Chelom Eastwood Leavitt - A better way to teach kids about sex

Welcome to A Better Way to Teach Kids about Sex ! Its possible that youre picking up this book because your child is struggling with sexuality and you are searching for answers. Or perhaps your ten-year-old just came home and told you hes been holding hands with his girlfriend at school and you can no longer deny that your child is a sexual being, so you want to better understand how to have the talk. Or maybe you just want to start when your children are very young in hopes of having the best chance at raising sexually healthy children.

Whatever your reason is for searching, we hope this book will provide you answers and a way to talk about sexuality with your children and teenagers that is specifically tailored for the current reality in which they are growing up (which is much different than what our reality was when we were young). We hope to dispel myths and cultural practices that have become almost commonplace in our culture but that often do more harm than good. And most of all, it is our desire to help you see that the astonishing transformation children experience as they become sexual beings is not something that you should dread or fear, but rather a fantastic miracle to celebrate and enjoy. Wherever you are and whatever is worrying you about your child, our goal with this book is to help you feel more comfort and peace and to give you the tools you will need to help your child successfully navigate his or her sexual journey.

Can you think back to how your parents taught you about sex? Maybe they did a great job, maybe there were a few things lacking, perhaps you and your siblings joke about it now, or it might have even been a disaster. In this book, we approach sexuality in a way that might be different from the ways it has been dealt with in the past, and our belief and hope is that this is a better way that will help us to raise children who do not just abstain from sex but who are also sexually healthy. This is important because healthy sexuality goes beyond merely abstaining from sexual activitythough that is an important place to start. Countless youth have abstained from premarital sex only to find themselves in the midst of a marriage that is filled with sexual problems and hang-ups that threaten the very fabric of their families. The goal of this book is to raise children who are both sexually pure and sexually prepared.

As parents, most of us have embraced the importance of sexual purity, but we might be less comfortable helping our children prepare themselves to be sexually healthy in mind, body, and spirit. However, most would agree that we want each of our children to develop into adults with healthy sexual attitudes and behaviors that are expressed freely within a committed marriage. This is why we use terms such as healthy sexuality or sexual wholeness as something for which we all should strive. When the time comes, we want our children to enjoy, appreciate, and flourish in the sexual area and help their future children do likewise.

So what things might still be holding us back? We might have a great desire to encourage healthy sexuality but feel all too aware that our own ideas about sexuality are not healthy and worry that our fears and anxieties will negatively influence how we teach our children. First, it is important for parents to understand that it is not a requirement to be perfectly sexually healthy in order to teach about healthy sexuality. But in many cases, improving ones own sexual health will help ease the discomfort of teaching a child. So we will offer some general principles and suggest additional resources for parents who feel they would like to challenge some of their own beliefs about sexuality at the same time that theyre striving to help a child understand his or her emerging sexuality.

Some parents may also feel that theyre starting this process too early or too late. For those parents of young children, please know that it is never too early to start setting healthy patterns of talking to your child about sexuality in developmentally appropriate ways. In fact, the earlier, the better. That being said, it is also never too late to begin being more open with your children about sexuality. An important reminder for parents comes from Elder Bradley D. Foster, who said, I know I cant turn back time, but this I now knowthat its never too early and its never too late to lead, guide, and walk beside our children, because families are forever. Every step in the right direction that is taken will help our children develop healthy sexuality, even if we arent fully confident or we feel we have done things incorrectly in the past. There may be some unlearning that has to occur as we try to establish a new and better climate in our homes around the topic of sexualitythere is no use in feeling guilt about this. The best we can do is move forward and do a little better with the day we have before us.

To give you a more specific idea of what well tackle in this book, we will first provide a brief overview. Most of us have been exposed to far too many unhelpful sexual metaphors that we will dispel in this book. In their place, we will offer suggestions for more effective ways to communicate with young people about sexuality. We will then share our model for sexual wholeness, which will help guide our discussion about sexuality and inform the ways you approach your children about this topic. We offer both broad and specific suggestions for parents about how to approach conversations and questions about sexuality with children that will help parents feel more comfortable with and confident in this aspect of their role as a parent (especially as it relates to children who likely have different personalities and will thus need slightly different approaches). We will explain in some detail the physical changes that are taking place for your child, and we will offer suggestions about how you might navigate and celebrate puberty. We will discuss important topics related to sexuality, such as body image, modesty, masturbation, pornography, and sexual orientation, and share both scientific research and gospel truths to help give you the tools necessary to raise sexually healthy children. Finally, we will discuss chastity while dating and ways in which we can still help our children when they are approaching their wedding night. Throughout the book we seek to offer specific suggestions or tactics that you can try with your children until you find your own approaches and are completely comfortable discussing sexuality with your child. We are excited to be on this most important journey with those who share our care and concern, so let us begin!

Note

.Bradley D. Foster, Its Never Too Early and Its Never Too Late, Ensign , Nov. 2015.

Why all those youth conference analogies of chewed gum and unwrapped cupcakes did more harm than good.

Many people have built collections of various types. Some people like to collect stamps, others collect coins, and some collect spoons. However, our collection is different than most; ours is a collection of hundreds of personal stories from young adults in the Church telling us how they were taught about sexuality. For several years now, we have asked our students and others to share with us how and what they learned about this topic, and we have carefully collected their stories.