This post contains an abridged version of the webinar content.
Enjoy this free preview of Equip’s video teaching. To watch the full-length video and receive a handout and resource suggestions for each of the five conversations, get access at equipyourcommunity.org/recordings.
Why now? Why me?
Why do parents need to begin conversations related to sexuality at such a young age? Won’t Sunday School classes and the youth group teach kids about God’s wisdom?
The truth is, our kids won’t learn the best way to steward their sexuality unless we teach them. And if we don’t disciple our kids, Disney, YouTube, our school systems, our kids’ friends, and pornography are eager to step in for us. And what they teach our kids will not offer them the best paths to thriving.
And culture starts young. From the moment your child encounters any kind of media or person outside your family, they are being influenced, either toward or away from God’s wisdom for their sexual stewardship. Unless we live alone completely off the grid, we really can’t escape outside influences. And most of those influences won’t direct your child toward God’s wisdom.
Once-a-week Sunday School classes for a few years and a couple of youth group talks about saving sex for marriage aren’t sufficient to overcome those cultural influences that your kids will encounter every day.
Plus, you are your child’s primary discipler. Your kids will spend more time with you than with any one teacher, youth pastor, tv show, or book. God expects us, parents, to communicate His wisdom to our kids often: Ephesians 6:4 exhorts us to “bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord,” Proverbs 22:6 tells us to “train up a child in the way he should go.” This is not a job that God assigns to the kids’ minister or church programming; it’s a job He gives to parents.
Why are these foundational conversations so important?
The first, most important truth we want to teach our kids (and continue teaching them all throughout childhood) is that God’s wisdom is good and is good for us.
Teach your kids who God is, who we are in relation to Him, and why we trust Him. Teach your kids that they can trust God’s wisdom. God is good and trustworthy. He created them, He knows them best, He knows what’s best for them better than they do. 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.
Knowing these truths is vital as 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.
A well-laid foundation well allows you to begin building into conversations about sexuality, even with your pre-K age child. And those conversations during the pre-K years will serve as foundations of their own for future, more nuanced and complex conversations.
A conversation about body parts and their purposes at age two is foundational for later conversations about the purpose of sex. Conversations about what God calls family at age three are foundational for later conversations about romance idolatry and vocational singleness. Conversations about pregnancy and babies at age four are foundational for later conversations about the purpose of Christian marriage. A conversation about respecting people who believe or behave differently than our family at age five is foundational for later conversations about progressive sexual ethics
You get the picture.
Now let’s look at five sexuality conversations I think every Christian parent should have with their kids before age five. They’re essential to beginning to communicate God’s wisdom and historic Christian sexual ethics to your young kids.
5 Before 5
Conversation 1: Body parts, privacy, consent
I bet you’ve already started teaching your pre-K child the names of their body parts! It’s super cute to watch a two-year-old clap after correctly identifying their elbow, nose, or knee.
Be sure to include private parts, and name them correctly. Research shows and experts agree that when kids know the proper names for their private parts–penis, vulva, anus–they are less vulnerable to sexual abuse because that knowledge increases their confidence and reduces shame around those body parts.
Private parts are not taboo, shameful, or embarrassing. Everyone has private parts, and our private parts are just as wonderfully made as our elbows, nose, and knees, and our kids need to know that.
Then, teach your kids how to keep their private parts private and how to respect the privacy of others.
An older sibling may no longer want to bathe with a younger sibling. You may feel uncomfortable changing with your pre-K child in the room. Your four-year-old probably shouldn’t spend the day naked when you have guests in your home. These are all great opportunities to teach your child that, while their private parts are not bad or dirty, there are times private parts should remain private and to always respect another person’s request for privacy.
Then, teach your kids about consent, particularly respecting another person’s “no.” Just like you would encourage your child to ask for a turn rather than grabbing a toy out of a another kid’s hand, encourage your child to back off if a playmate doesn’t want a hug. The converse is also true: your child can say “no” to unwanted physical affection from a parent, grandparent, or friend if they’re not in the mood for a hug or kiss.
For littles in the pre-K age range, use a visit to the doctor, bath time, or a dip in the pool to start a conversation about body parts, privacy, and consent.
“We’re going swimming today! Let’s put on your bathing suit. Did you know that your bathing suit covers your private parts?
God made all your body parts, including the parts your bathing suit covers, and that means that all of your body parts are good! But some of our body parts are private, which means we keep them covered unless you need help from a parent or a doctor.
If anyone ever asks to see or touch any part of your body that your bathing suit covers, tell them NO! in a loud voice and then find a trusted adult as soon as you can to let them know what’s going on. You won’t get in trouble for shouting or for running away from that person.”
Conversation 1A: No secrets, only surprises
Closely related to the conversation about body parts, privacy, and consent is the conversation about sexual abuse.
