to get in the car. It's not a neutral enemy. And what we've seen is that the car is sinking.
Jarrod Hoffman:As we've created these tools, these industries have become more powerful. And so as the car goes down, the pressure is building. When, you know, we were twenty years ago, thirty years ago, we were like 10 feet in the water. We're like a 100 feet in the water. Okay.
Jarrod Hoffman:So there's this outside water trying to get into the car. Now here's the number one kind of strategy for parents in this situation. Let's try not to let the water in. I see a leak on this window, I'm gonna I'm gonna put some rubber on, try to keep it out. Oh, there's another leak that popped.
Jarrod Hoffman:Okay. That's what most parents I think are doing. The child's in the back seat. Right. And we have given them a tool.
Jarrod Hoffman:Now it can be used for good, for bad, sure. But we've given them a tool. The problem is, with pornography, like we talked about, it's interesting, it's illicit, it's natural in a way to want sexual behavior. So we've given them this tool. It used to be a book that describes how to get to the water.
Jarrod Hoffman:They'd have to go back, they'd have to kind of flip through it, read it, go, oh yeah, I could try hitting it really hard, but that's probably not gonna work. I gotta find something to break the window. And then we traded that for a brick. Hey, here you go. You just use this brick.
Jarrod Hoffman:It's not very hard. The book used to be kinda hardcover pornography, magazines, DVDs. The brick is a Google search, and now we've given them a bomb. And the bomb is what we'll show in a second of AI, LLMs, things that they use so naturally. And so parents are trying to plug these holes, The water is trying to get in and your kid has something in the back that could blow the whole thing.
Jarrod Hoffman:Let's use that as a, as a metaphor as we go in.
Matt (host):Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, it's also, it's just become, it's become so easy to access porn and, and that has shifted the dynamic between men and women at this age so much. You know, it used to be, we'll start with going out on a date. You had to ask the the woman, you know, you you had to have these butterflies in your stomach.
Matt (host):You had to, take her out to a a, you know, a movie, a dinner in a movie. Right? And you had this very, extensive courting ritual that you had to go through and that all sorts of species nature had to go through as well. Now it's I'm gonna go down to the basement, you know, and and access porn. And that way, I don't have to ask this girl out on a date.
Matt (host):And, they just they don't wanna engage anymore. So, you know, it's it's become a real issue, I think, you know, just in terms of of, male female relationships, for sure. So, let's talk about when the use becomes completely compulsive, when it, when it turns into and what, what's the point where it shifts from curiosity to something more, more concerning and even to the point of addiction? Is there a, is there a line that's, that's easily crossed there or is it, does it just sort of creep up? What's, what do you see as, in your practice?
Jarrod Hoffman:You know, on the one end, I'd recommend a resource, you can go to sasexaholicsanonymous.com. They have a list, I think, of 20 questions. It's geared more toward a little bit older audience because some of the questions are like, have you, has your job or your work been impacted by it? But take a look at that if you feel like, man, my kid might have something going on, you could look at that to get some insight. Are they hiding?
Jarrod Hoffman:Are they hiding their phone? I mean, don't know how too many kids I'm nervous sometimes and I'm not even using my phone for anything explicit sometimes. I'm still like, oh man, what are they gonna find? If they don't want you to touch the phone, if they'd be nervous if you took their Xbox out of their room, all sorts of indicators if there's some nerves, some shame. I think, you know, counselors, this is a good time to update your intake forms to include porn use.
Jarrod Hoffman:Because I think the anxiety, the depression that you could be seeing as a parent or counselor might actually be rooted in unwanted sexual behavior, I think a distinction for sure is, is the behavior addictive, or is there an addiction? And there's some arguments on that, but, you know, one stance that I usually take is if they're 12, they've seen porn. If they're 14, they've probably looked frequently, and then if they're 18, I don't know too many guys who aren't struggling not to. Now, might be not not very frequent, but there is some level of struggle.
