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[00:00:00] Morgan Jones Pearson: In 1974, President Spencer W. Kimball said, We urge families to protect their children in every way possible. We live in a permissive world, but we must make certain we do not become a part of that permissive world, that degenerate world. We are shocked at the depths to which many people of this world go to assert their freedom.
We fear that the trends of this world Permissiveness toward immorality are destroying the moral fabric of our generation. In the same talk, he warned against the dangers of pornography. Jill Geigle's parents took this prophetic urging very seriously and made efforts. to educate themselves about the dangers of pornography.
As a result, when a high school teacher taught that pornography was a healthy part of development, it immediately set off a cautionary flag in Jill's mind. This was the beginning of Jill's desire to do all she could to help prepare children to become pornography resistant. Jill Farnsworth Geigle has educated families and communities on preparing and protecting children from pornography and technology harms for nearly a decade.
She has a bachelor's degree from BYU and a master's in education from Columbia International University. Jill is currently the director of parent and child advocacy at the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, working to stop online child sexual exploitation. She is the author of the Prepare Your Child workbook, which seeks to help parents create pornography resistant families.
This is All In an LDS living podcast where we ask the question, what does it really mean to be all in the gospel of Jesus Christ? I'm Morgan Pearson, and I am honored to have Jill Geigle on the line with me today. Jill, welcome.
Thank you so much, Morgan. So good to be with you today.
Well, I am so looking forward to this conversation.
I feel like As a new mom who has no clue really what I'm doing, especially as it relates to this topic, I have a lot to learn from you. And you are a mom of eight. Is that right?
Yes, that's right.
Which is incredible. Um, so I wondered if we could start by having you share how you developed an interest in this topic.
And, um, aside from being a mother of eight, what qualifies you to speak to such a complex topic?
[00:02:34] Jill Geigle: Thank you. Yeah. You know, as I was growing up, I was the youngest in a big family as well, and a family that was really rooted in community and really believed and, and listened to the prophet and did, you know, follow them.
And my parents, probably even before I was born, heard President Kimball say, That, that pornography was going to be a plague and that it was going to be a problem. And so they were activists and they stepped up and started working in the community to do what they could to keep pornography out of stores and out of the hands of families and children.
Well, this was so long ago. This was when we were talking a playboy at the Circle K. Right, but they did it. They stepped up and did that. And I saw that as a young child and I knew that that was an important thing. So I went to high school, still pre internet, still just pre internet. And in high school, I happened to have a teacher that promoted pornography and said that pornography was a healthy way of life.
And because my parents had already planted that seed in my mind, I knew that didn't sound right, that didn't resonate. And so I began in high school to really research the effects of pornography, what was out there, what had it, you know, what were the experts saying at the time. And so I did a lot of research so I could talk to that teacher and do presentations and really.
And really begin to understand Kind of what the topic was really about So that's kind of where I started and it was just little but By the time I got then a few years later I get into college and the internet is born and all of a sudden Things are just starting to really move along and and I see That this could be a problem.
And at the same time, I get married and start having children in this era, and I'm having little ones as the internet's really becoming mainstreamed and I'm seeing little ones getting on the internet and I'm seeing the accessibility of pornography and because I'd already done my research and I kind of knew what was happening, I could just see.
This big danger and this big train wreck that was going to happen as this really unfettered access to pornography was given to little children around the world. And, you know, children and families of all ages really. And so at that point, my husband happened to be a criminal defense and he was seeing the effects of Of kids getting into pornography in the juvenile system at the time and this was a really a long time ago You know 20 years for sure So he and I talked and said why don't we start a non profit that kind of addresses us in our in our community?
So we did we started a non profit and we started working Legislatively to kind of educate, you know, politicians and people making laws and to try to get some filters and basic filters, like filters in libraries for children. And then we also brought in experts from around the country, uh, neurologists and, and therapists and all kind of all the forefront forefront voices at the time.
And we would bring him. In and have them speak to families and parents Wow, and It was really good. It was right in the beginning of all of this. And so information was new and research was just really developing quickly. And, and the brain science behind pornography and what was going on with it was just coming out, but what I found as we worked and tried to help educate parents and, And help kids and families and communities try to kind of grapple with this whole new complex situation is that this was a hard and complicated and sensitive topic for parents and families.
