Dodging Porn With Good Old Fashioned Dodge Ball

Last Updated on March 20, 2018

Is your son getting enough time outside this summer? If not, it could impact the way he responds to the temptation of porn in just a few short years. Let me explain.

Since the 1950s, when Disney introduced its first toy—the Thunder Burp, play began to be formed by what could be sold. In the 1980s, the Federal Communications Commission dealt a blow to healthy child play by taking away the restrictions to sell toys, clothes, and food directly to children through television. Since then, playing is about toys and how much money giant corporations can make by creating new ones.

It wasn’t always like that.

Alan F. Lambert, a member of the Boy Scout executive counsel, offered this as part of his congressional testimony on the risk boys are facing because of less access to unstructured outdoor play. He said:

“Unstructured play [used to be] a significant part of our early childhood. Forts and tree houses were built in open spaces. Games—stickball, softball, dodge ball, football, capture the flag, kick the can, tag-you name it-were the order of the day. The games had no adult supervision and were put together by a group of kids playing. Members needed to be recruited, the rules were set and off we went.

“The healthy competition found in the games of my childhood are being replaced by the individual competitions found in the gaming world—play stations, Xboxes, et cetera. Play has become organized and structured—everything has a time and a place, a need for sign ups, moms or dads help, and transportation.

The result is a loss of imagination and the skyrocketing health issues associated with obesity and behavior [disorders.]”[i]

It wasn’t always like that.

Old-fashioned—consisting of forts and tag and the risk of an occasional broken bone—is good for our sons. It requires self-regulation, which is a skill necessary for becoming a healthy adult. Self-regulation is critical to the development of and maintaining of moral values. So, how does a connecting mom get some good old-fashioned play into her son’s life?

If your son, like mine, is happy to be behind a computer and/or a gaming system this might sound like it won’t work. I promise you, it can. And it must.

Time spent building forts, climbing through drainage pipes and building things with sticks, twigs, and rocks actually helps children to develop a critical skill called executive function. This takes place in the pre-frontal cortex, which, as I previously shared, is the part of the brain experiencing explosive growth during the tween years. Executive function performs many different things for the human who possesses it, but one of them is to self-regulate—or to appropriate moral behavior and values. It’s the skill that gives us the character quality of self-control.

The Bible says this: “Like a city whose walls are broken down, is a man who lacks self-control.” Even though an ancient city’s walls restricted some of the freedom of its citizens, they welcomed them. Without walls, they were vulnerable to the attack of aggressors. So too, our sons are more vulnerable to attack—specifically to things like porn—if they haven’t built up the protective wall of self-control for their life.

The time to build that wall in your son is in his tween years, while the part of his brain that monitors self-control is experiencing explosive growth. Brain science aside, here’s how we think building executive function works.

As an example, if a boy spends time making up a new game to play in the street just outside his apartment building, he has to make decisions about the limits (rules of the game) and then chose to abide by them and hold his teammates accountable to do the same. His pre-frontal cortex will help him. Then, as his teammate almost scores one but misses, your son has to make a decision about his anger. Should he throw a rock at the kid his mind just dubbed a “loser?” His pre-frontal cortex will hopefully say, “No! A teammate probably would not throw a rock at the kid just because he failed.” Instead, he’ll “self-regulate” by acting like a true teammate and learn to shout out, “It’s ok. Next time buddy!”

This process teaches him self-control on many levels. (It might even help with ADD if he’s struggling with it!) It’s all about thinking through and choosing to follow behavioral norms, which does not occur when play is more contained by pre-set plans.

So, turn off the X-Box. Back away from the computer games. Take a break from too many guitar lessons and organized sports programs. Get a little out door playtime into your son’s schedule this summer! Be intentional about it, and protect it.