Matt (host):Yeah, for sure. Because it's it's omnipresent now, And that just it it's makes addiction just so much so much easier. You know, I had a friend who was addicted was addicted to a stronger drug, and there was a part of the city where he used to go and buy his stash. And he said, you know, the way I got away from the addiction was I just specifically avoided that part of the city. I just didn't walk through there anymore.
Matt (host):I just stayed on the West Side of the city or whatever. And you know, but for for, people who have an alcohol addiction, you know, it's it's really hard because alcohol is everywhere. Right? Mhmm. And our society tends to push it.
Matt (host):And now, you know, Internet porn is everywhere and and it's it's it's hard to avoid it. And, you know, we can put up gates, which which may be helpful, but they're they're easily breached as as you're you're about to show us here. So let's talk a little bit about how the technology is just made the addiction so much easier for for young people.
Jarrod Hoffman:Yeah. Absolutely. Let's go back to our metaphor even. The water, the pressure that's building, you think about the the the porn that is trying to enter your child's life. They make money.
Jarrod Hoffman:There's an industry. I I looked up the number. It's like $4,500,000,000 industry in The US alone. They estimate global's like 13,000,000,000, but it could be higher. If you start incorporating some other parts to this, for sure.
Jarrod Hoffman:That's a lot of horsepower. That's a lot of pressure trying to get in front of your teen's eyes. That's right. One of the best lines I heard about this was, Parents struggling. When do I give my child a phone?
Jarrod Hoffman:And his solution his only question is when do you want your kid to look at porn? When do I give my kid a phone? Very easy. When do you want them to go into the bathroom and look at porn? So you got this industry, this pressure and pressure.
Jarrod Hoffman:The kid now has there's three a's of addiction. There's anonymity, affordability, and accessibility. You can be pretty anonymous. You can access it anywhere if it's in your pocket, and it's extremely affordable. And you just give this child a phone, it's a matter of time.
Jarrod Hoffman:So you you were talking about some tools. If it's okay, I'll share my screen. Before I do that, I'm I'm just gonna give a little bit of background. So I'm a counselor, I sit across from teens who tell me all the ways they get around your plug in the holes. Well, they don't have their phone in the room at night.
Jarrod Hoffman:They don't have the phone they gave you in their room at night. They might have another one. Where is your old phone? Yeah. Where is the old iPad that was a little too old to sell back to Apple to get any money, and you're not supposed to throw it in the trash, so you put it in a drawer.
Jarrod Hoffman:Where is it? I mean, I could go down the list. I wanna protect confidentiality and not share the specifics, but they are finding a way. Worse, you know, maybe you remove every device from the house. Do they spend the night at friends' houses?
Jarrod Hoffman:Right? That was a part of my story, where I'm in a room, and before I know it, I'm hanging out with people that are friends, and there's porn on the TV. We're watching it. Okay, you remove them from friends' houses. They're gonna go off to college or get their own place.
Jarrod Hoffman:Best case, they don't see it, and then they go move out on their own at 18, and they're gonna have access. So this is so imperative. The last thing that parents have heard a million times, and I'll repeat, is they were born in a time where they have never not had access. Exactly. In a way that we cannot understand.
Jarrod Hoffman:They will find a way, especially if you add the addiction piece, the energy and the focus and the creativity I have to try to get around my own barriers is, I mean, I should be a millionaire by now. If I could funnel that into something productive rather than trying to access porn. So I say all that to say, I'm gonna share my screen. Just And just show you. This is on my work computer, so I just wanna be frank.
Jarrod Hoffman:I'm gonna share this window. So this is ChatGBT. You think we've we we've got blocks for bad stuff. We don't want to have them see stuff. I don't think it's bad.
Jarrod Hoffman:I think to some extent, you don't want the water to get in the car and drown you. You gotta do something. But we also have to turn and look at what we've given them as tools. So let's just ask, like, what is porn? It does tell me what it is.
Jarrod Hoffman:Where can I find it? Okay. Good job, ChatGPT. If you're listening to this, I asked what is porn? It gave kind of a a quick snapshot of there's videos, photographs, magazines.