[00:07:00] Morgan Jones Pearson: Absolutely. Well, I, I am curious, Jill, I feel like you hit the nail on the head when you said this is such a complex and complicated topic. Um, I feel like even within the church, people have like different opinions about it. And you make sure at the beginning of your book to state that, you know, if, if someone is struggling with pornography, this, this workbook is not intended.
For somebody already struggling and they should seek help. Um, but instead it's to, to help parents protect their children from pornography. But I'm curious, why, why do you feel like it is such a complex, complicated topic?
[00:07:44] Jill Geigle: Well, for a few of the reasons that I already talked about, but we can start with the one.
We can start with just the topic of sex, right? Trying to teach your child about sex is so sensitive and it brings so much shame and nervousness and, uh, all of the feelings that just, it's just inherent in the topic. And a lot of us weren't raised and didn't have really great examples of openly talking about healthy sexuality in our home.
Right. And that is true across the board. I've talked to parents of all religions and no religion, and it's just, it is just one of those topics addressing sex in a house is really, it's just, it's uncomfortable. Because it hasn't been done and we haven't seen it done in our own lives. So to start off with that you start with such a sensitive and a shame evoking and a And a a new topic that we haven't seen Done and taught in really well ways, right?
And then you throw in like I said the technology aspect and that aspect is so overwhelming to parents Because it changes so fast and it is such Uh, part of a child and a teen's world now. That when you try to limit and you try to set boundaries and you try to stay on top of it, a lot of times you get such a fight and there becomes such a rift in relationship.
It just brings us this heavy topic and problem that you're always trying to deal with, you know, so you have technology. Plus sex, both of those are just so overwhelming by themselves. And then you put it all together and a parent is like, what? How in the world can I manage, teach, become an expert in all of these areas?
And still have time to just be a mom or a dad and, you know, go play a game outside with our child.
[00:10:13] Morgan Jones Pearson: Have a good relationship. Yeah. For sure.
[00:10:17] Jill Geigle: It's so much.
[00:10:19] Morgan Jones Pearson: Well, and I, I will come back to the talking about sex because That brought back some funny, but not funny memories for me, but before we get there, I wanted to have you share in the beginning of the book, you talk about, uh, you give an analogy about mistletoe, which I thought was fascinating and such a good, good illustration for kind of setting the tone for why, why this conversation and this work is important.
And so I wondered if you would mind sharing that.
[00:10:54] Jill Geigle: So when I was a girl, we had a little cabin in the mountains that my parents would take us up to, and we loved it. And I loved it. And around our cabin were big Ponderosa pine trees. And my dad would take me out and we'd walk around and he'd show me the trees and he'd say, aren't these the most beautiful trees around?
And we loved it. We love those trees. And we'd look at them and walk it. Every time we came, we'd walk our little forest and One year, he showed me up in the top of the trees, this yellow, it's really ugly yellow kind of little plant protruding from the top of the tree. And he said, that's called mistletoe Jill.
It's not like the Christmas mistletoe. This is a certain kind of mistletoe that It comes and embeds itself in the pine and it's a parasite and it's a slow growing parasite, but it embeds itself. And then after many years, it'll suck all of the nutrients out of the pine tree and the pine tree will die.
And he said, once a year, all of the mistletoe opens up and, and sports. Spores through the forest and these little tiny dust like particles fly through the forest and they embed themselves in the other trees. And so pretty soon your forest is infested with mistletoe. And so my dad was worried about it.
And so he called a, he called tree trimmers and he said, Hey, we see all this mistletoe in our trees. Will you please come and cut it out? And so the tree trimmers came and they'd climb up these big trees and they would take as much of it out as they could. And sometimes we'd take a whole tree out, or sometimes we'd take half a tree out.
And other times we'd just chunk it out as we could. But every year we'd come back and the forest was not looking healthier. We could still see so much mistletoe. And so finally I was getting older and I said, dad, I think we get it. Take another approach. Let's call a forester. So we called the forester who is trained in it.
