Posted on 08/30/2013 11:47:16 AM PDT by NYer
It’s probably not news to you that if you’re a parent, you’re supposed to talk with your kids about sex. If you’re like most parents, however, you get a queasy feeling in the pit of your stomach and your palms begin to sweat every time you think about it. You have no idea where to start. God knows your parents hardly ever talked with you about it. The moment of opportunity passes and you put it off again, hoping and praying you’ll have the courage next time.
According to research, teens of parents who push through their discomfort and talk with their children about sex, abstinence, the benefits of saving sex for marriage, possible emotional and physical consequences of sexual activity as teens and outside of marriage, are more likely to practice abstinence and less likely to engage in sexual intercourse, contract a sexually transmitted infection, become pregnant and/or have an abortion.1,2 Additionally, research has demonstrated over and over that teens whose parents spend social time with them have better relationships and higher self-esteem.3
So say a prayer for courage, do a little reading and develop a plan with your spouse. Then get talking! Here are 10 tips to help you on your way:
1. God created us as sexual beings! Sexuality, desire, morality and character are all in God’s plan for each human. Children need to understand their changing bodies and how to be good stewards of our bodies.
2. As Christian parents we need to understand chastity and modesty. Chastity is controlling voluntary expression of sexual pleasure according to our state in life. Modesty is the virtue that controls any acts which might cause lust or lead to sexual acts.
3. Don’t let your discomfort keep you from talking to your child about sex. You are the most important person in your child’s life and he needs to hear this from you! By opening the lines of communication, your child will eventually trust that he can come to you with questions, not to his peers. If you refrain from talking to your child about sex, he will mistakenly learn that sex is “shameful” and “bad.”
4. This is difficult for everyone. Most adults never had this experience with their parents. You are not alone. Ask a friend about how they talk to their child. Share stories, laugh.
5. Be prepared. This tip sheet is a great start! Read some of Gregory Popcak’s “Beyond the Birds and the Bees” or Fr. Henry V. Sattler’s “Parents, Children and The Facts of Life.” You don’t need to read the whole book.
6. Share joy and pride in your child becoming a young woman or young man. Fathers, take your son out to buy shaving supplies. Moms, take your daughter out to buy her first real bra.
7. Be honest, short and sweet. Don’t give too much information at first. When your children are entering puberty, you’ll need to initiate the conversation. Start small. For example, ask him if he knows what ______ is. Or what his friends say it is. Then you can give him a simple, straight forward explanation.
8. Be matter of fact, despite feeling nervous. Normalize your child’s feelings – this means you let your child know their feelings and body sensations are normal. Assure them that they are not “bad” when they have these sensations or thoughts. They need to know that sexuality is beautiful and part of God’s plan for each of us.
9. Provide your child with tools to appropriately attend to his growing changes. For example: Dads, talk to your son about your feelings when your genitals became aroused; normalize; provide some ways for dealing with these feelings. Moms, share with your daughter how you felt when you began menstruating; normalize, be sure you have supplies on hand.
10. Strive to encourage conversation, don’t lecture. This discussion will be ongoing over time, not a one-time conversation. You don’t have to, nor should you, try to get it all in during one conversation! Once you begin opening the line of conversation in this way, you won’t be as uncomfortable and neither will your tween.
Resources:
1. The Heritage Foundation, http://familyfacts.org/briefs/42/parents-influence-on-adolescents-sexual-behavior
2. http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/FB-ATSRH.html
3. Lam, C. B., McHale, S. M., & Crouter, A. C. (2012). Parent-child shared time from middle childhood to late adolescence: Developmental course and adjustment correlates.
Child Dev. 2012 Nov;83(6):2089-103. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2012.01826.x. Epub 2012 Aug 23.
Thanks for posting that. I started watching the clips of Debra’s (Patricia Heaton) interview. She’s so talented and really makes that show. She’s strongly pro-life as well.
Here it is:
Do it, you could get pregnant.
Do it, no abortion.
Do it, chance of STD.
Do it, get STD, might not be able to have babies when you DO want them.
Do it, you’re a loser and a fool.
I love Ally’s Question.
It is something that I still ponder myself at the age of 50.
Why are we here?
The answer is very simple and, if you think about it, quite obvious. And, no, it is not because heaven is overcrowded. Back in the 1950s, Catholic children learned their faith through the Baltimore Catechism. The answer for a child Ally's age is:
6. Q. Why did God make you?
A. God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him forever in heaven.
The "adult" Catechism states it in similar terms:
I. The life of man - to know and love God
1 God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life. For this reason, at every time and in every place, God draws close to man. He calls man to seek him, to know him, to love him with all his strength. He calls together all men, scattered and divided by sin, into the unity of his family, the Church. To accomplish this, when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son as Redeemer and Saviour. In his Son and through him, he invites men to become, in the Holy Spirit, his adopted children and thus heirs of his blessed life.
2 So that this call should resound throughout the world, Christ sent forth the apostles he had chosen, commissioning them to proclaim the gospel: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age."4 Strengthened by this mission, the apostles "went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by the signs that attended it."5
3 Those who with God's help have welcomed Christ's call and freely responded to it are urged on by love of Christ to proclaim the Good News everywhere in the world. This treasure, received from the apostles, has been faithfully guarded by their successors. All Christ's faithful are called to hand it on from generation to generation, by professing the faith, by living it in fraternal sharing, and by celebrating it in liturgy and prayer.6
CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
My observation (6 children so far through “tween” age) is that they are completely disgusted by the idea and would much rather discuss computer games.
Thank you for this.
Your answer is correct.
What is the next question?
PS. Read some of these heart-warming stories about girls who kept their babies!
Actually Planned Parenthood was allowed to teach sex ed in two of the local high schools. Typical Oregon, huh?
What is a tween?
Don,t worry about it, before they are even old enough to be asking those kind questions the teachers at preschool will already be required to teach them every thing they need to know, your children are in good hands.
I don,t know if my sister talked to our mother about such things but i would have died before i would have even mentioned such a thing to my mother, or even my dad unless i had a good reason which i never did.
Nothing surprises me on the left coast.
I would have never talked to my parents about anything. I have a much different relationship with my kids. Thank God!
I would have never talked to my parents about anything. I have a much different relationship with my kids. Thank God!
I would have never talked to my parents about anything. I have a much different relationship with my kids. Thank God!
I do not have any kids to raise and maybe it sounds rude but i thank God for that although i have at least a half dozen great grand children some of them just visited.
And the saying is that there has never been a child raised right in the history of the world.
We got our daughter a pretty good explanatory book from the library when she was about 10-11, and offered to take on any questions she had. It was actually pretty easy from that point forward.
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