Jarrod Hoffman:Magazines. It's still doing that. Okay. And then I asked where can I find it? And it says, porn is found on adult only websites, however, I can't help you locate or access explicit content.
Jarrod Hoffman:Well done. Yeah. ChatGPT. Yeah, exactly. If I'm a kid, what's my next move?
Jarrod Hoffman:Yeah. My next move is to do this. New tab. So if I'm a kid, I'm gonna type in what are AIs with less rules in another tab. If I don't already click on Reddit, which let's pause there and talk about Reddit for a second.
Jarrod Hoffman:Reddit is is a click away from porn. You can search a list of Reddits that are extremely niche, and it will come up with hundreds of them. There are people who just, hey, here's all of the weird sexually arousing and curious sites you could want. And it's all within Reddit. Okay.
Jarrod Hoffman:So we're not gonna go to Reddit. We're not gonna go to the AI or videos, and we're just looking at this. Venice AI. That's the one that comes up if you click on it. Let's go to Venice AI, and I think I have to oh, it's sharing.
Jarrod Hoffman:Perfect. What is porn? How long has this taken me? Like Yeah. Twenty seconds?
Jarrod Hoffman:Right. Okay. Now, good job chat GPT for limiting some stuff, but remember, they have a bomb in the back seat. Now it's telling us a lot more explicit details. What's my next question?
Jarrod Hoffman:Where can I find it? There's websites, there's subscription based platforms, it's naming them. Man, I'm learning stuff as it's spitting these out, but thankfully, it's telling me that it can be risky. Here's another one I'll add. I've done this and tried this.
Jarrod Hoffman:In fact, they've made some progress. I asked it maybe two months ago. I kind of imagined I was a child who had somebody trying to do sexual acts with me. And I said, hey, I have a friend. We wanna do this together.
Jarrod Hoffman:And it gives it gives you the breakdown for, like, consent. You wanna talk about it? And then I said, well, my friend is 40 years old.
Matt (host):Yeah.
Jarrod Hoffman:Actually told me that you just need to talk about it more. I tried it today. Venice AI has gotten a little better. They said this is off limits. It should be adult relationships, not adult and a child.
Jarrod Hoffman:Good job. Right. But in this case, this is what I'd ask next if I'm a 12 year old boy. How can I hide this from my parents? Yeah.
Jarrod Hoffman:We're three messages in, and it's gonna pop out. Use private browsing. Clear your history and data regularly. Manage your device. In this case, this bomb, you can just keep asking it.
Jarrod Hoffman:It says use a VPN. Be smart with downloads and files. Right. Right. We're on bullet point seven.
Jarrod Hoffman:Use headphones. Don't leave things in the open. And this is very, very basic. We've gone to three sites. If they don't already know the websites to go to, and they're young enough or or feel like this is the avenue, they didn't try it all.
Jarrod Hoffman:I'll Yeah. Stop sharing my screen and pause there.
Matt (host):Yeah. Yeah. So you can you can put up these gates and young people will find a way through them around them. Right? And I suppose that's not, you know, not to say that that gates aren't helpful.
Matt (host):It's better than doing nothing, obviously. And, but, you know, they will always find a way around it. So what's the answer? What's the
Jarrod Hoffman:answer to sort of learning how to tell your child to choose another path or or just not fall into the trap that that pornography is just set for so many young people? What's how do parents hedge against this becoming a problem? Pornography causes isolation. It's fueled by it as well, the cycle. The opposite of that is connection.
Jarrod Hoffman:They go to it because they're isolated. They become isolated as a result, and the solution is connection. And first and foremost, connection with their parents, their caregivers. And if you're busy just trying to put the walls up to keep, you know, plugging those holes, you're missing the connection. You're focused on that and you're not looking in the back seat to your child.
Jarrod Hoffman:Hey. Let's teach you how to swim. Right? And And so we we fall into this pattern of protecting rather than educating and connecting. Yes.
Jarrod Hoffman:Parents, if I can convince you of one thing from this podcast, it is you cannot stop the water from getting in. I have said that from presentations, and I will still have parents. They just say, well, no. We do one, two, three. I promise you.