And he came to our trees and he said, look, mistletoe is a natural part of the ecosystem of a forest. And he said, what you need to do is strengthen your trees. So that as your trees grow, they will be strong enough and healthy enough that when the spores hit them, they will be able to overpower the mistletoe.
That is going to grow in the tree. And so then he recommended to us certain things, you know, clearing part of the forest, giving more room for sunlight, making sure we have adequate water throughout the forest, putting down nutrients in the soil. And making sure that he, he did say, look, we still need to cut out big infestations.
Like we're going to have to be aggressive and cut out big infestations. But as we change the strength of the trees, your forest is going to naturally bite off the mistletoe and be able to live and be healthy longer and be stronger.
[00:14:09] Morgan Jones Pearson: I love that analogy so much. Okay. So now if you don't mind kind of drawing the analogy to this topic.
[00:14:18] Jill Geigle: Right. It just, it feels like it's such a strong analogy because right now in the world, we, it is not an if our children run into pornography and sexually explicit content. It's just a when. And as parents, we often want to, especially new parents, we think, okay. We're going to just put our little child in a, in a box.
We're going to just put our child in a box and we're never going to have them on technology. We're never going to have a screen in front of them. We're going to be really careful about, you know, all of the things. And we, we're going to just put them in this box. But we really can't do that and live in this world.
And that's the only true way to actually protect them. When we say the word protect, the only true way to actually protect them from ever seeing pornography would be to some way, just lock them away. So they would never see a screen in their life. And so what we want to try to do is change from that word of protect to the word prepare.
And we want to do our best to give our children the nutrients, the tools, the sunlight, all of the things that can help them as they grow and encounter some of this material. We want to give them those tools so that they'll be able to be strong enough to come through exposure to some of this. Content and some of the circumstances and situations that they're going to have to face as they live in this world.
[00:16:03] Morgan Jones Pearson: Okay, so with that kind of as the groundwork, I wanted to, and I love that you said, as new parents, you think like, I'm never going to give them a phone. Like, my husband and I are still very much in that. We're like, she's never getting a phone, but I, I wanted to kind of walk through these different principles that you've kind of broken out to help parents and you have this broken out into a workbook so that it's active, um, rather than then passive and actually gives parents things to do.
But I think if we can have a conversation about the different principles that that could be really helpful. So, 1st of all, is nourish relationships. And you mentioned before that talking about sex can be a really intimidating thing for a parent. I think when I was growing up, it was really popular to have the talk and it was like a 1 and done.
And you talk about that in the book, but I think. And I remember my parents, bless their hearts, they, I'm sure, prepped for it for weeks, but they took me to dinner and we had this talk and I was so confused at the end of it. And I think I continued to be really confused. silently for years. Um, so talk to me a little bit about the most important principles.
Obviously, that's just one of them talking openly about sexual things, but, um, talk to me a little bit about what it looks like to nourish. The relationship, not only you talk about nourishing the relationship with your child, their relationship with technology, and then teaching your child how to have healthy relationships with others, which I think all of those things are super important.
And I'll leave it up to you what to focus on there. Okay
[00:17:57] Jill Geigle: Um, let me go back just a little bit if I can please and let me also just say One of the reasons why it's important to change the idea from protecting your child to preparing your child Is because for parents There's so much shame Around and isolation around this topic That when our children make a mistake We feel like we have let them down You We feel like we have, you know, allowed them to be harmed.
We feel like horrible parents. And when we change this idea that, okay, we're going to do all that we can to prepare them. And this process is going to involve. Some problems. This is going to involve some, they're going to make mistakes. Parents are going to make mistakes, but it's built into the process of preparing and being able to handle the mistakes that come up.
And when we start really focusing on that, it's really helpful for parents to really let go of the shame around trying to be a perfect parent and never let your child see or be harmed by any of this. That's an impossibility. In today's world, it's an impossibility. We have been as parents by these big tech companies and by social media, we've been set up to fail.
They tell us that they have, you know, here use all these Controls. Yeah, go ahead, but it's impossible. There's not a parent who physically Can protect every device and be with their child at every place 24 hours a day They can't be with them at school every day. They can't be with them in their friends home or in their activities It's just impossible.
