Sex Education in the Christian Family

Parents as Sex Educators

If the title alone has caused feelings of panic and immediate desire to vacate the premises, keep reading! On the other hand, you may view the title as something completely comfortable and currently a part of your parental role. If so, good for you! Keep reading! As parents, we naturally want to give our children the best opportunities for positive, healthy growth and development.  A crucial part of our children’s development is sexual development.  I’m going to pause for a moment to let that sink in.

Your children are developing sexually. 

I know what you may be thinking…“Wait…WHAT?!  My child doesn’t have a clue about sex! They haven’t even asked where babies come from…yet!” 

The reality is that our children generally know more than we think they know, think about more than we think they think, and are CURIOUS…  We are our children’s most important source of sex education and thankfully, studies show that they actually prefer us as sex educators over peers or teachers.  This is so encouraging, isn’t it?!  Our children indicate that they actually want for us to talk with them regarding sex and relationships! Oh, sure, they will likely “Aw, Mom!” or “Seriously… Dad?!” if we haven’t begun those conversations with much frequency, yet the more comfortable we appear (or fake it), the more comfortable they will become (and vice versa!).  These conversations are best started early in life, but parents, please don’t lose heart…it’s never too late!  Parent-child communication in regard to sexuality information is one of the most important influences in regard to a child’s sexual behavior and beliefs.  This is great news for us as parents.  It is comforting to know that research supports that we do have the ability to positively impact our children’s decisions regarding sexual behavior.

Though the impact of communication with our children regarding sex is evidenced to be great, many parents hesitate to engage in these conversations.  Some research indicates that parents’ hesitate to engage in sexuality conversations with their children due to the belief that the children are too young or immature, overall parental discomfort with the topic, perceived lack of knowledge regarding sexuality, and other parental inhibitions.  Interestingly, additional studies suggest that parents who describe themselves as religious engage in even less communication regarding sexuality than those who do not indicate any religiosity.  This is not meant to discourage us as Christian parents, yet to make us aware that we may naturally assume that our children will make more “Godly choices” regarding sexual decisions.

Our role as Christian parents is to equip our children to be Godly men and women as He designed them, including sexually pure, healthy, informed, and fulfilled men and women.  As we are following God’s call on our lives as parents to “Train a child in the way he should go…” (Proverbs 22:6), let us not overlook this crucial part of their training and development.  God reminds parents in Deuteronomy 6:7 regarding His commands that we are to “Repeat them again and again to your children.”  This means that we are to repeat our messages/teachings to our children over and over throughout their lives.  How many times have you told your child something just once and they did exactly what you said precisely the way that you said it forevermore?!  It doesn’t likely happen.  “Training” our children is an ongoing effort.  As parents, we have daily opportunities to teach our children about sex and sexual relationships.  This training will look very different with a 3 year old as we explain “Good touch/bad touch” and demonstrate good touch with them and model it with our other relationships versus training with our 15 year old as we perhaps guide them through clothing shopping and include modesty talks or discuss appropriate text messaging with friends, etc.  The most important characteristic of these discussions is parental openness and seizing opportunity as it presents itself (and also creating opportunity on numerous occasions).

Our take-away for today is this:  We have a God-given responsibility to educate our children regarding sexuality throughout their childhood.  This begins even when they are a baby and we are providing healthy nurturance and affection, it continues as they grow older into toddlers and we teach them about their private areas and good touch/bad touch, and continues into childhood, adolescence, and the teen years as we provide age appropriate, informative truths regarding sex. 

Make plans to attend the next Sex Education in the Christian Family seminar.  Two seminars will be held in Dacula at Hebron Baptist Church on May 1 at 6:45 and May 5 at 5:00.  Pre-register by contacting Sherie directly at 404-784-6809 or Sherie.1@netzero.net.