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 : and welcome to the Dr. Nurse Mama show, prescribing Hope for Healthy Families here on American Family Radio. Here's your host, professor, pediatric nurse practitioner and mom of four, Dr. Jessica Peck.

Dr. Jessica Peck: Well, hey there, friends, and welcome to my favorite time of day, getting to spend time with you prescribing Hope for Healthy Families. And listen, I want to jump right in today and tell you that from time to time, you know, on this broadcast, we address issues that are really tough to talk about, but that may be tough for some listeners to hear. So I want to be very clear with you right from the beginning, if you have little ears around or more sensitive hearts around, to use some discretion. And I want to give you, an advisory because today's conversation is touching on some pretty sensitive topics, but topics nonetheless that we must speak, speak about that people need to know about. These are involving children and sexual exploitation. And while we will speak carefully in a trauma informed way, some of the issues discussed may be difficult for some of our listeners. So parents should use discretion if young children are nearby. And for some listeners who have a sensitive spirit, I encourage you just to follow the Holy Spirit's leading and use discretion and listening. I believe we can learn about traumatizing things in a way that is not overly or unnecessarily traumatizing. And our goal today is not to shock you, to alarm you, but to equip you as families, as churches, as communities, to have information you absolutely need that helps protect children and promote healing.

American Family Studios is highlighting the newest installment in the Impact series

And today we are highlighting the newest installment in the Impact series from the American Family Studios. Episode 5 is the episode we're talking about today, and it tells the powerful story of Heidi Olson. She is a pediatric nurse who has spent her career caring for children who have experienced sexual abuse. And through her work in hospitals, in courtrooms and policy settings, she has seen firsthand how exposure to pornography and sexual exploitation is affecting children in ways that many families do not realize. And she and I share this in common. Working in this space where you often see people who are just blindsided by something they did not even know existed. And so this episode, if you want to know more, if you want to see a more direct version and hear directly from Heidi on this issue and see the documentary that AFA has produced is the Heidi Olson Story. It is available now through the AFA Stream app or on DVD by donation. And our goal today is really simple. Many of our listeners already care deeply about protecting children. So we want to help equip you to share this resource resource with your church, your school and your community. And I'm very, very happy to have Heidi Olson on the with us today. She's a registered nurse. She's a pediatric sexual assault nurse examiner. She's the founder and the president of Paradigm Shift Training and Consulting. This is an organization that equips healthcare professionals to identify and respond to human trafficking and exploitation. So during her time managing the SANE program, that's the sexual assault nurse examiner. It's a very specific role and a very difficult one to do that requires a calling, but so needed. I can tell you I have been there at an intersection of care that is life saving. And she worked at Children's Mercy, Kansas City. She conducted and reviewed more than 1500 pediatric forensic exams. Now, that's just one nurse working, and that should tell you a little bit about the scope of what is happening to children. And she frequently serves as an expert witness in sexual assault cases. She has testified before lawmakers, spoken at the United nations, and even submitted an amicus brief to the US Supreme Court on, protecting children from exploitation and pornography exposure. Heidi, thank you so much for joining us today. We're so glad to have you here.

Heidi Olson: Thanks so much for having me. That was such a beautiful introduction. I really appreciated just your caveat of we don't want to scare, we want to equip you. So thank you so much for that.

Dr. Jessica Peck: Well, it's a real treat for me to be able to talk pediatric nurse to pediatric nurse. We are, you know, just, we're very proud of our profession and I'm so grateful for what you do. It always gives me hope to see people who are deeply invested in our future, in the kids. And so before we talk about your work and what you do, I would love for you just to introduce yourself to our listeners, give them a little idea of your, your background, your testimony, how you came to know the Lord and how he brought you here to this important work.