And so I really think it's an important realization for parents to just take a deep breath And say, okay, I understand preparing our child is going to involve mistakes and it's going to have, this isn't going to be a perfect system, but that's okay. We're going to have a system and we're going to have a plan in place so that we don't have to be afraid.
And we don't have to panic when a problem does arise, we're going to have a plan. And so with that being said, that's kind of how I use these four areas of these four principles that I lay out in this book, I use these four principles and it's relationships, communication, creating a place of security, and the doctrine of Jesus Christ.
I use these four areas so that I can set up a plan with my children, so that I can nourish them in these areas to create those strong trees. You know, that we're talking about these strong children that we're talking about, but I also use it as an assessment tool so that when something hits, when the principal calls me and says, Hey, your child has been flagged for looking at something, you know, pornography at school, your child has, has been flagged and they've been looking at something they shouldn't be.
I don't have a heart attack. I can take a deep breath and I can go, okay, let's, let's figure out in these four areas, what do I need to, what do I need to work on a little more? Where's my relationship with my child? Have I been communicating enough with my child about this? Maybe our rules and our guidelines.
Maybe they're not hitting what we need to be hitting right now. They've grown a little bit and we need to be, you know, adjusting and assessing our rules. Or maybe we really need to have a talk about Jesus Christ and his power, uh, his loving power of repentance and how that enables us to make mistakes and to grow without shame.
And so it just gives me a lot of power when a mistake happens, when problems happen. Because they do no matter what, then I don't have to panic. I can go back and I can go, okay, where am I missing? And I can involve my child in the discussion. Okay. Where do we need to really work and see what I, you know, what will help us the most as we try not to get into more trouble in this area.
So that's kind of how the book is laid out in those four areas. And I, I've just, yeah, it's really been impactful for my own kids. I have seven, my youngest is still doesn't have a phone, but I do have seven that have phones and. Every single one of them have in some way had a problem, some smaller, some greater.
And this is with a person who works in this and talks about this and understands a lot. In this top, in this arena, but it's just the nature of the world that we live in. And so if we can bring down the shame around all of it, the parenting aspect and making mistakes as a child aspect, we really are able to, to.
Be a lot stronger and a lot more resistant to long term problems.
[00:23:51] Morgan Jones Pearson: Absolutely. I completely agree. Um, okay. So let's dig in a little bit to these, to these topics. So, so first relationships. Okay.
[00:24:01] Jill Geigle: So relationships is really important one. And some people are like, Oh, this is so basic, but.
[00:24:07] Morgan Jones Pearson: I feel like it's very complex.
I feel like relationships are hard.
[00:24:12] Jill Geigle: Well, especially in today's world, what we're finding is that kids aren't learning how to have relationships face to face with humans anymore, right? They, they have these screens at young ages and they learn how to communicate through screens. They learn how to interact with people on video games.
And while sitting next to them watching a screen, but we don't have a lot of real connection and relationships that are being modeled or learned like they used to as children were growing up. And so I tell parents all the time, it feels. It feels like something that should come naturally, but children don't have that naturally anymore.
So teaching children and teens, Hey, put your phone down and interact with someone. Talk to them. Play a game with them. Laugh with them without a screen in between you is something that has to be taught and practiced And now I'll often do and this is like a regular thing that I do at my house a little role play Where and we do it all the time because we always have to be reminded.
So every few months i'll be like, okay Everyone pretend like you're in a classroom and you walk into the classroom and you Everybody in the classroom has their phones up and they're looking at their phones You And so I'll have all the other kids put their phone up to their face, right? And the one child walks in to the classroom.
Now, how do we feel? Right? There's no talking. You can sit down. And what do you do? They usually sit down and pull out their phone. Okay, now let's try it the other way. Everyone put your phones down. And you are coming to a classroom and I want you to practice interacting with people. So then the per, one of my kids will come, you know, be that person and I'll come in and I'll say, hi.
And it takes them a while. It takes them a while to have the courage, even in the, even in the little role play. It's like, okay, what do I say? How are you? What's up? You know, we try to get it to their, whatever their age wording is at that point, like how are things going? Hey, happy Tuesday, whatever it might be.