Jarrod Hoffman:Like I said, if they haven't found the way around, as soon as they're out on their own, it's gonna be an issue. Connection is key. If they say, if you were bold enough to say, which I recommend, hey, have you seen pornography in the last week? No judgment. If they said no, why are you gonna accept that as the right answer on the first time?
Jarrod Hoffman:They can say no and have done it. And if you were fooled or or or fueled by isolation and shame if my parent had asked me, have you gotten any emails with a naked woman in it? I don't know if I would have said yes. I don't know if it's safe. I don't understand this.
Jarrod Hoffman:And so the connection isn't a one time thing. It's for the rest of their life. Right.
Matt (host):Yeah. Absolutely. Just, you know, the connection on a broader level, like, you know, when I was a teenager, you you just got together more. Right? You had you had youth groups.
Matt (host):You had friends groups. You went out and did things, and they weren't, you know, they weren't always great things that you that you did. Obviously, there was a good deal of time wasting involved here, but it wasn't, you know, it wasn't sort of constant exposure to pornography and just being isolated, you know, by yourself. And so I I guess one answer would be just encouraging your your young people to get involved with as many activities as possible. Is that something you'd recommend as well?
Jarrod Hoffman:Yeah. Yeah. Real world physical things, those are super valuable. There's something that I I wanna revisit for a second because I think this might actually limit our ability to connect with teens, is hopefully the screen sharing was an education. Like, shoot, if this is just a one minute exercise, what can they access when they have experience and a desire to get there?
Jarrod Hoffman:I think it just helps to be educated. I'm gonna share some things that, I mean, like, I considered this, I'm like, I can't screen share what I'm about to say because this is gonna get flagged on YouTube for sure. If we're gonna connect, we have to understand what's out there and what they could have seen, even by age 12. They are not seeing the centerfold magazine from Playboy. They are seeing things that are tailored to them, that are, you know, that we talk about the porn industry, it's also fueled by a tech industry that wants to keep us on a platform.
Jarrod Hoffman:So these it was gonna be on an illicit website, it's now tamed to try to get them pulled in on Instagram, on TikTok. Yep. Yep. I've dealt with the negative impacts of this as well. If I have trouble not looking, what are they doing when it pops up and pops up and pops up?
Jarrod Hoffman:There's some research out there on how many minutes it takes for illicit content to come up on a on a child's, you know, first minutes on a platform. It's nothing. It's like five minutes, right? And then we talk about that, that's just content. We talk about predators.
Jarrod Hoffman:There's a video that shows how long it takes predators to message underage girls on Instagram. It's appalling. If you wanna watch the scariest video you that exists, it's within seconds that older men are emailing or or messaging within Instagram an underage girl. Horrifying. So connection, we need we need some education on what has changed, and there's a couple things that have changed.
Jarrod Hoffman:It's not a centerfold magazine showing up in every single platform they're a part of. Pinterest, obviously TikTok, Instagram. Maybe it's not Roblox, but it's some of the people on Roblox within the Discord chats. It's Reddit. You can't lock it all down.
Jarrod Hoffman:Yeah. Yeah. The next thing that exists, and I think this is why connection is so important, is they're meeting us at a place where we want connection. Of course, at eleven, I wanted I wanted somebody to want me. Of course.
Jarrod Hoffman:And so these things that are coming at them, the water that's trying to get in a car, it's now chat enabled. They have AI girlfriends. We obviously talked about LLMs and how that's gonna fuel things. There's niche content that you couldn't imagine, and I feel like I only know some of them. I don't even wanna know.
Jarrod Hoffman:It it hurts to look. And so whatever you think it is, it's it's much bigger. A lot of kids are into anime right now. Obviously, anime is neither good nor bad, but if there's porn somewhere, it's gonna be there too. So much of anime has pornography in it.