Heidi Olson: Yeah. So that the short version is, you know, I think very rarely are, our life stories linear. There's ups and downs. Mine has been a roller coaster for sure, but I have seen the Lord's faithfulness through all of it, even at times when I was not obedient or walking with Him. So I grew up in a Christian family, so I remember hearing about the Lord for as long as I have memories, you know, and kind, of did the, like, you know, the prayer that becoming a Christian probably when I was around five, so very much inundated with, you know, all of the. Going to church, learning about the Lord. and I would say I absolutely, you know, believed in the gospel and those types of things. But as probably many of us know and what we'll talk about with the patients I serve, when you experience trauma, it starts to make things really confusing with the Lord because it's like, why did you let that happen to me? Why is this going on in my world? How come no one's protecting me? And so in the same lane that I'm growing up in and I'm, you know, experiencing the Lord and hearing about Him, I'm also experiencing a lot of trauma and abuse and specifically sexual abuse. And so that created a really confusing world to grow up in. So by the time I was in my 20s, I think the way I dealt with that of just. I don't know how to make sense of all this is like, I don't want anything to do with the Lord. I am just. I want to numb out. I don't want to feel anything because it's too painful. And I don't have the coping skills to know how to walk through this. And no one at church is talking about it. And so what, how do I hold space for all of these things? And so there was just definitely a period of life of just all the things I knew I wasn't supposed to do. I want to do. Let's party, let's be numb. Let's go crazy. And it didn't fix anything. It just created more trauma, honestly. so I grew up in Southern New Mexico, and in the midst of all this, I became a nurse. I was working on a pediatric unit in the hospital. I love kids. They are just. They bring my heart so much joy. So I knew I wanted to work with kids. Whatever I was doing in nursing, kind of at the same time my life is imploding. I get a job at a, ah, Children's hospital in Kansas City. So I moved to Kansas City. And I think that was exactly the change that my heart needed. It created safety, just living in a different environment and kind of getting away from all the influences that were bad for me, all the pain, all the trauma, it was just like the Lord graciously kind of gave me a starting over point. And so, you know, everything did not magically heal in one one day. It's been a decade of intentionally choosing to go to therapy and do lots of different, you know, bodywork and learn how to take care of myself and regulate my nervous system and make sense of my story. And really what has been so helpful for me is experiencing Jesus so different than just knowing in my head the Lord loves me and all these things. Really experiencing that through healing, prayer, and learning how to use my imagination to connect with Jesus and to ask him, where were you when this was happening to me? You know, and to see his kindness and his healing in those moments, it's just kind of helped integrate everything that was really broken. Again, it's not perfect. It would be a lie to say, like, everything's wrapped into a bow, but I absolutely just feel a, complete 180 from where I was, you know, 15 years ago. So in the midst, again, of kind of all of this healing journey. The hospital I was working at in Kansas City decided they wanted to, open up this huge hiring process to really beef up their forensic team. So they just kind of put out an email to all nurses in the hospital. You want to be a forensic nurse? Apply. I had no background in forensic nursing, but because I knew what it was like to experience abuse and to not be believed, to not be protected, to not have someone sit there and be like, oh, my gosh, I'm sorry that happened to you. I think my heart really felt like I want to be able to do that for someone else. Even if I can't fix everything in the moment, if I could just say, I am so sorry, that feels meaningful. So they ended up hiring me. Thankfully, with no experience, and very quickly, probably a year and a half into becoming a forensic nurse, I actually took over as the manager of the program, which, I had no idea what I was doing at the time. But you learn very quickly.

Dr. Jessica Peck: You do.

Heidi Olson: So I managed the program for five years, and then I stayed on as a staff nurse and started my business. so I did both of those things for a little while, and then just the last year, I've only been doing my business, so I'm gonna get back into forensic nursing. I'm kind of in the process of that, but it's been nice to have a little break. So it was a big convoluted story, but that's my background.

Dr. Jessica Peck: But, Heidi, it's So perfectly illustrates the messiness of the human experience and living in a world that is broken. And I have to tell you, I am sorry that you experienced abuse. I wish for every child that they would never experience abuse. But I'm so grateful that your story of healing has become a story of hope for so many other children around the country. And when you grow up and you experience abuse and you start to go on a healing journey, there is something that is really deeply healing about being able to step into someone else's story and say, okay, I didn't have someone there. For me at this point, at this juncture, it didn't go well for me when I made a disclosure or when I had an exam or encountered healthcare or whatever it is. And to be there for somebody like that is really deeply healing. And one of those stories of redemption. And, you know, we. It's hard to imagine how broken the world is. And I often get asked this, Heidi, and my line of work and in working with so many children who have experienced abuse, exploitation, trafficking, like, how can you believe in a, God that would let things happen like this that are so terrible? And I just rely on the fact that, you know, if God was small enough to be understood, he wouldn't be big enough to be worshiped. And somehow, in a way I don't understand, I see redemption, I see healing, and I know that that is going to be magnified in one day. And what we need to understand, Heidi, and what we need to help our listeners understand is that this is not rare. Many people think that, oh, this happens in other communities. It doesn't happen to someone. I know we are seeing a different reality. You said, as I said in the introduction, you yourself, just personally, one on one, you have conducted more than 1500 pediatric forensic exams. Even in your own story, you said, I grew up in church and I experienced abuse. And so often, I think, especially in communities of faith, we tend to think, oh, but not my kid, not my community, not my church. That wouldn't happen here. We can't be suspicious that everybody, you know, around every bush is a predator. But we also can't be naive either. How do we have perspective to recognize that it can happen to anybody? And what do we do when children make an outcry?