And to show them, how do you feel? What's the difference in the feeling when you walk in, look at someone in the eyes and talk to them and smile and sit down. That is the kind of relationship that, that physical interaction, that face to face talking is what we really need to promote and teach with our kids because it helps so much with emotional regulation.
When our children can help and can regulate their emotions in healthy ways. They are so much less susceptible to pornography and to the ongoing problems that pornography can present. So, yeah, so we say that relationship, that relationship that you and your child are between you and your child is really important because that's that model relationship.
It teaches them how to interact and have relationships with other people. So that first one is really important.
[00:27:56] Morgan Jones Pearson: I love that. And that makes so much sense to me. Talk to me a little bit about the relationship with technology piece. You mentioned kind of the evolution of technology as you've been a parent.
I know my dad always says he's like, I feel like we were just guinea pigs. Like here was this thing that we had never dealt with before. And it was just like thrust upon us. And we, um, We're supposed to teach kids how to use it. And we didn't even know what we were dealing with. I think the nice thing is now we do know a little bit better what we're dealing with, but how do you cultivate in kids a healthy relationship with technology?
[00:28:38] Jill Geigle: Right. I know for sure. There was quite a few generations of parents that were guinea pigs. And in some ways, you know, we are finally getting to a place where the new parents Have a little bit of some context with this, but technology changes so quickly that it's still really hard and it's still really hard.
So, when you talk about relationship with technology, then it's important to just have those and build into your own life. Again, it's always going to be how the parent models this and then build in, build into your own child's life. This reflective assessment time. Right. So you need to be able to stop once a week and say, okay, how much am I on my end?
How much am I on my technology? Lots of phones have a lot, you know, have your screen time built in now. So it's easy to kind of do a quick self assessment. What we have to really teach ourselves and our kids is to really take that amount of time. Once a week, once a month. And have a conversation with our child and say, Okay, what's, what are you using your phone for?
What is it working for? Where are you having problems? Do you think it's too much? Are you having enough face to face time, like real connection time with people versus how much screen time you're having? It's not necessarily about trying to, especially your older kids, you're not trying to come across as, I am removing this from your life.
What you're trying to do is teach ways that they can identify their own, their own weaknesses, because it changes all the time. I mean, we all know sometimes. We're on the phone all the time. We get into social media kind of binge and we're, for some reason, we're just too much on social media. And then we have to, we have to be able to stop ourselves and go, this is too much.
You know, I'm looking at my numbers and I'm seeing too much and I really need to let, let go of that. Well, kids, they don't have their, their brain development isn't quite as far along as ours. It's hard enough for us, right? To stop ourselves from using social media and being on the screen for adults. It's, it's really hard because the people who make these products make them to be addictive in nature, but kids don't even have their frontal lobe developed yet.
Teens don't have it. And so. To do all that we can to help them learn how to stop, assess themselves, give them the questions, you know, give them self assessment questions and sit down with them once a week, once a month, whatever works for your family in the age of your child and say, okay, let's do a quick inventory.
Let's do a quick assessment. What's working, what isn't working? And where do you think we can tweak and do a little better for the next week or two?
[00:31:44] Morgan Jones Pearson: I think those are such good examples. I, I know for me, even I go through these phases with technology where sometimes I'm like, I just don't want to do it at all.
And then other times I am totally inundated with it and totally here for it. So, um, that makes so much sense to me. The next thing in the book, you talk about communication. And, uh, creating that open and often communication, how, how would you suggest doing that? I'm sure you've had plenty of practice.
[00:32:21] Jill Geigle: Yes, we have had a lot of practice and it's still not enough.
So just like you said, we live in a time when we've all been raised with the talk. The one time top or nothing, right? Or nothing. We might not have gotten anything when we grew up. So, and that's what generally parents will be like, Oh yeah, that's right. Um, but the sad truth is, is that even when I talk to missionary age and teenagers, I will say that to them, like, have your parents talked to you about sex or, and they look at me like.
