Conversation 1: God’s Wisdom Is Good and Good for You
No matter what your child deals with, God’s wisdom really is good, and it really is good for them! Teach your kids who God is, who we are in relation to Him, and why we trust Him. Knowing these truths is vital because they will form the foundation on which every future conversation about submitting to God’s wisdom, including God’s wisdom for sexuality, will be built.
Because our kids will experience the most joy, belonging, and satisfaction in life when they choose to follow God’s wisdom, teach them they can trust God. Teach them that God is good and trustworthy. He created them, so He knows them best and knows what’s best for them. And because He loves them, He’s going to give them good gifts, and they will find the most joy, deepest satisfaction, and most belonging when they follow God’s wisdom.
Conversation 2: Sex
You’ve likely already thought about having (or have had!) a conversation about sex, particularly about the mechanics of sex. But we also need to address the adjacent questions: What is sex for? Where does sex belong?
What is sex? The “birds and the bees” talk, where you explain how sexual intercourse works and how pregnancy happens, is part of the conversation, and there are many kid-friendly resources that can help you with this. But while this part of the “sex talk” may feel the most awkward, it’s probably the easiest part to relay to your child.
What’s perhaps more difficult is answering the question, “What is sex for?” Why did God create our male and female bodies to connect sexually? The most obvious answer is for procreation. Sex is a creative act, one that has the potential to bring new life into the world! But sex isn’t only for making babies.
Sexual union helps foster deep emotional, spiritual, and physical bonds between a husband and wife, meant to remind spouses of the incredible union followers of Christ experience with Jesus. Sex, then is meant for marriage. God designed sex to be enjoyed inside the context of a heterosexual marriage because marriage is the place in which God designed children to grow up.
While some of our kids may protest, sex isn’t actually necessary for a human to thrive. God created it, and it’s a wonderful part of His creation that helps married people share intimacy and create new life, but we do not need sex to have a full life.
Conversation 3: Screen Safety
Unfortunately, exposure to pornography/sexually explicit content is no longer an “if” but a “when.” In addition to parental controls and internet filters, parents must talk to their kids about screen safety and what to do when they encounter an image (of any kind) that makes them uncomfortable. Every expert I’ve read says it’s better to warn your child about pornography than remain silent.
Pornography isn’t going away, sexually explicit advertisements and movies aren’t going away, and your children needs to know what it is, how to respond when they see it, and who to tell. Besides pornography, screens offer our kids many videos and images that aren’t noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, or praiseworthy to think on (Phil 4:8). It’s our job to both protect our kids and teach our kids how to use screens wisely.
Teach your child some simple ways to react when he sees pornography: “Close your eyes, walk away, tell me, you will not be in trouble.” Particularly emphasize that last point. Many kids don’t tell parents when they see something scary or disturbing on a screen because they fear they’ll be in trouble for seeing a “bad” picture.
Talk about emotions and how to handle hurt, rejection, sadness, anger, and more. Teaching a child how to handle difficult emotions now will lessen his need to escape into pornography (or sex with a partner or masturbation) when he’s older.
Conversation 4: The Idol of Romance
So many in our world are convinced that romance and sex are the pinnacle of human existence and our happiness depends on having them, but God never promises sex or romance. If He never promises these to us, they must not be the best things in life.
Christian parents often begin and end the conversation about sexual stewardship with marriage and sex, but when we do that, we’re admitting that we believe intimacy and family are found only through a spouse, that romance is the answer to loneliness, that marriage is the ultimate good, and that sex is the most fulfilling expression of love and connection. But those ideas simply aren’t true. Romance says I find the person who completes me, but the gospel says I am now a member of God’s family and complete in Him.
Dismantling this idol means frequent conversations about God’s good design for Christian marriage; how to cultivate deep friendship, emotions, and mental health; how to cope with loneliness and meet intimacy needs in healthy ways; and believing God’s word over the words of culture.
Conversation 5: Male and Female
God created two biological sexes. What was His intent?
