I caught my son looking at pictures of nude women and stimulating himself

Answer:

I have several suggestions and I hope you will take the time to examine each one. Do not be concerned about your English, my German is far worse! I hope this reply is understandable and clear.

There is an organization, the Home School Legal Defense Association, which is trying to get homeschooling recognized as a legal option in all countries. It has actively supported homeschooling in Germany, though it has been declared illegal in your country. You can get more information on the HSLDA's Germany page. I happen to be a homeschooling father myself, so I understand your difficulties in dealing with government officials.

I agree that your son's use of pornography must be corrected, but by starting with severe punishment, you limited your options when his offenses are repeated. If you had asked me beforehand, I would have asked you to select a punishment more appropriate for his misdeed and reserve the spankings for times he willfully disobeys. I am not a fan of using a belt because it is too easy to cause injury. Rather than repeat the information, please see: "A series of questions about spanking" as a starter and if you have additional questions, let me know.

The problem with handling pornography is its addictive properties, especially among young men. Men are more visually stimulated by sexual desire as opposed to women who are usually more stimulated by relationships. Though some women have a problem with pornography, it is much more a problem with men. Add to this that a teenage boy's sexual desire is just awakening and he has almost no experience in controlling those desires. Therefore, you have a large and difficult problem on your hand.

It helps to discuss intimate topics, such as sexual desires, with someone else because in a household you live too close together. Parents don't like thinking that their children are having desires for sex, but then, children can't stand the thoughts that their parents have sexual desires. This makes talking about such things difficult with people you see daily and sometimes not in the best of circumstances. I have been asked numerous times to help parents deal with the problem of pornography, and here is my basic approach:

1. Discuss in detail the process of growing up and how the reproductive organs work. The material I use in the first three chapters of Growing Up in the Lord: A Study for Teenage Boys. A young man needs to know why he has the feelings and desires he is experiencing, but more importantly, he needs to know how his reproductive system works. It is very easy to confuse the physical processes for personal desires. Paul talks about this in that confusing section at the end of Romans 7:14-25. Intellectually we might know we must behave in a certain way, but our body's desires pull us in a different direction. This conflict between knowing what we ought to do and wanting to do something different exposes a weak point in our defense against sin. Satan takes advantage of this.
2. I then discuss the nature of sin and temptation at length using James 1:13-16 and I John 2:15-17 as the base passages. The chapter "What is Lust?" in Growing Up in the Lord, has a light introduction, but when a young man is already caught up in sin, he needs more information. See the sermon outline, "The Nature of Sin, Temptation, and Lust." After covering the basic material, I use a neutral topic of selling products to show how advertisers use these basic principles to get people to purchase their goods. I use commercials and print advertisements to have the young man identify which principles of lust are being used and what desires to which they are appealing. Once the young man understands the concept, I then point out that Satan is in the market to sell sin, and he uses the same principles.
3. Next, I define what is pornography. See the article, "A Look at Pornography" for how this is done. Using the concepts of how sin is sold, I then have the young man tell me how the pornography industry makes its images appealing. I emphasize the use of bright colors, the position of bodies to direct the eyes, and the common lack of the man's face to encourage the viewer to imagine himself in place of the man. I also ask the young man if the sexual organs are of normal size or not (they are not) and why would they make them appear bigger than normal. If the young man pretends to be ignorant, I have in a large envelope the material the parents found in his room. I make him take it out and discuss it. If I can avoid it, I rather not see it myself, but one of the big problems of addictive sin is a denial that it exists or that the person has a problem with it. Some young men need an imaginary sledgehammer over their heads to admit the problem exists.
4. Then, I discuss the dangers of pornography, especially its impact on his view of women and his future sex life. The article, "A Look at Pornography" covers these points as well. I put it as bluntly and as clearly as I can, even though it is embarrassing for both of us. I then talk with the young man about his personal motivation for looking at pornography. This is where it gets rough on dads because most of us don't want to know that our sons are having such thoughts.
5. Finally, we have a discussion on why pornography is available. Certainly, there is a reason why it is freely accessible on the Internet and put into magazines. The answer is that people make a lot of money off of it. The "free" stuff is just like the drug pusher giving a person a sample of his drugs. He knows that once the desire is built, he will come back for more, even if he has to pay for it. I also discuss how people become numb to pornography after repeated exposure because it loses its shock value. Thus, people will look for more material and material with more explicit images. The sellers know this and have it available for a price. I then ask if the young man thinks these sellers care about him or his soul. I want the young man to realize that he is being used; that people are using his sexual desires to make money off of him and they don't care if it ruins him in the process.

I would then ask the boy to destroy the pornography that you've found and ask him to bring any other pornography hidden in his room out and destroy that as well. Let him know that you will be periodically checking his room because you realize how addictive it is. Tell him that you believe him when he says he won't do it again, but you know that if he realizes that someone will be looking over his shoulder, it will remove some of the temptations. If he does fall back into the trap, I would sit down and ask him why and wait for an answer, even though I'm sure I won't like it. I then would help him reason through whether his excuse was legitimate or self-deception. It is at this time I would consider using spanking, but there would be no need to continually increase the number of swats per incident unless you come to the conclusion that the number chosen is not making any impact on him.

The subject of masturbation is a bit more difficult. To use pornography to stimulate one's self to orgasm is clearly wrong (Matthew 5:28; I Thessalonians 4:3-5), and the discussion above should address most of the issues related to this practice. However, I believe there is more to this. Please read over "Is masturbation unacceptable?" I would go over this in detail with your son. One of the things to realize is that almost every male experiments with masturbation at some point in his life. I suspect that there is a reason behind this and it is perhaps one of the reasons God made the male's sexual organs partially external. Yet, there are dangers in connecting sexual desires to sinful thoughts because those thoughts can lead to sinful actions. Another concern is that children are prone to repetitive or compulsive behaviors. Because masturbation brings on strong pleasures, a teenage boy soon is pursuing pleasure for pleasure's sake. This is not a good state of mind as it leaves the boy open to temptations. As difficult as it will be, I would go back to talking about the mechanics of sex and talk about the seminal vesicles, their role in sexual desires, nocturnal emissions and their purpose, and the reason boys masturbate. It will be hard, but you will be passing on your experience and judgment to your son.