Absolutely not. You know, it's still that. I think we still have in our culture that one time sex talk, and that's it. And then maybe you hit a little bit of pornography at church, right? You'll get a few lessons as you're growing up, like, whatever you do, don't look at pornography. And then you'll get the one sex talk.
The problem with all this is that these kids are. inundated with sexual messages frequently on technology. So the amount of sexual messages they're getting from the other side, and they're generally not healthy sexual messages and they're generally not truthful. Sexual messages is constant. They're just getting this constant flow of this.
And so that's what's shaping their sexual development. That's what they're hearing. That's what they're believing. They have nothing else to. Go differently by. So as a parent, we want to get in there. We want to be the, the first trusted source about sexuality. We want to help them develop healthy sexuality throughout their whole life.
And we want to start when they're little so that they feel like, Hey, this is a conversation that we can have anytime, anywhere. If you have questions about it, you can ask me. And if I have thoughts about it, I'm going to be sharing it with you. Even though in the beginning, it might be a little uncomfortable, especially when you're starting, you know, with older kids, but when you start with little children, it can be baked into your relationship and to how we talk.
And then what happens is you become the source of truth rather than what they see that on social media and the Internet or their friends becoming the source of truth. So when they do see something out there, which they regularly will, they have this other source that they trust and that they know, Hey, that isn't quite the same as what my, my parents have said to me, and they feel like they can come talk to you about it.
That being said, it is always going to be a struggle because of the nature of sex and because of the amount of shame and. Embarrassment that is just a part of normal and natural development, normal and natural, natural sexual development, that there's still going to be times and questions that your kids aren't going to come to you, right.
And that you might miss, but if the conversation is ongoing, it usually seems to come back around.
[00:35:38] Morgan Jones Pearson: I had never thought of it, Jill, the way that you described it in that, you know, when you're only getting one lesson or one talk and the message is like, don't look at these things, then when they do see those things, as you said, they will.
Then it's like, oh, well, I did the thing I wasn't supposed to do, which automatically invites in that shame.
[00:36:06] Jill Geigle: Exactly. It just creates so much shame when they make a mistake, what they think is a mistake, or do something that they think they shouldn't, and then you're beginning that cycle of just shutting down.
Because when a child is full of shame or when there's shame around a topic, the child doesn't feel like they can reach out and get help. They feel like they are unlovable and worthless, and they've done something so wrong that they cannot, they're not worthy of that help from you. That if you knew, it was, it would destroy your relationship.
And so, the more we just talk about this and, and yeah, I try when we talk about sex and when we talk about pornography on a daily basis around here, you know, it's stuff like at the dinner table, like, Hey, what'd you see today? Or did anyone see something that was uncomfortable? Or What my husband and I try to do is say is put you know, share our experience like oh today I was on This website and this ad came up that made me so uncomfortable and I felt so bad I I probably stayed on it longer than I should have but I was trying to get out of there and I, you know, I feel, I just felt so uncomfortable about that.
Right. And then as soon as, you know, as we can have those, we can share those things. That brings the shame level way down and opens that communication.
[00:37:44] Morgan Jones Pearson: Jill, I love that those suggestions so much the next thing in the book in the interest of time. I'll move on to the next part. No, no, no, no. You're wonderful.
This has been so good. The next part is create places of security, which many will recognize as, as. a reference from the Book of Mormon. What does it look like to you? And I guess maybe to start you ask the question, why does my child need places of security? So, so maybe we could, we could answer that question first.
[00:38:20] Jill Geigle: Think of when you were growing up, those of us who didn't have phones or maybe had limited phones, you, you went to school, you saw your friends, you were out in this public area and managing those stresses and rigors. And then you came home and you didn't have friends there and you didn't have the stresses of school and teachers and all those kind of things you, you had a home to come to and kind of put all of those, the social stress and the school stress and the emotional stress together.
You had a chance to put it away. Now think of today, my 13 year old heads out to seventh grade. She has a phone in her pocket, all of her contacts, all of the friends that I allow, you know, depending on what you allow, but the people who are on her contacts, her texts, she 13 year old does not have social media, but she still has friends at school.
