Info based on content from the BOOK: A Chicken’s Guide to Talking Turkey with your Kids about Sex Chapter 3 (Leman/Bell)

• Many parents get so busy during the years of puberty (8-14y.o. & Upper Primary years), that they consequently pull back from involvement with their kids, only to discover that when they notice scary behaviour in their kids during adolescence, that they suddenly & frantically try to rein them back in. This is the reverse of a healthy pattern of parenting. A healthy pattern of parenting is to be more involved when they’re younger & to gradually allow them to become more self-directed.

•  Our role is to lead our kids to respond appropriately; ensuring we give our kids the skills to live life well; setting them up to succeed!

•  The decisions a young woman makes while in the back seat of a car when she’s 16 or 17 are often forged by nonsexually related decisions she made when she was 8 or 9.

Building a Track Record with your kids spells success.

Certain SKILLS should be in place by Grade 5 to help your kids achieve social success: –knowing the routine, learning to wait, following thru, developing foresight, managing time, gaining mastery over feelings, & respecting authority.

Knowing the routine

1. Your child’s faithfulness in getting ready in the morning, meeting you after school at the designated spot for pick up, going to bed, & getting chores done are all signs that your kid understands the process, order, & flow of your family’s routine. Creating a stable, secure home life cultivates TRUST between you & your child-a critical foundation when it comes to sharing vulnerably about sexuality. Do your best to foster clear expectations, clear responsibilities , & assumed obedience; to help your kids learn that life has a certain order! Therefore, when u begin talking about deeper issues, your child will have an innate understanding & appreciation for doing things the right way!

2. Benefits of a routine. When we talk to our kids about their body, we’re asking them to look for order: they are kids, their bodies will mature, they will become adults, they will get married, they will become sexually active, they’ll have kids, etc. When they live in a world of external order, internal order makes more sense!

3. Kids also need to learn to become comfortable with chaos & uncertainty. How they see you maintain peace & equilibrium in chaos will speak volumes to them about how peaceful they can be n spite of the chaos going on in their bodies.

Learning to Wait

1. The importance of delayed gratification–one day we will not be able to control our kids sexual behaviour, but for now, we can find ways to teach them how to wait for something they want very much.

2. If you always give in to your kid’s demands, if no pleasure is ever put off, they’ll enter adolescence & the world of untold temptations with no learned ability to delay gratification.

 Following Through

The importance of ‘reality discipline’, where you don’t nag, yell, or beg, but simply allow your kids to face the consequences of their irresponsibility. As adults it’s important for us to learn how to follow thru on our commitments also! A reality-discipline parent won’t nag, or may not even remind, but knows what needs to be done & expectations get set accordingly.

 Developing Foresight

1. Our children need to be taught to slow down & consider the most likely consequences to their actions. If a child avoids foresight & doesn’t pull her end of the ‘bargain’, she may lose out on a cherished actvity. This sets them up to having foresight when it counts; to looking ahead & considering consequences of their actions.

2. It’s important to let them learn to face the sting of stupid choices; failure & its corresponding consequences are best tasted as an 8 y.o. who misses a birthday party, rather than as a 17 y.o. who is paralyzed because he was driving while drunk, or a 16 y.o who gets pregnant at a wild party.

 Managing Time

By Grade 5, kids have to know that ‘the clock is the boss’! As parents, we can often make this skill difficult for our kids because we ourselves model poor behaviour.Eg. Failure to come to dinner on time, yields a missed place setting & thus,no dinner!

Appropriate time management helps cultivate inner responsibility!

Gaining Mastery over Feelings.

‘Don’t wait for desire before deciding to do the right thing’!!!

1. Kids need to learn to set aside how they feel about something in order to rationally choose what’s best; to learn to examine their feelings & then act out of wisdom rather than emotion.

2. It’s important to teach our kids that feeling ‘in love’ shouldn’t lower their standards for the type of people they hang around with. If a person abuses drugs or acts cruelly toward others, he’s not a good choice for a boyfriend, no matter how they feel when with him.

3. If kids can learn to handle feelings early on, they’ll be well prepared to stand firm when their feeling run wild at a party & someone tries to coax them into a bedroom.

Respecting Authority

At this stage a healthy submission to authority is important & has great spiritual value, because ultimately you want your child to submit to their Heavenly Father. God is there when you can’t be, or when you’re blocked out of the picture. A kid who hasn’t learned to respect his parents or teachers won’t respect God. When a kids’ self-compass points in the wrong direction, God & a properly formed conscience needs to come to the fore! When they’re in their teens it’s often all either of you will have to rely on!