Talking Sex by The Book - Sample

TALKING SEX BY THE BOOK

GIVING KIDS A BIBLE-BASED VIEW OF IDENTITY, RELATIONSHIPS AND SEXUALITY

An imprint of Anglican Youthworks

Published 2020

Reprinted 2021, 2023

Copyright © Patricia Weerakoon 2020

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Scripture taken from The Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®

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Theological editor – Guan Un

Cover design and internals – Andrew Hope

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

To all the parents and grandparents I have spoken to over the last seven years. Your enthusiasm, support and prayers have encouraged me. Your questions and comments form the foundation of this book.

WHY YOU NEED TO HAVE THIS TALK

• ‘My six-year-old son keeps touching his genitals.’

• ‘My ten-year-old daughter was shown an emoji of oral sex in school.’

• ‘Boys in the school bus showed my nine-year-old son pornographic videos. He came home crying.’

• ‘My little girl came home from school terrified. Her teacher had told her that she can be a boy or a girl. She wants me to take her to the doctor to find out if she is a girl. She is six years old.’

• ‘My 13-year-old daughter showed me a text from a girlfriend where she asked my daughter if she had ever been kissed and invited her to try it with her.’

• ‘My six-year-old daughter was told by her 13-year-old cousin that her parents had sex. I don’t think either of them have any idea what sex is!’

• ‘My 15-year-old daughter has decided that she is transgender and wants to be a boy.’

These are real-life scenarios. Do one or more of these sound familiar to you? Maybe you have other stories to share? Are you a parent who wants to teach your children about sex but feels unprepared and

anxious? Do you worry that talking to children about sex will whet their appetite and make them want to ‘do it’?

Children today are the most connected, socially aware, advertisedto and sexualised generation that ever walked planet earth. Many of the parents I speak to are struggling to know how best to communicate with their children and keep up with the challenges they are facing, particularly in the areas of sexuality and the cyberworld. You may be one of these. But the conversation has to happen. Avoiding it will make your children seek information elsewhere. Ignorance is not an option.

This is why I have written this book. It is a book for all ages and all types of people involved in parenting.

It is for biological parents and adoptive parents, foster parents and grandparents. It is for single and married aunties and uncles who play a role in parenting. But there is more. Every member of the church has a part to play in nurturing the children in the church family, so if you belong to a church, this book is for you too. In fact, this is a book for everyone.

This book is about a unique component of parenting. It is about nurturing children in God’s truth of sex, identity, marriage, intimacy and relationship. It is about giving them a roadmap based on God’s word and the Bible to navigate the rocky terrain of a sexualised cyberworld.

You may not realise it but when it comes to sex, intimacy and relationships, both what you say and how you behave matter to children. The transfer of knowledge, beliefs and values occurs in intentional ways when parents, school or church speak directly to children from a very young age. However, children also learn in non-intentional ways from the behaviour and role-modelling of parents, siblings and significant others including those of the church family. This latter process of sexual socialisation is easily neglected.

This book gives you Bible-based guidelines based on current secular research. It is not a set of rules or recipes for successful sex education and parenting. Every child and family situation is unique, and you are

encouraged to read, discuss, digest and apply these principles as best suits your family.

The book is presented in two parts.

Part 1 gives you an overview of current guidelines on parenting and sex education in a biblical framework, and discusses the myths and misconceptions that act as obstacles to effective communication.

Part 2 gives you the knowledge and skills to provide age-appropriate sex education that enables children to understand the science of sex and develop a value system based on God’s overarching plan for sex, gender and marriage. This will empower them to counter secular attitudes and behaviour, and gives them the skills they need to make wise choices.

Each chapter in Part 2 will cover one topic. Each topic will be discussed in terms of the science and cultural norms. A biblical framework of the issues children face and the role of parents in helping and guiding them will be discussed in four age groups: less than 5 years (toddlers); 5–10 years (primary school); 10–14 years (tweenagers) and over 15 years (teenagers).

In this part, you will find that I refer to three other books I have written: Teen Sex by the Book written for your older teens and young adult children; Growing Up by the Book for your tweenagers between 10 and 14 years and Birds and Bees by the Book, a book for you to read with your primary-schoolers.

I refer to these books to give you a resource for communication with your children. Use the three books as a connection point for conversation.

HOW TO GET THE MOST OUT OF THIS BOOK

This book is not a textbook on parenting or sex education. It is a guide. I recommend that you read Part 1 as a whole and absorb the broad principles discussed. When reading Part 2, I recommend that you read

Sex by the Book

the Introduction section in each chapter and then concentrate on the particular age group of your child. You may find some sections repetitive, if you are reading this book from cover to cover. This is because this book is designed in order to make each section a standalone guide.