And she has the job that technology brings that we've talked about the weight of trying to make sure you're doing good with technology and seeing things that are appropriate and not being on it too long and all of these things. Right? So you have this extra weight that's on our kids. And when they come home from school and being with all their friends and all their homework and everything, it's like bringing all the friends at school with them.
I always try to, I show my 13 year old, I'll put her, I'll stand her up and I'll say, now pretend that 15 of your closest friends are all right here touching you, like in a little mob around you. And I say, everywhere you go, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk. They all come with you, all the time. Everywhere, all these 15 people, and then you have your family relationships and you have any, you know, leaders or whatever, all these people are with them all the time, all the stress and the pressure and be not even, not even just your sexually explicit content, but the, the amount of information that children have to deal with and carry and bring with them.
Everywhere they go is so great. And so to create a place where they can come and drop that phone off at the door and leave their friends. You know, docked on the counter for a little while is so relieving to a child's mind. Of course, they're going to fight it. They're going to think that that is not relieving
[00:41:05] Morgan Jones Pearson: the worst thing that's ever happened to them.
[00:41:07] Jill Geigle: Totally. But if you do an experiment with your children, you'll find that you can see the relief on their faces after a few hours of not having that phone in their pocket. So to create a place of security is just a place where they can actually come and not have to be constantly fighting the temptation and the problems and the, the things that, you know, all the sexual content brings and all of the technology bring, but a place where they can just come and be themselves.
And so as much as we can build that into our homes, I think it's really important. There's lots of ways to limit and to. Really create places of safety. What I suggest is that you work with your child at first, a parent does their research and works with the other parent to really decide, okay, what do we think is healthy?
For the kids our age and what do we, what do, what are we okay with together and then bring the kids into the conversation and present to them. Hey, here's what we think. And here's what we're seeing. And here's some of the data that's out there. And so how can we create this place of safety together? What does that look like?
And how does that feel like to you guys? And then as you kind of decide that, then you can make some of the more, you know, then you can look into some more technological solutions, but also just your basics, like doc the phone. When you come into the house, no phones in bedrooms. 30 minutes before bed, make sure that you're off your phone for sure, because it, it, and it changes how you sleep when you are on the screens close to bedtime.
You know, things like that. Those are small things, but the best way you have, I would say when I have the most success, I have given my children some say, and I've heard them and validated their feelings. It doesn't always go their way. But at least I've heard them and then I say, yeah, I get it, but here's what we found out that here's what the research is saying and here's what we think will, you know, be the best for us all.
The big picture on this is just to try to make it a family effort, a team effort and not to be afraid of changing. It might work for six months and then you have to change again. It might work for three months and then you have to change. It's a parent. How, you know, does something and then gives permission for an app or gives permission for something.
Sometimes parents think, well, I can't change my mind now. I already told them they could. No, you can. And, and just make sure that you tell that to your child, you know. I, I figured out that this is really harmful. This is not where we want to be spending our time. So, I think we better take that app back.
You know, we better change that out. Let's find a better way that we can do what you want to with that than use that app, but we can change our mind and we can, we can learn and grow and. We have to be able to be really flexible with this kind of stuff because kids grow, technology changes, we grow, this isn't so hard and fast and there is, you know, so domineering.
This is like, hey, we're trying our best here. Let's try these rules. Let's see if these work, if these guidelines work for our family, and let's be able to shift them as we go. To make it better for us,
[00:44:34] Morgan Jones Pearson: as you were talking, Jill, I thought of the prophets words, the Lord loves effort. And I think that not only does the Lord love effort, but that when we make an effort, he magnifies that effort.
And even if the effort is imperfect or, you know, constantly. kind of a struggle. I think making that effort, the Lord can give a lot of grace to a parent that's trying. So with that, the last point principle in the book is live and teach the doctrine of Jesus Christ. I think that, you know, You know, when it comes to pornography, so often we hear it associated with repentance.
And I think repentance so often is painted as like a downer. So how do you appropriately teach the power of the doctrine of Jesus Christ in relation to this topic in a way that it doesn't feel like a downer,
[00:45:37] Jill Geigle: right? We start early and we talk about repentance as such a gift and we model it in our lives as parents.