Heidi Olson: Yeah. If you look at statistics around childhood sexual abuse in the United States, stats say that 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys will experience sexual abuse before their 18th birthday. And so, yeah, to your point, of course, I was seeing and reviewing tons of cases because I was the Manager of the program, you know, so my number is huge because of the sort of the role I had. But it does show the prevalence, right? Just an astronomical amount of kids are experiencing abuse. We know the average age of disclosure. So when someone says, I experienced childhood sexual abuse is when people are in their 50s. So people spend 40 plus years not saying anything. So the numbers are actually probably much higher than we know because we're not getting disclosures of kids being abused in childhood. So really, when you think about the implications of that M, many people we interact with on a daily basis have experienced some type of sexual abuse and exploitation. And so I think it's important for us, I think, to your point, yeah. Sometimes we think, okay, in the church setting were insulated from all of this, when in reality, sometimes I've seen churches be a huge sort of playground for predators, for lack of better word, because of that naivety. Oh, it would never happen here. So if I'm a predator, I'm like, yeah, that's where I want to go. I want to go to the Christian school, to the church, where no one is checking. There is no safeguard in place. No one's going to believe a child because that doesn't happen here. And what we know with really sophisticated predators is they groom everyone around them. So yes, they're grooming the child and building trust in a relationship and hoping that child won't say anything when they abuse them. They're also grooming the parents and the families and the pastors and everyone else. So when we have this really respected person and say a five year old says, hey, this happened to me, everyone's like this. The elder of the church. No, there's no way.

Dr. Jessica Peck: You can't say that. Yes, it's so true. Heidi, we're going to stop right there. But listen, do not go away because we're going to equip, you to respond. What do you look for? What are the signs that you should consider? How should you handle it? If a child makes an outcry or a disclosure, you don't want to miss it. And I encourage you once again to go and check out the full documentary called the the Heidi Olson Story. It's episode five on the the American Family association stream app. Just, go to afa.net, you'll find it from there. We'll be right back with much more from Heidi Olson. Abortion moves fast. And right now in our communities, women are being pressured to make irreversible decisions. In moments of fear and panic, they're told to act quickly or risk losing support. And many feel they have no other option. But because of you, they do. At PreBorn Network clinics, a woman receives what the abortion industry will never offer compassion without pressure, clarity about the life growing inside her, and real support to welcome her baby and the hope of the gospel. She's given a free ultrasound and space to breathe. And more than 80% of the time, when a mother sees her baby on a preborn ultrasound, she chooses life. This march PreBorn is believing to save 6,800 babies, but it will take 124 partners saying yes every day. I'm asking you to pause your busy day for just a moment and become a, yes right now. Just $28 provides one ultrasound. $140 helps five mothers. Every dollar helps save babies and share hope. To donate, dial pound 250 and say the keyword baby. That's pound 250 baby or visit preborn.com/AFR- that's preborn.com/AFR.

I've Witnessed It by Melodie Malone and Passion: I've witnessed your faithfulness. I've seen you breathe life within So I pour out my praise again you're worthy God, you're worthy of all of it. Your promises never fail. I've got stories I'll live to tell so I pour out my praise again. You're worthy God, you're worthy.

1 in 4 girls, 1 in 6 boys will experience childhood sexual abuse at some time before the age of 18

Dr. Jessica Peck: Welcome back, friends. That is I've Witnessed it by Melodie Malone and Passion and I can tell you I've witnessed the goodness of God. I have witnessed the light of God's presence in some of the darkest spaces that you can imagine. Just want to give a quick advisory. Remind you that we're talking about a subject that is really sensitive. We're talking about childhood sexual abuse. But this is something that we must, must talk about, especially as Christians, as leaders in the church, because this is happening. Heidi shared with us and it is true 1 in 4 girls, 1 in 6 boys will experience sexual abuse at some time before the age of 18. And likely those numbers are much greater because as Heidi said, most people don't disclose that until they're in their 50s. There's something that is so inherently shameful about experiencing abuse because it goes to your identity, identity. And it is an attack on the identity of you as an image bearer of God. And there is so much trauma that impacts that. We've learned a lot about trauma, especially even since mapping DNA that happened in the early 2000s. We've learned how trauma can even impact DNA transcription. And we can pass the effects of that trauma down, but we can also pass Healing down. And Heidi has shared her own personal story story of surviving abuse and coming on going on to be a pediatric sexual assault nurse examiner.

Research shows kids very rarely lie about sexual abuse

Heidi, before the break, we were talking about the fact that abuse does happen in church and predators will seek out faith based communities because there generally is a higher level of trust there. And they know how to put on the mask and think, oh, they would never. How could you say that? I really want you to say anything else that you have said say about that, but talk specifically about what people should do if children come up to them and make an outcry, make a disclosure. M while remembering that sometimes children all have the language to describe what happened to them and what people should do about that.