At intervals you will come across Reflection boxes. I recommend that you take time to work through these. They allow you to think about your own values, beliefs and knowledge both individually and, if applicable, as a couple. Some Reflection boxes recommend activities that you could share in parenting group discussions. These will help you understand that you are not alone on this journey.

You will also see Gospel opportunity points referred to throughout. These are there to prompt you to bring the conversations you’re having back to the core message of the Bible. They will enable your children to understand how these good principles you are pointing them to fit into God’s plan for their relationships and life.

INTRODUCTION

Having a new baby in your life is joyous and exciting. They’re your perfect little bundle of joy. You have that glorious sense of achievement at having played a part in the creation of another human being, or in welcoming a new life into your home if you are adopting. And you share the happiness of being mum or dad with grandparents, siblings and your faith community. A baby brings the incredible feeling that God has deemed you worthy of nurturing a new life to adulthood.

These feelings are good and right. Marriage and parenting are the climax of God’s creative activity (Genesis 1:28; 20–25). Man and woman together are blessed by God and commanded to have children to fill the earth and subdue it. This, God said, is ‘very good’ (Genesis 1:31).

But, as every parent knows, these early feelings of euphoria are transient. Very soon we realise that parenting involves sleepless nights, nappies and colic. We find ourselves praying not for wisdom for godly parenting, but for a few hours of uninterrupted sleep.

Then, all too soon, we have toddlers and preschoolers with their endless curiosity and boundless energy. They have questions about their body and wonder where they came from and why daddy or mummy, brother or sister look different to them.

We realise that our children are sexual beings. In all their created goodness as boy or girl, their bodies are designed for sexual relations

and their minds wired to appreciate the one-flesh, naked-and-noshame relationship of sexual intimacy (Genesis 2:21–25).

Childhood curiosity about their own body, and other people’s bodies, and sexuality in general, is good and natural. It is definitely not something to be discouraged or prohibited. Rather, it is an opportunity for parents to commence their journey as the primary sex educators of their children.

Gen Alphas (born on or after 20101) will, if they haven’t already, soon discover YouTube, Netflix, television, music videos and a plethora of social media apps. Some may even stumble across pornography. It is time for you to start the conversation.

REFLECTION

List your children by age and think about the various sources where they might get information (and misinformation) about sex.

Think about:

• friends (names)

• social media (specific apps on their phone)

• video games

• other sources: television, Netflix, magazines, billboard advertising.

You could use this activity for a discussion with your parent group.

1. McCrindle Research 2019, ‘Generation next: Meet Gen Z and the Alphas’, https:// mccrindle.com.au/article/generation-next-meet-gen-z-and-the-alphas/

Once you begin communicating with your child about their body, sex, intimacy and relationships, you will continue until they are an adult and leave home. They may even return with their kids—and you will continue your mentoring into the next generation with your grandchildren.

If your child is already a preteen or teen, they’re a Gen Z (born between 1995 and 20092). Gen Zs are internet-savvy, technologically literate children of the cyber-generation. Their communications, relationships, identity and sexuality all seem to be generated and determined by their smartphones. They are ‘woke’, having a global awareness of social issues. And, while technology buffers and brokers their relationships, it also feeds their loneliness3 and the toxic comparison that hollows meaning from their lives.

As your child grows, the methods and language you use to communicate with them will change, but the message of God’s good plan and purpose for their lives, including their body, identity and sexuality, will remain the same.

God created humanity male and female. It’s good for us to know ourselves as either a man or a woman, a boy or a girl. As either a boy or a girl, it’s good for us to ‘love’ other people—to care about them, want to be with them, and want them to be happy. Most of the time, and with the vast majority of people, this ‘love’ is not sexual. Sexual love, and the romantic and erotic feelings and actions associated with sexual love, is good—in fact, very good. But precisely because it’s so good, it is both powerful and fragile. That’s why God created a particular relational context for sexual love—the marriage of one man to one woman, for life.

2. McCrindle Research 2019, ‘5 factors de ning Generation Z’, https://mccrindle.com. au/article/topic/generation-z/5-factors-de ning-generation-z/

3. Twenge, JM, Haidt, J, Blake, AB, McAllister, C, Lemon, H & Le Roy, A 2021, ‘Worldwide increases in adolescent loneliness’, Journal of Adolescence, https://district8sonpm.org/ wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Adolescent-Loneliness-Twenge-201.pdf

Nowadays, this idea that there is a healthy pattern to our sexuality is not popular. Sin—our rejection of God—fractures God’s pattern for sexuality in various ways. And our children are in danger of being drawn into a secular world view without realising it.

