Welcome! In this post we dive further into talking about sex with your kids. Specifically, God’s beautiful design for it.
“Love and sex — don’t they mean the same thing?”
We live in an age of information overload. Yet there’s so much misinformation about love, sex, and relationships. For many people, love and sex DO mean the same thing. But in last week’s post we talked about how they actually differ, especially to God. So much of the confusion stems from people having a desire for love — but not understanding what real love looks like.
Young people desperately need to hear and hold a positive, biblical worldview about God’s design for sex. Without this foundation in place, it’s no surprise to see so many end up broken, facing all kinds of challenges in their lives and relationships.
When we are talking about sex with our youth, we need to help them see that it’s a sacred act, not a casual one. Yet society pushes sexual exploration and immorality on our kids, encouraging them to embrace a cheapened morality. Parents, we don’t have to feel helpless about this influence. We can fight back by taking an active role in guiding our kids to understand God’s beautiful design for sex. We can help our kids to know and stand on the truth so they enjoy their best life.
Helpful Parenting Resource
Trust me, even when our kids act like they’re grossed out that we’re talking about sex, they are listening. Especially when we approach them with respect. They want to know what we think. Kids love to hear real stories of how we’ve gained our wisdom!
One resource that has equipped me and my husband, Alex, to have these conversations with our kids is Josh McDowell’s book, The Bare Facts: 39 Questions Your Parents Hope You Never Ask About Sex. Josh wrote the book because he believes knowledge, not ignorance, is the key to youthful purity. Using entertaining anecdotes, real stories, and biblical insights, Bare Facts delivers frank and biblical answers to top questions our kids are asking about sex, love, and relationships.
I read the book first, to prepare myself for talking with my teenagers. And then I gave them the book to them to read for themselves, to put us on the same page, literally. You can read some sample pages of Bare Facts by clicking here. You can order the book alone or as a book/DVD set, for use in small groups.
Love and sex are not the same thing, though that’s the message our kids see in entertainment and the media. In talking about sex with our kids, we guide them in valuing the role God intends for sex. And we help them to hold fast to His standard, despite the siren call of our increasingly sexualized society. Our kids can’t know the truth, if we leave it to society to instruct them.
As parents, we need to be ready to have important conversations with our kids. We need to make sure they feel free to ask questions and are prepared to make good choices. We need to make sure they aren’t doing life from shame or fear, but living in the light of God’s truth.
The Bare Facts: 39 Questions Your Parents Hope You Never Ask About Sex, you can talk to your kids about:
> Whether sexting and oral sex are big deals.
> How to deal with their hormones, emotions, and sexual attraction.
> Choosing to not view porn, to skip its addictive grip.
> Why waiting to have sex until marriage has some really big perks.
> God’s amazing grace and forgiveness if they’ve already had sex.
⇒ ⇒ Click here to see all of Josh’s parenting videos
Many thanks to guest blogger Sheryl McLellan.