Teach your kids that your family doesn’t keep secrets (something that’s never meant to be told), but you enjoy surprises (something that is meant to be found out soon, like a surprise party). Making this distinction increases the likelihood that your child will tell you if they experience sexual abuse and the abuser tells them, “It’s our secret.”
Conversation 2: Screen safety
Unfortunately, pornography exposure is no longer an “if” but a “when.” Every expert I’ve read says it’s better to warn your child about pornography than remain silent. Pornography isn’t going away, and your children need 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 they see pornography: close your eyes, get away, tell me, you will not be in trouble. Particularly emphasize this 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, etc. Teaching a child how to handle difficult emotions now will lessen their need to escape into pornography (or sex with a partner or masturbation) when they’re older.
Conversation 3: Family
God created all of us to enjoy intimacy in the context of family. But what is family? How does God define family? Where do we find family? Do we have to be married or in a romantic relationship to have a family?
Intimacy and family are so much more than sex and marriage. By focusing only on marriage and sex when we try to communicate a biblical sexual ethic to our kids, we admit that we believe intimacy and family are found only in sex and marriage and that sex and marriage are the best things in life. For our kids who will never marry or have sex (for whatever reason), we mislead them into believing that their calling is lesser. And for our kids who will marry and have sex, we set false expectations that marriage and sex will end loneliness and fulfill them completely.
Ultimately, God designed families as the places where many of our intimacy needs can be met in healthy ways. So how does God define family? As Jesus said in Matthew 12:48-50, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”
Jesus establishes that Christian family is bound by the blood of Christ. Our truest family, our first family, is the people of God. For our kids who marry, their spouse and kids will hopefully be a part of that Christian family, but family is much broader than spouse and kids.
So how do we start expanding the definition of family for our kids?
Ask, “Who made you?” (“God made me!) “What else did God make?” (God made all things.) “Did God make families?” (Yes) “Who is in your family?” (Answers will vary; if children only list biological relatives, point out others who are in your church family or chosen family.)
Say, “Did you know that God has a family, too? He is part of a family called the Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. And God created a family for us to be part of. He’s our father and He adopts us into His Christian family, so everyone who is a Christian is part of our family, too!”
Ask, “How do we love the people in our family?” (Answers will vary; talk with your child about the love you share with your family.)
Say, “God shares love in His family, too! And God made us to find love in families, too. In fact, Jesus told us to treat other Christians like they’re our brothers and sisters.”
Ask, “Why do you think Jesus told us to treat other Christians like they’re our brothers and sisters?” (Answers will vary) “Because God created all of us to need family. He created mommies and daddies to need family. He created your cousins to need family. He created people who aren’t married to need family. He created your Sunday School teachers to need family. So our family, our Christian family, is made up of lots of people!”
Say, “Sometimes we’re sad and we need family to give us hugs or cheer us up. Sometimes we’re really excited and we need family to celebrate with us. Sometimes we’re lonely and we need family to play with us. Sometimes we have a new idea and we need family to share our ideas with. Sometimes we’re hurt or sick and we need family to take care of us. Can you think of a time when someone in our Christian family loved you in any of those ways?” (Answers will vary; list some ways your Christian family has cared for you recently.)
Say, “Isn’t it wonderful that God created families? Let’s pray and thank God that He created family for us. (Mention several of your Christian brothers and sisters by name and thank God for the specific ways they provide family to you and your kids.)”
Conversation 4: Sin and brokenness
With our younger kids, when we teach about sexual stewardship we need to put our first focus on the general brokenness of the world and the brokenness that will show up in their own lives.
When I say “sin,” I mean a willful disobeying of God’s law. We can look at the Ten Commandments for some concrete examples of sin: knowingly lying, stealing, adultery, etc.
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 or broke every perfect design and order. Nothing was unaffected (Romans 8:18-22). The world continues to be a broken place and we continue to experience the effects of that brokenness because humanity continues to sin.
So where does brokenness show up in our sexuality?
Well, no one has “unbroken” 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. The way we experience intimacy, family, singleness, marriage, and sexuality are marred and dim versions of how God intended them to be.
God is not surprised that your child experiences broken sexuality, and God is not disappointed in your child when they discover brokenness.
Teaching your child about brokenness now, and making the distinction between willful sin and unchosen brokenness, will help your kids avoid feeling shame for the brokenness they’ll experience in their sexuality, particularly if they one day experience same-sex attractions.
Parents, try out this question on your littles: “What is real love?”
You’ll likely get a wide variety of answers, some funny, some sobering. Among other definitions, we know that God is love, and we know that His love is self-giving. We know that we were created in God’s image and that our love should reflect His.
You can say something like, “God is love! And part of the way He showed us love is that He gave us a way to know Him through Jesus, His Son. God’s perfect love is generous and always giving. We were created in God’s image, which means that He created us to be like Him. And part of being like Him is loving the way He loves.