- To create new life
God created males and females with the reproductive biology to work together to create and sustain human life. Human reproduction images the Trinity when they worked together to create the world and also points to Jesus and the Church as they work together to create new spiritual life when people are added to the family of God and building up the kingdom. - To image God
God is a being-in-relation in the Trinity, and because humanity was created in God’s image, we are beings-in-relation to each other. Just as the Trinity is diverse and complementary, so are humans, exhibiting that diversity and complementarity through biological sex and gender. Just as the Trinity interacts relationally, men and women do the same through Christian marriage and friendship. - To be in relationship
God is a being who exists in relationship with Himself (the Trinity), a relationship Tim Mackie calls “a community of love.” God created humans such that we, too, are not meant to be solitary or independent. We are meant to mirror the Trinity’s community of love by living in communities of love ourselves. We need the intimacy and family that healthy relationships with other humans provides, which means everyone needs good relationships with both sexes. - To build the kingdom
Genesis 2 is a beautiful picture of one of the reasons God created humanity as male and female: uniting in the common purpose of building God’s kingdom. The Trinity partnered together to create the world and everything in it and then to redeem humanity through the death and resurrection of the Son, Jesus Christ. Men and women are to image this unity, this building of the kingdom, through partnership and unity with other believers of both sexes. While Christian marriage is an example of this kind of partnership, building up the kingdom requires all believers to partner with far more people than just their spouse and requires partnership with both men and women.
Conversation 6: Brokenness
What is brokenness? How is sin different from brokenness? What do you do with the unchosen brokennesses in your life?
When I say “sin,” I mean a willful disobeying of God’s law. Rebellion against God. We can look at the Ten Commandments for some concrete examples of sin: knowingly lying, stealing, adultery.
But when I say “brokenness” I mean what happened when sin entered the world through Adam and Eve. The Jesus Storybook Bible says, “God’s creation start[ed]t to unravel, and come undone, and go wrong.” God first perfectly designed and ordered the world. When humans sinned (and then kept sinning), that sin caused a chain reaction that bent every perfect design and order. Nothing was left unaffected by the bent-ness (Romans 8:18-22).
So where does brokenness show up in sexuality?
Because brokenness extends to every part of our bodies, minds, and souls, none of us know what it’s like to experience sexuality like God intended at Creation. When we attempt to have intimate, connected relationships, they’ll always be imperfect.
Teaching your child about brokenness now and making the distinction between willful sin and unchosen brokenness will help her avoid feeling shame for the brokenness she’ll experience in her sexuality, particularly if she one day experiences same-sex attraction or gender incongruence.
Remind your child that you are a safe person to tell when she discovers brokenness and that she will not be in trouble for telling you about her brokenness.
Conversation 7: You Won’t Always Follow God’s Wisdom Perfectly
None of us has stewarded our sexuality perfectly. We’ve all sinned sexually or relationally in some way. While it’s difficult to think about, each of our kids will also imperfectly steward their sexualities. I’m so glad we serve a gracious God who knows we will sin and is eager to hear our confession and forgive.
Even so, sin has consequences, and sometimes those consequences are life-altering. It’s good and right to warn your child against the danger of sin, to encourage him to flee from temptation. It’s wise to help him understand that sin has consequences. At the same time, your child needs to know that you’re in his corner, that he can share his sin with you and you will work through it with him.
Conversation 8: Same-Sex Attraction
Some kids experience same-sex attraction. All of our kids will one day encounter a gay person. It’s highly likely that they already know some gay people or know some kids who experience same-sex attraction, particularly if your kids are late elementary school age or older.
Your kids need to know some foundational truths about gay people:
- While no one is born gay, no one chooses to experience same-sex attractions either.
- Experiencing same-sex attractions is a brokenness, something that God did not intend for people to experience, but merely experiencing attractions to the same-sex is not sin. God does not send kids to hell simply because they experience attractions to other boys or girls of the same sex.
- God loves gay people deeply, and He desires for them to follow His wisdom.
- There are no special rules for gay people. Godly sexual stewardship is the same for everyone.
You don’t have to be a theologian or a counselor to talk to your child about same-sex attraction. You just need to be a calm, consistent, and safe adult.
Reinforce what you believe about love and design: “God has a design for how to best love and relate to others, and that design is good and loving and best for our lives.”