Heidi Olson: Yeah. So I think that it's important to keep an open mind with what I'm about to say because most things we're taught about child sexual abuse are incorrect. And so I think this is kind of especially relevant to churches where we don't talk about sexual abuse, we don't equip our staff members with what to do. And then when something happens or a disclosure comes out, we're like, I don't think that's accurate based on this misinformation I have over here, you know, that I learned wherever. So let me just back up and say kids are very reliable witnesses. And so I think for a lot of people, when a child support discloses sexual abuse, the first gut reaction for whatever reason is like, they're making it up. This can't be true. When again, research shows us kids very rarely lie about sexual abuse. So there was this really great study that was done that I often quote in court where they looked at hundreds of disclosures of children and less than 6% of those disclosures were made up. And of the disclosures that were made up, it was either a parent that was coercing a child. Right. Like lie about this parent. I'm in a custody battle. So there was adult influence happening there, or it was teenagers who had more abstract type of thinking where they could conceptualize something like that. A, tiny percentage of children who would make a false disclosure, meaning especially little kids who do not have context for anything sexual. We need to believe them. I mean, we need to believe any child, teenager or kid. But there's no reason to doubt that or to think that they're making it up. And so our first I think gut instinct needs to be even when it's like, oh no, my world is about to blow up. Right? Yeah, I can't handle this. Our reaction needs to Be belief. Because if we don't believe them, think about the consequences. If they're telling us the truth and we don't believe them, we put them back in harm's way. And so I would say kind of first step is to the best of your ability, remain calm. If our faces look shocked, if we start weeping, if we blow up, right. If we have this huge reaction, what that's going to tell that child is I can't handle what you're telling me. And so they're going to internalize it, right? Oh, I just made mom so sad. I'm not ever saying anything ever again. Never mind. So we also see recantation is really high with kids. That doesn't mean they were lying about the initial disclosure. It means I said something, everything blew up in my world. Mom's having a meltdown, dad had to move out of the house, whatever, right? I didn't want that to happen. I just wanted the abuse to stop. So now, never mind, never mind. I want to fix it. It didn't happen. I'm taking it back. So again, when we see recantation, that does not mean the child was lying. In fact, it may prove there was just a very challenging and traumatic sort of explosion that happened in the world after saying something. I would also say if we can just affirm what a child is saying so we don't need to ask a ton of detailed questions, investigators will do that. What we need to just do is say empowering things like thank you so much for telling me that. That sounds really scary or really hard. You're really brave, you know. Is there anything else you want me to know? Those are open ended kind of things we're not asking like who touched you, where m when. Tell me all the things. Even if we want to know, because that can one, impede an investigation, but two, again, this child's gonna feel like they're the one that's in trouble. So we want to take off just the lens of, frenetic energy and of shame. I would say just personally, what I've seen with a lot of parents, when they have their own trauma history, so they've experienced their own sexual abuse, they've never processed it or worked through it. Then when their child discloses all their trauma comes up and it is typically not a very healthy interaction, that's happening, right? Because it's, oh, everything that happened to me when I was three years old, that three year old part of me is now coming out. I handle what's happening to my child. So it's important for us to do our own work, you know, Absolutely, because it impacts our kids in so many ways. But we don't want to freak out and put all of our stuff on a child. So beta's close, we believe them, we empower them, and then obviously we have to protect them. So that might mean making really difficult choices, which is, do I need to report this to law enforcement? Does this person need to move out of our house? What do we need to do to protect that child? versus just kind of everyone shoving it under the rug and calling it good.

Dr. Jessica Peck: Those are such great tips to have. And I think this is why it's so important for schools, for ministry environments to be prepared before it happens. Because what I see a lot of times, Heidi, is, you know, people scrambling in the moment and trying to figure out, like, what is our process, what is our legal requirement? Like, what do we do? And you see so many, just scandals, honestly, that happen in the aftermath of a disclosure that wasn't handled well. And you can armchair quarterback and, and. But bottom line is you have a child who may experience more harm in that fallout of disclosure. And so whatever you can do to make sure that you are prepared for that and recognizing just the reality of the numbers, the. That this is happening. And exactly like you said that with the statistics that are happening, many times that trauma has, has happened. And if parents aren't seeking their healing journey, then kids are picking up that baggage and you're just carrying it in ter, you know, generation to generation. Now, I don't say that as a guilt trip because sometimes you just do whatever you can in that moment. And I've lived through intergenerational trauma like that. But you can be a chain breaker, you can be a cycle breaker, and you can be one that takes those steps towards healing. So I think that's really important. Be calm, believe them. Don't get too many details. Don't all of a sudden think you're a forensic examiner or a police officer and then take whatever steps are necessary to protect them. That's really important. Now, Heidi, one of the things that I know you and I are both seeing is that the world has changed dramatically in the last 20 years, and it seems to be accelerating. Like 20 years ago, 10 years ago, five years ago, even one year ago. We're seeing AI totally change the landscape and the conversation of abuse. And I think it's important for parents to be aware of the changes and the ways that their kids can be groomed and exploited. So talk a little bit about that landscape, how things have changed and what threats parents need to be aware of to help keep their kids safe as much as they can.