“But do you remember the story about Eve in the Garden, and how the snake tricked her into eating the fruit God told her not to eat? When sin came into the world through Adam and Eve’s disobedience, everything broke; brokenness is the reason we have destructive weather, disease, suffering, death. We experience brokenness, too. A brokenness isn’t us choosing to disobey God. Women who can’t have babies, people who are sick, people who are blind or deaf–none of those are chosen by the person who experiences them.
“Our friendships and our relationships with our family are broken, too, because of sin. That brokenness sometimes causes us to be selfish. And sometimes we want to love other people, but we want to love them in ways that are outside of God’s design. We can love others, but our love isn’t perfect like God’s love. But God is good, and He is always working to help us love others like He loves us. When you experience brokenness in your life, I want you to know that it’s not your fault, and I hope you’ll tell me about it.”
Conversation 5: The narrative of sexual stewardship
We can teach our kids the whole narrative of sexual stewardship using the creation, fall, redemption, recreation story arc.
1) What did God create us for? God created us all for relational intimacy found with God and in human family, defined by Jesus as “whoever does the will of my Father in heaven” (Matthew 12:46-50). We find that family, that “intimate group of people we can count on over time for comfort, care, nurturance, support, sustenance, and emotional closeness” (Ambiguous Loss by Pauline Boss), through one of the relational vocations God designed: Christian marriage or vocational singleness. From a young age, we teach our kids that one day they’ll get to discern which vocation God has chosen for them and then, as they enter their teen years, we teach them how to make decisions using a process of prayerful discernment, including the question of relational vocation.
2) Where did everything go wrong? Humanity’s sin bent and broke the goodness of everything God created, including the way all of us “do” and experience intimacy, family, marriage, singleness, sex, and sexuality. The sin of others, the general brokenness of the world, or their own brokenness will affect your child before they choose to sin sexually. This could include divorced parents, exposure to pornography, sexual abuse, gender identity questions, intersex biology, same-sex attraction, etc.
3) Where do we find hope? We are still able to find incredible beauty and goodness and even flourish in this broken world because God offers us His wisdom through the Bible and the Church. And when we follow God’s wisdom we’ll find the most joy in this life. We invite our kids to share with us as soon they realize how broken sexuality is impacting them. We remind them that it’s not their fault, that we’ll listen to them, comfort them, and help them thrive in God’s good plans for their life.
Additionally, one day God will mend all brokennesses and sin will no longer exist.
With your kids under the age of five, you won’t start directly with the sexual part of sexual stewardship, but you will lay the foundations using those three questions from the previous slide.
Here’s what that could look like:
Ask, “Who is Jesus’s family?”
Say, “God provided family for Jesus through his mom, Mary, and his dad on earth, Joseph. Jesus was also part of God’s family, since He is God’s Son. When Jesus grew up, his 12 disciples became his family–He lived with them, ate with them, and went everywhere with them! And Jesus’s death made it so that we can also join His family–everyone who is a Christian is part of God’s family. And family is the place God made for us to find love.”
Say, “There are lots of ways that sin broke the goodness of what God created, including families and how we love others. Do you think Jesus’s family was broken? Did anyone misuse the way God created us to love others?”
Say, “We know that when Jesus was older, his brothers didn’t believe that He was the Son of God. And we also know that one of Jesus’s disciples, someone He loved and considered family, told the Roman leaders where they could capture Jesus.”
Say, “Sin broke the goodness of what God created, but we can still find so much beauty and goodness and love in families. God gave us His wisdom about the best ways to love others and to do family in His Word, the Bible, and through the Church. And when we follow God’s wisdom, we’ll find the most joy in this life. God invites everyone, no matter what their family looks like or the ways they have misused love in the past, to follow His wisdom.”
Say, “If you ever find brokenness in your family or find it hard to love like God designed us to love, please tell me. It’s not your fault the world is broken. I won’t be mad at you. You’re not a bad person. I will listen to you, comfort you, and work really hard to help you follow God’s wisdom and find joy in the ways He designed for us to find love.”
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 sexual ethics when it comes to same-sex sexual behavior or sexual expression outside of marriage. It looks good to them. It feels loving to them.
The way Christians have handled conversations about same-sex attraction over the past hundred years is the number one reason teens today, regardless of their attractions, are leaving the Christian faith.
Particularly for kids who will one day recognize they experience same-sex attractions or gender incongruence, undiscipled kids are left alone in the closet, alone with the lies of the Enemy and culture, leading to loneliness, depression, embrace of revisionist sexual ethic, loss of faith, and even suicide. These wounds of the closet will block these kids from a robust experience of family in the body of Christ and a sense that Jesus is far from them.
So 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.
