Parents' Sex Talk with Kids: Too Little, Too Late

A recent article by Time that I saw on CNN.com caught my eye, since I'm preparing for our series on guys, girls, relationships, and sex next month. It definitely highlights the need for us to encourage and equip parents to talk about sex with their kids. For me, the biggest payoff from talking about relationships and sex in youth group is that it often opens the door for parents to talk about it with their kids. Since I work with high school students, I often wish it would happen earlier, which is why I'm glad that I minister with a fantastic children's director and junior high pastor who also are on the same page. How can we do a better job encouraging and equipping parents to teach their kids about sex from a biblical view?

From the article:

The sex talk is never easy. It's not comfortable for anyone involved — parents are afraid of it, children are mortified by it — which is probably why the talk so often comes after the fact. In the latest study on parent-child talks about sex and sexuality, researchers found that more than 40% of adolescents had had intercourse before talking to their parents about safe sex, birth control or sexually transmitted diseases.

Now, of course this article does not really cover a biblical view on marriage and sex, but at least it gets the word out that kids know a lot more about sex a lot earlier than ever before and are often sexually active before anyone really talks to them about it. Here are a few things that I want to help parents know:

1) Talk to your kids about what a good marriage relationship looks like from an early age. This will set the context for talking about why sex is an AWESOME thing when it is enjoyed within the marriage covenant. We're not just trying to keep kids from having sex, as though they would be okay if we would just put them in a bubble for a while. We're trying to give them the foundations and tools they need to have a great, Christ-centered marriage and to raise their own kids in that context.

2) You will not tempt your kids to have sex if you talk about it with them in junior high or late elementary school. Chances are that they have already heard distorted messages about sex by the time they are in late elementary school. So, talk with them frankly about it and allow them to ask questions. We should be talking with our kids about it frankly as soon as public schools start doing this, which is usually 5th or 6th grade.

3) Yes, talking about sex is uncomfortable. But it's important, and the more you talk about it, the more comfortable your kids will feel asking you questions. Certainly we need to be modest about it, but talking about relationships and sex frankly will help your kids in the long run to have great marriages of their own and to have a healthier view on relationships before they get married.

Ultimately, we need to continue to encourage parents that their kids DO listen to them and that they have a responsibility to disciple their own teenagers in this area.

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