Heidi Olson: Yeah, absolutely. I completely agree with that. that the trends, because technology is changing so fast, the way that kids are being abused and groomed is also changing. So you know, we historically would think about stranger danger. You know, don't get into a van with a person, don't talk to a stranger. That's who predators are. Those trends have absolutely changed where to be honest, a child walking to a park by themselves is probably safer than a kid with a cell phone in their hand these days. Because where we see almost all the abuse happening is online. So of course predators know. Where do I go to find the vulnerable kids? Oh, Roblox, you know, Minecraft, Snapchat, Instagram. I'm going to go where all the kids are. I'm going to pretend to be a kid or a friend or a peer or someone who's really cool or whatever so I can get my foot in the door. And so yes, over the last several years I've seen so many kids who are being groomed, being shown pornography, being asked to send naked photos and videos, ask strangers who are saying, hey, meet me in person. All of it's happening online. And so the vast majority of abuse and exploitation is being facilitated through some type of online forum. And to your point, AI is now absolutely making an entrance and contributing to all of this as well.

Dr. Jessica Peck: I think parents need to realize this because sometimes we want, as a, ah, as a coping response, Heidi, often we look for things that are different and look for ways that we can take control of the narrative and say, okay, well my kid would never, because my kid doesn't have a cell phone, my kid doesn't have social media. You know, my kid, they're, they have a strong group of friends and we know all of their friends really well and all of those things are important. It's kind of like putting a gate around a pool and having a child safety lock. Those are layers of protection. But nothing is foolproof. And in this day and age of screen saturation and screen exposure, your child may not have a phone, but shoulder surfing is a thing looking over the shoulder of someone who does. And pornography has become so normalized in young people's, culture really, that it is changing the way that they're viewing healthy expressions of sexuality. We know that teenagers, when we survey them, they say, yeah, pornography is a great way to learn about physical relationships and they enact violent things that they see There and, and people who are enacted upon, they think oh yeah, this is a normal expression. And that's why we see increase in strangulation and other violent acts like that.

Let's talk a little bit about pornography and how it impacts teen and child brains

Let's talk a little bit about pornography and how it impacts specifically developing teen and child brains and how they're more vulnerable even than adults who are experiencing exposed to pornography.

Heidi Olson: Yeah, absolutely. So there's been a decent amount of research done on this actually. And what we know is that kids brains are so susceptible to what they see, the more they watch pornography, the more they want to act out what they're seeing. Which of course makes sense, right? They have mirror neurons in their brain. We all know that. We've all been around, you know, little kids and we do something, they want to do it. You know, they repeat the words that we say even if they don't understand what they mean. That's how they learn. And that's a good thing, that's a God given thing. But think about the implications of that. When, oh, I'm alone watching pornography in my room and no one knows about it and I've been watching it and watching it and watching it and I'm getting this chemical release in my brain that feels good. So I want to go back and do it over and over again. Eventually maybe I want to act this out, I want to try it on someone. And so what we're seeing is there's just a huge number of kids who are sexually assaulting other kids because they're acting out what they're seeing pornography and they really have no understanding of the implications of really the consequences. It's my brain has been so conditioned by this highly addictive content. Now I want to act out the thing I've been seeing. And now think about, you know, for the child who's acting out another child, they're usually finding someone they have access to, so a sibling, someone at school. So now it's even more complicated because if you're a parent and say your 12 year old son is acted out on your 5 year old daughter because of what he's seen in porn, what do you do with that? How do you talk about it? Where do you find support? How do you separate them? Right. Like just the layers of trauma around all this are so complex and it's incredibly common and I think a lot of people don't want to talk about it because it's like, well, I can't save my kids. Sexually abused my other kid and we'll, no one will want to ever hang out with us. Again, so we'll just suffer in silence, when the reality is there is absolutely open healing for that. But this is a very common thing we're seeing with kids, is they're acting out what they're watching.

