Let's Talk About Sex
Our greatest responsibility as a parent is to equip our children to live godly lives in service of their Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. This can feel daunting and overwhelming, but we are in a church family, so let’s help, support, and encourage one another. We also want to share good resources to help us in this glorious and joyful, yet so often exhausting task of parenting. Regardless of how effective we are at helping each other, we can’t do it without God’s help – so whatever you take from the rest of this article, please do pray and ask God to equip, guide, and sustain you in your role as a parent.
Our children will be taught about sex, puberty, and relationships at school. Some of that will be excellent, but some of it will be unhelpful and against God’s view of morality as clearly presented in his word, the Bible. As parents, I think we need to hear what God is saying, hear what the world is saying, and then talk to our children (in age appropriate ways) about God’s truth and how they can positively engage with their peers.
It seems that Year 6 is a key point in schools as they begin to teach about puberty and sex in PSHE and RSE. Different schools will approach and teach this subject in different ways, therefore we need to understand what our child’s school is doing and how we can support the school, and ultimately equip our children. We don’t want to wait until Year 6 to begin talking about God’s beautiful plan for sex and relationships. The sooner we start talking about God’s plan, in age appropriate ways, the better foundation we’ll be providing for our children.
Some thoughts:
Sex is good and a gift from God to be enjoyed in the right context as set out by God for our good.
All truth is God’s truth and by avoiding talking about the subject until we feel comfortable, the chances are they’ll still hear about it, but from sources we wouldn’t want. Even as children talk about the changes to their body that happens during puberty, we want to be involved in those discussions with our children – we want them to feel able to talk to us about anything, not least sex, puberty, and relationships.
If we avoid talking about these things it will reinforce the view that there is something shameful, dirty, and embarrassing which is likely to be unhelpful in the long term. Also, if they feel they can’t talk to you, they will talk to someone and that’s unlikely to be the wisdom you want them to hear.
We want our children to remain as innocent as possible for as long as possible – however, we live in a society where many young people (even of primary age) will have seen sexually explicit material or have heard about it in the playground – the internet and porn industry are not the one we want to teach about sex.
We don’t have to be graphic or explicit, and it’s important to help them understand there are things that aren’t for them yet: films, TV shows, going out to work - it’s not just about sex, it’s about maturity and development.
Our society has too low a view of sex, not too high a view. We can help show that some of what they are being taught in school is true, but it’s not the whole story. We can talk about marriage, identity, relationships, and faithfulness. All of which points us to our beautiful relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.
You have a right as a parent to remove your child from RSE lessons, the school has a duty to inform you of what material they’ll cover.
The Christian Institute (CI) is helpful on what the law requires to be taught in RSE – and our rights as parents. CI encourages positive engagement with schools but accepts that can be difficult. Do have a look at their website here – the downloadable guide is really helpful.
If you feel the right thing to do is remove your child from these lessons some things to bear in mind (which aren’t reasons not to remove them – but for you to be aware):
They could feel isolated as it’s unlikely many (or any) other children will be removed
They will hear about what was covered as their friends will talk about it at play time (and they will talk about it in less helpful ways than the teacher will!)
Whether you feel the need to remove your child or not, it is important that you talk about the topic at home so you are equipping your child with God’s beautiful design for sex, relationships, and marriage.
Resources to help:
This week a brilliantly helpful video has been produced called The Beautiful Story, rather than approaching this topic in a coy prudish way, or a draconian moralistic way, it’ll help us as parents think how we can communicate the better story. The first 20 minutes are on our general approach to sex and relationships from a Biblical perspective, the last 10 are about the current challenges within the Church of England. You could also watch this with your teenage children.
I read this helpful article Kids - let's talk about sex on The Gospel Coalition website – which has lots of other helpful podcasts and articles. The 4 points the article makes are:
Beat the culture to the punch
Create a conversation
It’s only awkward if you make it awkward
Tell a better story
The Good Book Company has resources to help for parents:
Growing up God's way for girls and Growing up God's way for boys
Talking sex by the book – out of print until January
Resources for our teenagers:
Little black book: Sex this is a brilliant series on lots of topics written for teenagers (eg predestination, science & God, the Bible and others) and this one is for them to read about sex.
Resources to equip us – there are loads of books to teach us, not as parents, but as Christians – here is the Good Book Company page on Gender & Sexuality
The Story of me - is a series of books to help talk about sex form a biblical perspective in age appropriate ways - book 1 ages 3-5; book 2 ages 5-8; etc
The care and keeping of you - the body book for girls – this is a secular book that’s been recommended by friends of ours to talk to your daughter about the physical side of puberty. There is a book 2 which is aimed for 11+ - good opportunity to read this with your daughter so they can feel safe talking to you.
Most importantly pray for wisdom, pray for your children, and pray for God to reveal his Word to them!