Gross Craig - Touchy Subjects: Talking to Kids about Sex, Tech, and Social Media in the Touchscreen World

Touchy Subjects

Craig Gross and David Dean

Copyright 2014 by Craig Gross and David Dean

Smashwords Edition

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This Introductory Part Is ImportantPlease Dont Skip It

We live in a touchscreen world. The more technology develops, the more integrated it becomes into our culture, the more it tends to involve some sort of screen. And, increasingly, that screen itself is becoming the way we interact with our tech.

So now the word touch is getting broader in its definition. We carry little computers in our pockets that we operate through touch. We use social media to share touching stories or reach out and touch base with someone virtually. And technology is opening all kinds of windows for a different kind of touch: sex.

These are all, in their unique way, touchy subjects.

And so the question becomes: how can we as parents guide our kids through responsible interactions with these touchy subjects? How can we teach them to use sex, technology, and social media in the best ways possible so that they can mature into responsible, emotionally healthy adults?

Whats your approach, or do you even have one?

Maybe your son or daughter is young and you dont know when you should even broach a subject like sex or social media.

Maybe youre too nervous or embarrassed to bring up some of these touchy subjects in the first place.

Maybe you dont even realize how important these topics are.

Maybe you want to talk to your kids but just dont know what to say.

We wrote this book for you.

Who are we? We arent medical doctors or academics with Ph.D. written after our names. Were just a couple of dads who love our kids and who want to make sure they get the truth about touchy subjects.

As for me, Im Craig Gross, and in 2002 I started a website started XXXchurch.com to help people overcome pornography addictions, whether they used it or made it. Over the course of that time, Ive been called a sexpert, Ive been called the porn pastor, and Ive been called a number of other things that Id rather not put in print.

I also helped to create iParent.TV in order to provide a way for parents to stay on top of the turbulent and trend-driven world of technology so they can know what their kids are into, what theyll want to be into, and what sorts of restrictions they might want to put in place for touchy subjects.

Ive traveled across the world talking to peopleincluding many parentsabout the relationship between sex, pornography, and technology. And while most parents are fine talking with me about this stuff, Ive noticed that a lot of them are not comfortable talking truthfully with their kids about it. Whether its from awkwardness or embarrassment or just plain not knowing what to say, most parents I talk to get uneasy when it comes to this topic.

Our different organizations are flooded with questions daily, and many, come from parents wondering exactly what to do when it comes to their kids and touchy subjects. They have tough questions, like:

At what age do kids become curious about sex?

My child said they saw porn at the neighbors house. What do I do?

My kid has gay friends; what should I say about that?

I walked in on my son masturbating to porn, but my husband says this is normal. Is it?

Should I expect my child to treat sex better than I did?

Im in the dark about popular apps; can you help me?

What should I do about social media?

I saw some inappropriate text messages on my childs phone; how should I confront them?

These are complicated questions that require answers, so my friend and colleague David Dean and I decided to take questions like these, along with other common questions about touchy subjects, and answer them through this book.

Whenever David wants to chime in, hell do it after his initials so you can easily know what he has to say. Like this, for example:

DD: Hi. Im David.

David is here because, as a full-time clean comedian, hes also traveled quite a bit and been able to use his humor to talk to parents and families about all kinds of touchy subjects in a frank but lighthearted way. Plus, while my kids are still relatively young (an 11-year-old boy and a 8-year-old girl at the time of this writing), David is a good decade older than me and has already lived through both his kids adolescent trials and tribulations.

DD: Yes, I have. My wife, whom I call Saint Betsy, and I have been married since 1988, and we have a 23-year-old son and a 20-year-old daughter. As theyve grown up, we have had no problem in our family bringing up these issues of sex and technology and, as its gotten more prevalent in recent years, social media: what to do, what not to do, where it goes, and when. And we started at an early age.

Sadly, in the rest of the world, our family is in the minority. Instead, a lot of parents treat these touchy subjects like hot potatoes. But guess what: whether you want to acknowledge it or not, these are issues you must address. Fortunately Ive found, especially as someone who tells jokes for a living, that bringing humor and levity to the conversation makes it all the easier.

David and I met several years ago through speaking at different youth events. He was the comedy guy and I was the speaker/drama guy, and over the course of interacting with one another over several of these events, we struck up a friendship. Especially since I have younger kids while David has older kids; hes gone through some more things in his house than Ive gone through, so I treasure his wisdom in those areas.

Working with XXXchurch.com has opened a lot of doors for me, especially when it comes to learning about the many different sides of human sexuality. Ive worked with both pastors and porn stars. Ive had conversations with everyone from the common man whose pornography addiction has spun out of control to the pornography actress whose substance abuse keeps her in front of the cameras.

As XXXchurch has grown, weve seen the need to educate parents on things beyond pornography and sex, on the types of touchy subjects that weve already mentioned here. The need has grown and the more Ive interacted with others, the more experiences and insights Ive gained that will be valuable when I have these conversations about touchy subjects with my kids.

Notice I used the word conversations just now. Plural. That was on purpose. Because talking about this stuff is not a one-time, get-it-all-out-on-the-table type of talk. This should be an ongoing conversation in your family, one you will pick up with your child again and again as they grow and mature. Think of it as a series of conversations that get progressively deeper.

David and I wrote this book as a couple of normal, average parents to help you have those ongoing conversations, in many parts, over the years. Weve done itso can you.

Because of the different stages of life we inhabit, as well as the different regions of the country (Im in Los Angeles; David is in Indiana), well have slightly different answers to the questions we discuss, and this book is in no way intended to be comprehensive about all these different touchy subjectstheres just too much ground to cover. But well go over the basics and give you plenty of ideas to equip you as you begin to have these conversations with your kids.

Both David and I are involved in church-like activities, but this book is not about religion. It is about what weve seen with our own eyes, in our respective fields, and the conversation that must be active in your family. You have to get involved and stay involved, because, more than likely, your kids are already talking about some of this stuff with their friends. This book is meant to encourage you as you involve yourself in the conversation and guide your kids toward healthy thinking instead of forcing them to figure it out alongside their peers.