Dr. Jessica Peck: Parents today, I feel like they. There's such an undercurrent of fear in parenting today. And we're so afraid. We don't want our kids to be exposed. And we're focusing all of our efforts there and trying to reduce exposure. But we're doing it through those traditional methods, like we know, like, okay, don't watch a pornographic website, you know, don't talk to strangers on the street. But meanwhile, kids are inviting thousands of strangers into their bedrooms every single night. And those strangers, there are many strangers who have a nefarious intent. They intend to groom and exploit and abuse children. They intend to sell children as products. And this is happening through platforms that seem very innocuous. You mentioned Roblox and I have shared about the report that came out on Roblox that called it a pedophile hellscape, that was the word that was used in there. And we see it in messaging. We, it can, you can watch, you can share pornographic videos through imessaging. It happens with, you know, pornographic videos embedded in normal YouTube videos. And I think it's important, Heidi, for parents to understand that when kids see this, their body has a reaction. They feel, feel a lot of shame, but they maybe don't know why. They don't have words to explain their experience. And there's just a lot of quietness. And like you said, if it's not caught early, you're really going to work against yourself because their brain is creating this preferred neural pathway that becomes entrenched that's really hard to, to, to counteract and to pull out of. And so what would you say to parents? We're going to our second break here, but what would you say quickly to parents, what are some steps that they can take right now to help put up some safety guards and safety rails for their kids?

Heidi Olson: Yeah, I'd say the biggest thing is if your child has access to a device, even it's just scrolling on your phone, you have to talk to them about pornography. You have to, of course, in an age appropriate way. But there is a chance they're going to be exposed to sexually explicit content even with all the safeguards in place. And so these conversations need to happen.

Dr. Jessica Peck: Happen, absolutely. We will be talking more with Heidi Olson when we come back. This is such an important conversation. Once again, I want you to I want to point you to the documentary. Now the documentary goes into a lot of detail and if you have kids at home, these are things you absolutely need to be aware of and it's things that we don't want to talk about, but we absolutely need to talk about. God has entrusted our children to us and we have got to stoop steward that not from a fear based approach that we can be afraid of everything but that we can be faith informed and help equip our kids to meet those threats. Check out the the documentary the Heidi olson story on afa.net we'll be right back with more.

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American Family Studios is releasing a documentary about early exposure to pornography

Dr. Jessica Peck: Welcome back friends. That is do it again by Elevation Worship and many of you may be in a situation where you have experienced abuse. We're talking about a tough topic today, but one that needs to be talked about. So giving a listener advisory to adjust your listening audience. And we are highlighting something called the Heidi Olsen Story. This is the newest episode of the Impact series from American Family Studios. You can stream it on the AFA app. You can go to afa.net and find it from there. And this powerful documentary shares Heidi's stories and help helps viewers understand how early experience exposure to pornography is impacting children and families across the country. And we encourage you not just to watch it, but to share it with your church leaders, with your school counselors, with your school nurses, with your local therapists, hospitals and even school boards. It's a resource that can help communicate and help communities communicate to start very important conversations. Heidi is a pediatric sexual assault nurse examiner who has personally conducted more than 1500 exams and she shared her own story of abuse and trauma now has made it her life's mission to respond to children who have been abused or exploited. And Heidi, before the break, we Were right in the middle of talking about the pornography epidemic and about it being a public health crisis. Now this is very. We see a lot of controversy about this and the, and the push to really normalize pornography. And I saw a change in that since COVID and I'm using the term loosely, but professionally produced pornography really went away. And we went almost entirely to user generated pornography. And if you're really familiar, which I hope that most of you are not, with the, pornography industry, there is an increased demand for more realistic, more violent, more exploitative pornography, that is, really exploiting people with disabilities, m. familial relationships. I mean, we are talking about some very, very disturbing things. But it's important to know that that is changing. And now with AI here being able to generate abusive images, the argument that I'm hearing is, hey, this is fine because adults can do what they want and it doesn't harm children. But that generation of pornography increases demand to the point where people are not satisfied until they act that out. And so, Heidi, I would love for you just to share a little bit more about what parents need to know about pornography and how we can protect our kids from it.

Heidi Olson: Yeah, absolutely. There's so many layers to it. You know, we could probably spend the next five hours talking about the way porn is impacting kids lives and adult lives. But a few things I want to highlight is I just read a study this week and they were talking to young males, so like 18 to 24. But they surveyed hundreds of them. And what they found is these young males preferred AI generated pornography over real women's bodies. And so think about the implications of that. Right?