Seek to talk through each of these questions more than once before age 10:
- What does gay mean?
- Why are some people gay?
- Does God change people who are gay?
- Can gay people be Christians?
- What does godly sexual stewardship look like for gay people?
- What good does God have for gay people?
Conversation 9: Christian Marriage
What the United States calls marriage is not exactly what God calls marriage. In fact, there are many Christians who are legally married but who aren’t following what Scripture says about Christian marriage.
Civil marriage or legal marriage is a legal union between two consenting adults and recognized by the government. It allows those two adults to file taxes together, make medical decisions for the other, inherit the spouse’s property, receive government/military/education/insurance benefits for spouses, and more.
Christian marriage is joined, entered into, and sustained by God in ways that other marriages aren’t. Christian marriage is a calling between one Christian man and one Christian woman in covenant relationship for life for the sake of the kingdom: to be open to the important kingdom work of raising children and to embody the gospel for each other and the world.
Help your kids understand what the Bible means when it mentions marriage and what the purpose of marriage is; it’s not for mutual companionship or intended to be a free license to sex. Christian marriage has a gospel purpose.
Marriage wasn’t instituted by God to complete us. We become complete in Christ. Marriage isn’t for our own happiness, comfort, or satisfaction. God designed relational vocations so we can find equal happiness, comfort, and satisfaction in each vocation. Rather, Christian marriage is for the sake of the kingdom.
The flip side of the Christian marriage coin is vocational singleness. Conversations about singleness should go hand-in-hand with conversations about marriage.
Conversation 10: Gender Incongruence
The odds are very high that your child will encounter someone (a classmate, a teacher, a neighbor) who experiences a profound and distressing mismatch between their biological sex and how they feel on the inside. You may hear words like nonbinary or trans to describe those experiences.
Plus, you want your kid to know that if she ever experiences gender incongruence, you’ll be there for her.
Your kids need to know some foundational truths about trans people:
- While no one is born transgender, no one chooses to experience gender incongruence either.
- Experiencing gender incongruence is a brokenness, something that God did not intend for people to experience, but merely experiencing gender incongruence is not sin. God does not send kids to hell simply because they experience a disconnect between their internal sense of gender and their biological sex.
- God loves trans people deeply, and He desires for them to follow His wisdom.
- There are no special rules for trans people. Godly stewardship of our minds and bodies is the same for everyone: accept one’s sex
What happens when parents don’t lay the foundation?
Undiscipled kids will grow into young adults who accept culture’s vision of family, marriage, and singleness.
Believing that a romantic partner is the only way to find family, they will take marriage simply because they want it, without consulting God, and they’ll base their marriages on romantic feelings and mutual companionship rather than God’s wisdom, leading to more divorces and more broken families.
Those who manage to remain married will use their marriage and family for personal fulfillment and will turn inward, limiting their family to spouse and kids only, rather than embracing the gospel purpose God created families to fulfill and opening their families to those on the margins.
Those who remain single will feel and be viewed as lesser, incomplete, not deserving of family, and may suffer from loneliness and not be able to find committed family in the Body of Christ.
Undiscipled kids will see no reason to avoid using pornography, leading to addiction, using sexual experiences to avoid painful emotions, objectification of other humans, and a misuse of marriage (trying to use sex in marriage to control the addiction).
Undiscipled kids will see no reason to reject revisionist ethics when it comes to same-sex sexual behavior, sexual expression outside of marriage or medical transition. It looks good to them. It feels loving to them.
That’s a pretty bleak picture, but we’re not left without hope. We can guide our kids toward God’s good wisdom, pray earnestly for them to follow it, and model following it ourselves.
Parents, embrace your role as the primary discipler in your child’s life, don’t allow your fears to keep you silent, and work to lay a really solid foundation of God’s truth and good wisdom during these pre-K years by having age-appropriate conversations about body parts, privacy, consent, secrets, screen safety, family, sin & brokenness, and sexual ethics.
To access the full webinar recording, including examples of age-appropriate conversation scripts, visit equipyourcommunity.org/premium.
This post contains an abridged version of the webinar content.