We show when we've made a mistake and we are working on repenting and how much happiness that it brings us. And we never have this expectation that we are going to be perfect. We have an expectation that we're going to try. And that we're going to probably make a lot of mistakes along the way. And I think it was Elder Anderson that said, Repentance is not the backup plan.
It is the plan. So, as we talk about repentance in our house, that's what we talk about. This is the plan. When a baby is learning how to walk, we don't get mad at them when they fall down. We use that example a lot here. We don't get mad at them when they fall down. We love them, and we pick them up, and we cheer for them again, and we help them get another step.
And that's all that repentance is. It's just changing our mind and learning new things so that we, our mind can be in line with Heavenly Father and Jesus's. And so, we just try to make it as a part of such a daily part of our life. The Doctrine of Christ, I usually compare it to the attachment cycle of a baby to a parent.
The baby cries, and then we are programmed to go and respond to that child, and when the child reaches out to us, we respond, and then attachment is formed. And I feel like the Doctrine of Christ is an attachment cycle that Heavenly Father has given to us. He wants us to attach to Him. We have a problem.
We cry out to Him in faith and repentance, and He answers us with covenants and with the Holy Ghost. And we are forming this attachment to Him. And repentance is such a beautiful part of becoming attached and becoming more like Heavenly Father and Jesus. I often use the analogy of the handcart pioneers.
The Handcart Pioneers started in Iowa and they took, it took them 131 days to go 300 miles across Iowa. And then from that point, it took them 111 days to go 1000 miles to Salt Lake. Well, what happened in Iowa? Why did it take so long? What happened was there was mud. There was rain and mud everywhere. And there were some bad guides.
So the pioneers, the handcart pioneers, had to pull their handcarts through this thick, tough terrain. And it took them extra long. Well, do you think Heavenly Father was looking down at those pioneers and saying, You guys are terrible pioneers. What are you doing? There's better, there's better ways you can do this.
Why are you doing this? You're, you know. You're messing up the plan. Of course not. He was walking with them as they were doing what they were called to do. Walk across Iowa. He was walking with them, helping them pull those hand cards and get through the mud that they had to live in. I think that is so, such a good analogy for where we are right now.
We're in some mud. We're raising families in the mud sometimes and Heavenly Father is in it with us. He wants us to raise families. He wants us to raise families to the Lord He's trying to help us and he isn't, you know mad at us or Turning his back on us because we're messing up because parents are messing up and kids are messing up He's not turning his back on us.
He is in it with us. He is we are his covenant people He's walking with us cheering for us pulling with us and helping through The beautiful gift of the Doctrine of Christ and repentance to help us get through it Stronger and better and as a people and as a church an organization and a people as I in people who know how to handle this tough issue of sexuality and of Having to deal with a world that is has all of this content everywhere You He's raising us up through it so that we can learn how to be a Zion people, even amidst this, even amidst this, and this is taking parents, you know, we really have to work, we really have to try, we really have to change.
Because it's never been modeled for us before, but I know that we can do it with the help of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. They want us to do it and I know that they're helping us with this.
[00:51:03] Morgan Jones Pearson: Jill, thank you so much for sharing the things that I know you've put a lot of work into understanding and, and working to, to improve.
This situation, not only for yourself and your family, but to help others as well, which I think is such an admirable quest. Um, my last question for you is what does it mean to you to be all in the gospel of Jesus Christ?
[00:51:29] Jill Geigle: All in the gospel of Jesus Christ for me means to follow Jesus Christ with all my heart.
[00:51:36] Morgan Jones Pearson: That is, I love, I love it when somebody is. So succinct in their answer, but it's like spot on and I I love that so thank you so much Jill You've been so helpful to me and I know that other people will feel the same way. So thank you very very much
[00:51:53] Jill Geigle: Thank you so much Morgan.
[00:51:58] Morgan Jones Pearson: We are so grateful to Jill Geigle for joining us today On today's episode, you can find Jill's prepare your child workbook on deseretbook. com big thanks to Derek Campbell of mix at six studios for his help with this episode. And thank you as always for listening. We appreciate your time and we'll look forward to being with you again next week.