Heidi Olson: I mean, any type of pornography viewing, I would say the objectification is problematic. But when now we're teaching a young generation of boys of don't even be attracted to real women. Ah, you can create the perfect caricature of whatever you want with AI and be sexually aroused by that. That's a problem, right? that's going to be a huge problem in terms of setting, you know, arousal templates and things like that. It's going to be, I think, really difficult in terms of dating landscapes and things like that. When you think about, we're teaching people to be excited about something, they can curate to whatever they want and will be perfect, you know, in whatever way. So I think that's kind of scary to think about what's coming down the pipe. But I think other things parents need to know is porn is so saturated in kids worlds, whether they're looking at it or not. And so, and I think what it does is it does normalize self exploitation and things like that. So what we see with a lot of young girls is the messages they're getting over and over is you're like the girls on OnlyFans. If you're like the girls in pornography, then you're hotter, you're more desirable. So send naked pictures, it's fine, it's no big deal. And I think there's a lot of pressure on girls. You need to look a certain way, talk a certain way, be okay with degradation and sex, sex acts. let me give you an example. I was at the gym the other day. I'm on the stair stepper, dying, doing my own thing. Got my AirPods in this kid, high school kid is next to me. We're just ignoring each other. Great. his two high school friends come over to talk to him and he shows them a picture of a girl, I think on Instagram, I couldn't quite see it. And he starts using the most graphic, pornographic, horrifyingly degrading language to talk about this girl. It was so bad. I looked at him like, dude, we're in public, stop. And so I stare at him and he looks at me and goes, I'm a 15 year old boy, what do you expect? And he was talking to a male and a female. So all the degrading words he's using, he's saying in front of a female classmate, right? Like, what is that teaching in, this whole interaction, but the defiance towards me, right, of like, what, it's fine if I do this? And so I think just seeing the way pornography is just impacting so many behaviors, kind of the way kids see each other. another example is just language I even hear with kids who are growing up in Christian homes, going to Christian schools. But they use pornographic language to describe things and they don't even realize it. So I asked a couple of teenage girls last summer, like, have you heard of the Bop House? And just quickly, the Bop House is a group of young Girls, like ages 18 to 24, who all create pornography on only fans. They make millions and millions of dollars because there's such a high demand for that barely legal age group. these girls all have very plastic surgery kind of fake bodies fulfilling a lot of fantasies, right? So they live in a house together, it's called the Bop House. And they show how glamorous their life is on social media, right? We fly in private jets and we do all this fun stuff. And our life is great. And there's no downsides to creating pornography. Seemingly among all these girls, if you count all their social media followers, they have over 90 million social media followers. Many of them are teenagers. And so all these kids know, they, they know what's happening in the lives of these quote unquote porn stars. So I asked these conservative Christian teenage girls, do you know about the podcast? Yes, yes, yes, yes. They all know about it. Even though these girls probably are not actively watching pornography, they may not even have social media. It still trickles into their life in so many ways. And so I think, like we were saying earlier, we have to talk to our kids about in a non shaming way. Right. We know porn is everywhere. You're not in trouble if you see it. We, we know you probably will at some point. So let's talk about what that means and why it's not healthy, what healthy sexuality looks like kind of versus a kids, these porn. And then it's that reactivity of like, oh my gosh, end of the world. You know, I think there's a much better way we can approach this to protect our kids.

Dr. Jessica Peck: Oh, I definitely want to circle back and revisit that.

One of the things concerning me the most is how quickly pornography is emerging in mainstream culture

But I want to say first, Heidi, I am seeing this, you know, we, for, people who are not regularly engaged. And I hope that that is, that is you who are listening. If you're not watching pornography, you just can't imagine how quickly it is moving downhill. And one of the things that's concerning me the most, Heidi, is how quickly it is emerging in mainstream culture. So we're not talking about, you know, the triple X rated sites, websites that people go to. We're talking about mainstream movies. And I have seen, a lot of movies and I don't want to give any of them media play here, but there was one that came out not too long ago that was very explicit and kind of the social media viral trend that happened after that was to show your shocked face after you watched it. Well, of course this generates a lot of curiosity and like, this isn't something that you're getting in a seedy bookstore, you know, where you're walking in to the, to that shop. You know that that's all creepy and everything. This is just things that are just showing in the movie theater that you're just walking in and watching. And it seems like it's so appropriate. And these movies are glamorized. And I know I've received a lot of pushback online saying like, this is just a normal expression and it is not, it is deeply harmful. But kids don't respond to that. And one thing that we do know from research is that fear based strategies don't work. Fear based strategies are only effective in generating fear. And shame based strategies don't work. So many times when parents decide discover that their child is watching pornography or they come and disclose it. I know a lot of kids will come to their parent because they're getting scared. They feel like, they're out of control. And parents do exactly what you said. And I think really, if we're really gut level honest, Heidi, I think a lot of times parents start to accelerate and think, oh my gosh, what are people going to think about you? What does this say about me as a parent and this internal narrative rather than recognizing, okay, my kid has been exposed to traumatic experiences online. Regardless of the circumstances, regardless of how they engage, regardless of how they didn't tell me, the fact is they have been exposed to traumatic experiences. And so if you can just stop in that moment, just say, I'm so sorry you experienced this. And then what do you do going from there. Let's talk a little bit through that disclosure or discovery piece.