Jarrod Hoffman:And I'll stop there. So the conversation with the connection piece, don't use your lack of knowledge or your assumption that you know everything as a barrier to connect to your child
Matt (host):on this topic. Very good point. Yeah. Yeah. And I guess the the idea also is just to encourage sort of openness, calm, frank conversations, but not shrouded in shame or or some sort of moral failure.
Matt (host):Right? Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. It's something that that all all children will have to come to terms with at some point in their lives.
Matt (host):Right? Yeah. Yeah. So, Jared, if there's one message you'd want parents, educators to take away from today's conversation? What do you think that would be?
Jarrod Hoffman:Is this the the kind of takeaways and tools?
Matt (host):Yeah. That that's that's the idea.
Jarrod Hoffman:Yeah. One is very hard. I'll list, like, seven.
Matt (host):That's fine. But you don't need to go on.
Jarrod Hoffman:If you're a parent or a caregiver or even a counselor, you have to wrestle with your own story of unwanted sexual behavior. There's a line that says that your kids start recovery the day that you do. If you're a mom or a dad who is using unwanted sexual behavior, that could be emotional, that could be anything, and you're not dealing with that yourself, man, how can you have an open conversation? Right? Because the stance is gonna be, I don't wanna talk about this on the podcast.
Jarrod Hoffman:Why would I wanna share about my shortcomings? Well, my kid is struggling with the same thing, and I can't talk about it. Now they shouldn't be your accountability partner. Let's just say that. But you have to wrestle with your own unwanted sexual behavior.
Jarrod Hoffman:Your own unwanted phone use. Right? The number one reason the kids are on their phones is because parents are on their phones. Yes. Yeah.
Jarrod Hoffman:Okay. That's one thing. Second thing, share this podcast, please. I think there's three parents you can think of right now who need to hear this. Just when you're done driving, when you're done watching on YouTube, whatever it is, just text them this podcast.
Jarrod Hoffman:Because in the same way that your child needs community around this topic, you need other parents to be willing and and able to share what's going on. Yeah, my kid looks at porn too. Let's figure out how to do this. We know that, like, the most successful groups to keep their phones from being given to kids until later is when there's, like, a mass of them. Right?
Jarrod Hoffman:A group of parents have committed to not until eighth grade. Otherwise, there's social isolation that just comes from these rules, and parents aren't immune to that. And speaking of connection, there's a, I know we're, you've been at this a while, but it's so important. There's a famous TED talk on on connection, if you type it in connection and addiction, and it talks about rat city. And it's this experiment that was done with rats who had access to drugs in their water.
Jarrod Hoffman:And the rats that were isolated used the water that had the drug in it versus like the regular water. And then when the rat had community connection and they built this like fun city to play in, but there were also rats with them, they didn't access it. And I was saying it's gonna be that easy, but if there's isolation, it's gonna continue. And so I thought about this as a practical takeaway. And maybe if you're, if you're afraid to confront this or if you continue to get, no, it's not a problem.
Jarrod Hoffman:And you know that there's something, I can't put a finger on it, but something's up because that was how, what it was like for me in my story. I didn't, I attempted to date so many girls in high school, college, and it never worked. And I really think that I couldn't put a finger on it, but what they saw was this inner turmoil in me. Obviously it was coming out in my behavior and how I treated and thought about women. And so if if there's this thing that you just can't put a finger on, this could be it.
Jarrod Hoffman:And so, here's a practical thing for your teen who's 14, to your adult son in college, they're at college right now, and you don't you don't even know if things are good or bad, you just hear what they tell you, say this, hey, I just listened to this podcast, I just heard about how I can't stop porn from getting into your life, and it very well could be right now. I wanna open the door to, if you have the resources for this, to paying for therapy, for you to talk about pornography. Open door, no judgment, I won't say anything, you just tell me which therapist it is. Right. And I'll pay the bill.
Jarrod Hoffman:Open offer, standing offer. Because my guess is, if it hasn't already impacted your kid in college, in grades, in social situations, in dating, I mean, it's just silly to say that it hasn't. And they feel like they don't have anyone to tell, but you offer this as an option, man, I think they'll take it. Yeah. So that's a very practical thing that you could do.