This book will support you as you help your children see that there are two ways to think about everything: the world’s way and God’s way. You can give them a glorious biblical vision of what God intends for sex, gender, intimacy and marriage.

The Bible consistently presents heterosexual monogamous marriage as the place where sexual intimacy is expressed in a way that is relevant to any cultural background, and every age and stage of life. It’s good for everyone because it’s a pattern from creation (Genesis 1:26–28; 2:18–25), as Jesus himself recognised and affirmed (Matthew 19:4–6; Mark 10:6–9).

The created ‘law’ of marriage is not the major reason we believe in heterosexual monogamous marriage. We believe it’s good because of its connection to the gospel. God uses heterosexual monogamous marriage as an image of the relationship between Jesus Christ and his people, the church—his bride, for whom he, the heavenly bridegroom, shed his blood (Matthew 9:15; 2 Corinthians 11:2–3; Ephesians 5:21–33; Revelation 19:7; 21:2. For the Old Testament background, see Psalm 45; Jeremiah 31:32; Ezekiel 16; Hosea 1–3). We trust Jesus with our sexuality first of all because he died and rose to bring us back to God. Or to put it another way, ‘we love because he first loved us’ (1 John 4:19).

This is the context for our parenting.

PARENTING PRINCIPLES

Parenting is challenging. Sometimes it is fun and exhilarating. Other times it’s daunting, even frightening. Child rearing was never meant to be easy; rather it is a God-ordained privilege that enables us to demonstrate God’s grace to our children and to others. As Paul Tripp4 says: ‘We are Christ’s ambassadors (2 Corinthians 5:20) to our children. We mirror his love, authority, patience and sacrificial commitment in parenting’.

REFLECTION

Stop and think: what is your main goal for your child?

Complete the sentence: ‘When my child grows up, I want him or her to …’

Discuss this with your spouse. Write it down. You may want to revisit it later.

4. Tripp, PD 2016, Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles that Can Radically Change Your Family, Crossway, Wheaton.

As Christians, our aim is not merely to build ‘good’ children but to grow men and women of godly virtue (1 Timothy 4:6–8).

We strive to create healthy and loving homes where children learn that God loves them no matter what happens, and he has a plan for their lives that is good and holy. For Christian parents, nurturing our children in God’s words and ways is not an optional extra—it is a command:

‘These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates’. (Deuteronomy 6:6–9; see also Psalm 78:5–7)

‘Listen, my sons, to a father’s instruction; pay attention and gain understanding. I give you sound learning, so do not forsake my teaching. For I too was a son to my father, still tender, and cherished by my mother. Then he taught me, and he said to me, “Take hold of my words with all your heart; keep my commands, and you will live”’. (Proverbs 4:1–4)

Our challenge is to translate this into sex education. Unfortunately, this is an area of parenting that many of us would like to put off for as long as possible, perhaps hoping that school or church would do it for us. My conversations with parents indicate to me that this is mainly because sex education can be a topic with which we are personally uncomfortable—we don’t know what to do or when to start.

Current research however emphasises the importance of parental support in the healthy sexual development of children. Parent–adolescent communication about sexuality is consistently and empirically related to less permissive attitudes towards engaging in

sexual intercourse, greater awareness of the various consequences of having sex, and more positive attitudes towards safe sex5

In this book, I have crystallised my years of research and experience in sex education and the feedback and questions I have had at speaking engagements for parents and children. I use this to give you guidelines on sex education in an age-appropriate manner on a range of topics with a grounding in the Bible.

I am conscious that nothing I can say or you can do will be sufficient on its own. It is the gospel and the work of the Holy Spirit in your heart and the heart of your child that enables successful parenting.

This first chapter covers some of the basic principles of parenting in the context of sex education. While reading, please remember there is no perfect method, no success-guaranteed sex education or parenting tool. The important thing is that you the parent are taking the lead. Just do it.

PARENTING AND RELATIONSHIPS

Parenting is about relationships. This was established at creation. The triune God created the universe in an ordered manner (Genesis 1). One aspect of that ordered reality is that we, as humans in God’s image, are not solitary individuals, but relational beings created to function in patterns of authority, dependence and deference.

The supreme relationship we need to be in is that of submission to and dependence on Christ as Lord (Colossians 1:21–23; 2:6–7). However, in our life on earth we live in a web of relationships. There are biological relationships of children, mother, father, siblings and extended family. Then there is the covenant relationship of husband and wife in

5. Widman, L, Choukas-Bradley, S, Noar, SM, Nesi, J, & Garrett, K 2015, ‘Parent–adolescent sexual communication and adolescent safer sexual behaviour: A meta-analysis’, JAMA Pediatrics, vol. 170, no. 1, pp. 52–61.