Over the past four months, Dianna and I have been teaching our kids a simple catechism – which is basically a big word that means a series of questions and answers about God, the Bible, theology, and living as a follower of Jesus. We spend about five minutes each day on it during our family meal time together, reviewing and reciting 5-10 questions from it together each day.
The author of the catechism recommends introducing the topic of sex to your children at age eight – doing so, of course, in an a way that is age-appropriate, truthful, and God-honoring. However, there is no section on sex in his catechism, so, we’ve decided to write our own!
What follows is a basis for having discussions with our kids about sex. Our hope is that this will serve as a guide to help us, as their parents, to offer simple, straightforward answers to basic questions about the topic. We want our kids to appreciate and respect sex as the precious gift from God that it is!
- What is sex? A physical and spiritual act of intimacy, where two people become one flesh.
- Who is sex for? A married husband and wife.
- What is sex for? Expressing married love, enjoying each other, creating new life, and glorifying God.
- Who created sex? God, who loves me and wants the best for me!
- What do your peers know about sex? Unreliable information.
- What do your parents know about sex? Truthful information.
- What does the world’s media teach about sex? Lies and manipulative information.
- What does the Bible teach about sex? The truth about God’s precious gift, and how it is best enjoyed.
We feel that God has placed the responsibility upon us, as their parents, to teach our kids the truth about sex. We don’t want to leave their sex education up to their immature, ill-informed peers – or to the deceit and manipulation of secular TV, movies, and music!
These questions are intentionally simple. They are meant to be basic. They are to serve as a starting point for deeper conversations between parents and their adolescent children. Our hope is that these questions will give our kids a Biblical foundation for appreciating God’s gift of sex, and a solid standard against which to the scrutinize the misinformation of their peers and the lies of the world.
As our children grow and mature, we hope this basis will invite deeper conversations, where we (as parents) can feel more comfortable being open and direct about the subject, and they (as kids) can develop an ever-increasing appreciation and respect for this precious gift that God has given!
Like Trees Planted 
Awesome! The Ashleys love it and even got a laugh out of it. But a good laugh, like, “Yeah! We need to add that to our next conversation with Ethan!” It hasn’t come easy for this prude-leaning mom, but it has been good, and rich, and sometimes hysterical as we’ve begun to have these kinds of conversations with Ethan over the last year or so. Thank the Lord that David is happy to carry the bulk of the weight on this matter.
The earlier, the better! And the more frequent and “normal-feeling” we can make the talks, the better. I think if we as parents make it weird and uncomfortable, then our kids will follow our lead. But if it’s a normal/natural part of our regular conversations together, then down the road (the teenage years!), my hope is that we will be much more approachable/available for them when they really need to talk some difficult things through… [*hopefully!*]