Jarrod Hoffman:Yeah. There's a website called fightthenewdrug.com, I believe, maybe it's .org. Fightthenewdrug. Just a ton of education, some videos that could be helpful for you to watch with your kid. Just get on their emailing list.
Jarrod Hoffman:I feel like even if I just read the headline of the email, it's informative to me. And it's just trying to educate people on this is a drug and it's a new one, and it's also an old one. It's taken a new format. Unwanted by Jay Stringer. It's a little faith based.
Jarrod Hoffman:The absolute best book that exists right now on understanding, and he and I'm stealing that language from him, unwanted sexual behavior, because there's sexual behavior that is wanted. Right? That's the problem. Alcohol, we don't need that as humans. But if you're in a marriage, you kinda have to have some sexual behavior.
Matt (host):Exactly. Right.
Jarrod Hoffman:And then you can always reach out to me. My website's Jared Hoffman. Please send me an email. I'd love to help you, coach you through this. If you're in the state of Tennessee, I can offer counseling to your your son.
Jarrod Hoffman:And then, maybe the last kind of takeaway I would I would have for you, if you haven't been convinced yet about the fact that you can't stop this from happening, getting in the car at some point. I gotta have a shout out to my friend Christian Kaufman. I investing a little bit at the worst timing. And why was it the worst timing? It was because I it was right it was like February 2020.
Jarrod Hoffman:Sorry. Yeah. Is that right? No. Sorry.
Jarrod Hoffman:Yes. February 2020. I moved my my money into the account, but I hadn't chosen what to put it in yet. March 2020, something happened, and then I allocated the money. Why was it the worst thing?
Jarrod Hoffman:It was because it went up. Jared, you're amazing at picking stocks. You're so good at this. That's the worst thing that can happen because I didn't know what was actually happening. What ended up happening?
Jarrod Hoffman:I made some money on some stuff, and I lost some money on some stuff. And my friend Christian told asked me, like, do you think and nonjudgmental. Do you think you have what it takes to outperform someone who majored in this, who who lives and breathes investment, who has a team of a 100 people doing research on their behalf? Right. Do you think you can beat them?
Jarrod Hoffman:Because guess what? 90% of them can't beat the market. So you'd have to beat 90% of them. Do you think you have what it takes? Since then, I have exited the Jared gets to pick stocks track, and I have gone straight market.
Jarrod Hoffman:It's the same way with trying to block things from getting in. If you think you can beat Apple, Meta, a $4,500,000,000 industry on your own, man, I think you're fooling yourself. But, there is no one else who can connect with your child more than you on this And a caution, and then I'll I'll end my my rant and my list. Your child will have to wrestle with something that is very uncomfortable, and I think parents listening will know this wrestling. It's this statement, my parents did the best that they could, but they also allowed harm to come in.
Jarrod Hoffman:Do I blame them for it? No. They didn't have all the answers. But the moment you do get the answers on this, you now have to wrestle with almost being a cog in the machine that we've continued to let the laptop sit in their room, that we have avoided the hard conversation about unwanted sexual behavior. Yep.
Jarrod Hoffman:And in therapy, whether it they're 15 or whether they're 45, it will come up just like it comes up for us. Do I blame my dad for never asking me about pornography? He did the best that he could, and I was allowed to have too much stuff. That's my my one thing to take away, all of those eight.
Matt (host):Conversation and community. That's that's, you know, what solves so many problems, I think, in today's world for sure. Well, Jared, thank you so much for joining us again for this really wonderful conversation we had about a very difficult topic, And I think you shared a lot of great insight into how parents can talk about it and how they can deal with it. And thank you to our listeners for joining us again for the Nimble Youth Podcast. And if today's episode was helpful, please do share it with a leave us a rating, and continue the conversation in your own homes and communities because as we just spent better part of a half hour or more talking about when we talk honestly about the realities facing young people, we give them a better chance to grow into healthy adults.
Matt (host):Until next time, take care of yourselves and your young ones. Take care.