Heidi Olson: Yeah, so just like a disclosure with sexual abuse, I would say same thing in that it's, being calm, you know, thank you so much for trusting us with this. You're not in trouble, you know, and maybe asking a few probing questions, just trying to figure out how did they access it, how often is this happening? Right. Like, so tell me more about what you saw, when you saw it, so you can put more protective parameters in place. But absolutely, to your point, what kids are seeing is extremely violent. They're not just seeing an image of a naked person. Those days of pornography are long gone. Most kids are seeing stuff that is, it would blow your mind how horrendous it is. And so they are being traumatized. And so if they need to externalize that, it might also be a really good idea to have them talk to a therapist for a little while. Especially if they're continuing to want to seek pornography. Right. They may need some professional help in learning different coping skills. but being able to. Do you want to process it? What did you see? And even just some of those making meaning out of it. What, what messages do you think that you received in watching that? Oh, your body doesn't look like that. Oh, sex seems scary, right? Yes. Let's talk through some of this stuff. So I think asking curious questions and just reminding them like, you're safe. I'm sorry that happened to you. You're not in trouble. That's gonna go really well versus that. exactly. If it's fear based, shame based, they're never gonna say anything again.

Dr. Jessica Peck: That's so hard. I can hear already some parents pushing back, saying, like, what do you mean you're not in trouble? They should be in trouble if they do that. And I think, Heidi, that it's easy for us who grew up in a, in a different generation where pornography was not very accessible. You really did have to make a long series of choices if you were going to access pornography. You know, you were gonna have to get money from somewhere, you were going to have to travel somewhere, you were going to have to buy something physically off a shelf or, you know, just there were more steps involved. But with the way that the algorithm works now with social media, I think parents need to understand that there are predators online who are seeking kids and trying to get them to watch more. And there are psychologists even who are employed by some of these companies that are thinking, okay, how can we make it the entry bar lower? How can we make it seem more accessible? How can we ramp it up? How can we keep them on? That is not a fair fight. And when we shame our kids for saying, why did you make that choice? We have to understand what they're up against and realize that many times they are not equipped for that. And it is. And many times it is not their fault that they fell victim to that. And you all. one other point that I want to make, Heidi, is that sometimes kids will use that pornography as a coping mechanism because it does release endorphins and feel good chemicals in your brain. And they've got to learn other ways to cope with that. And sometimes you do need professional mental health, mental counseling or therapist help to help with that.

Heidi Olson: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I think it's a great idea. There's no shame in having to seek that. Helplessness is an addicting thing. Just like if a kid was using fentanyl or meth or something like that, we would probably say, yes, let's get you professional help. Pornography, absolutely can impact the brain in very similar ways. And that doesn't mean that, you know, if we're saying you're not in trouble, it doesn't mean that there aren't consequences. Meaning maybe there's better filtering on the phone. Maybe you don't get to have your phone in, your room anymore, you know. Right. Like, of course, put protective boundaries in place. I'm not advocating for just a free for all by any means. But I think when we can approach it with compassion and kindness, because a lot of foreign exposure at first is accidental, that's going to create trace, safety and trust with the child.

Dr. Jessica Peck: Absolutely. And really, honestly, Heidi, what I see is what they've experienced is honestly punishment enough. Many times putting those boundaries, putting protective parameters, having new guidelines, new structure, those kinds of things. Absolutely. And the question to ask is, okay, what do we need to change going forward to help support you to be safe, to be healthy, to make good choices? That's what the guardrails that we're going to put in place there. Well, Heidi, I am so grateful that you have joined us today to talk about this important issue. I think it is something that we need to talk about more as we see especially increase in AI exploitation of children that is just going to impact real children in real ways. tell us one more time about the documentary. Any last things that you want to say to encourage people to watch?

Heidi Olson: Yeah. I want to leave you on a note of hope, and I feel like that's what the documentary does as well. The producers did such a beautiful job where, yes, this is heavy, it's dark, it's ugly. It's absolutely an attempt to harm children. for sure. I think there's a lot of spiritual darkness behind all of this. But we serve this amazingly huge God who is all about redemption and healing and. And hope. And he sees us. He sees this battle that we're in, and he cares about what happens to us, our kids. And so it's not all in vain, you know?

Dr. Jessica Peck: Amen. And amen to that. Heidi, thank you again for. For joining us, for leaving us with a message of hope. And I pray that you will go and watch the documentary and have conversations with your kids, with your kids, teachers, with the pastors, the church leaders, everybody. And as you do when we all work to protect our kids, I pray the Lord will bless you and keep you and make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. We'll see you here next time. We'd like to thank our sponsors, including PreBorn. PreBorn has rescued over 400,000 babies from abortion. And every day their network clinics rescue 200 babies lives. Will you join PreBorn in loving and supporting young moms in crisis? Save a life today. Go to preborn.com/AFR

Jeff Chamblee: The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family association or American Family Radio.

Heidi Olson joins Jessica to talk about the fifth episode of American Family Studios' Impact Series titled "The Heidi Olson Story"

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