Every Sunday evening my siblings, parents, and I have a Google Hangout where we catch up on happenings in each others’ lives. This past Sunday we somehow got on the topic of how we each had “the talk” with our parents. All kinds of hilarity followed as we recounted embarrassing moments and compared stories. I was grateful though as I realized even though it was embarrassing for my parents and us at the time, my parents cared enough about us that they wanted to be the source of any information we learned about sex.
Our kids are inundated with media from the internet to television to magazines and even songs. Each trying to push their own values of sex onto our kids at younger and younger ages. Sex is not a dirty or bad word but when we are too embarrassed to talk about it with our own kids they will think it is and go looking elsewhere for information.
Be on the front line and talk to your kids! Teach them while they are young how special they are and how no one is entitled to touch them or hurt them. Let them know you will always be there for them. With the prevalence of pornography and “anything goes” mentality in our culture it is, unfortunately, something that needs to be talked about at earlier and earlier ages with our kids. Yes, talking to your kids about sex can be embarrassing but it doesn’t need to be.
Educate and Empower Kids has created a series of three books called 30 Days of Sex Talks: Empowering Your Child With Knowledge of Sexual Intimacy
The name of the books is a bit misleading in that you don’t really talk to your kids every single day for 30 days about sex. What you are given instead are tips and helps to have these conversations naturally as you interact with your kids on a daily basis, whether its shopping at the mall and seeing storefront displays for lingerie or discussing what they heard at the playground. You use your experiences, values, and cultural and religious beliefs in teaching your kids. Having these talks with your child will establish a pattern of healthy conversations for the future. Your child will feel comfortable talking to you about anything as he or she grows into a healthy, knowledgeable person.
30 Days of Sex Talks for Ages 3-7
30 Days of Sex Talks for Ages 8-11
30 Days of Sex Talks for Ages 12+
This series covers more than just sex. I love that! It also covers ways to show healthy affection, emotional health, and even different kinds of love (i.e. friendship, familial love, romantic love). Each book comes with a code to download bonus content and topic cards from Educate and Empower Kids.
Wow, just what my husband and I have been looking for. We have been talking with our 4 yr old about her body, but feel a little lost sometimes,
This would be fantastic to have as a resource coupled with “A Parents Guide” from the church! Then maybe I would feel a little more confident in talking with my boys about the subject.
I have been trying to have conversations with my four kids about sex at each of their individual levels. I would love to win these books to help us get the conversations started and help to guide us to know what to say. I know it’s super important, and I do want to be the person who they learn about it all from.
Looks like a great resource, especially the age spread that it offers. We’ve already started talking with my eight-year old (our oldest), but the jump starts on tips and conversation topics will be helpful. Thanks!
I really did OK until the teen talks. Wish I had these. I would give to the parents to help the grandkids.
My 7 yo asked me out of the blue today, “How does it take a man and a woman to make a baby? I mean, how do you transfer something from one person to another person unless you have a cut on your skin and you share blood?” That one had obviously been percolating for awhile! I’d love to respond with confidence “on her level.”
I think it is so important to have an ongoing conversation about sex with our kids – not just one “talk” that we hurry to get over with! I love your statement, “Sex is not a dirty or bad word but when we are too embarrassed to talk about it with our own kids they will think it is and go looking elsewhere for information.”
Oh, man! I wish I had seen this a week ago. My daughter’s “body class” at school was last week, so I felt pressure to talk to her, even though I don’t think she was ready. When I went to Barnes and Noble for a book to help me, I was **horrified** by what was out there in the books that were clearly geared towards kids. I found one that was only slightly awful, but that’s not saying much! Thank you for this post–I have 3 more kids to “talk” to, and I would love to keep this as an open dialog for all 4 so they know they can come to me. My mom never talked to me at all so I was a bit nervous. Thankfully, Heavenly Father cares about this subject and I felt the Holy Ghost helping me through the initial talk. 🙂
Wow, those books would have been great when my children were young. I would love to pass them on for my grandchildren.
Yes! This sounds like a great resource.
I’d love to read these and see what parts I could eb corporate into what I already teach them.
Love this idea! I am so excited that so many resources are coming out to try to combat the horrible “education” kids are getting thrown in their faces with pornography. Be their source of truth, parents!:)
Can only find it hard when they ask me in the middle of the grocery store or when I have for younger siblings clinging to me and I making dinner and it’s late. But mostly they go to my husband once their older, since we only have boys.
We haven’t had any talks yet, but some guidance would be great when the time comes!
It was really hard with my oldest to talk about sex but it has gotten easier with each child after. I feel like it’s just important to keep an open dialogue about it so they feel safe to come and ask questions and satisfy their curiosity.
I’m always looking for good resources on how to best brooch and then talk to our kids about this.
We laugh a lot about Catholics being so open to discussions about sex and intimacy because we have so many children, we MUST know something about it all, right? I am happy to see such encouraging information to prompt some of these talks. I appreciate that my parents were so willing to answer anything and everything for us, and we’ve tried to do the same for our own children.
Yup, Mormons and Catholics must really like the first commandment ever given which was to “multiply and replenish the earth!” 😀
So far I feel like we have been doing okay. As my son is getting older though I am starting to worry about it more simply because he is a mama’s boy but I don’t really know how to keep the conversation open with him as he gets older or help him have more of these conversations with his dad. We are the opposite with my daughter, she is a daddy’s girl so I worry about whether she will come to me with these questions or not. I hope so.
What a great resource!
Yes, it’s awkward! My oldest is a girl so we’ve done ok there, but I have six sons and would love some help. I’ve also got the wide age range so appropriate conversation is sometimes crashed by a child of an inappropriate age. Gulp!
It’s definitely hard to have these conversations, but so worth it! We used the book “How to Talk to Your Child About Sex,” by Richard and Linda Eyre, as a resource. I highly recommend it – I imagine it is similar to these books you’ve reviewed. But another book that is a MUST HAVE is “Before I Was Born (God’s Design for Sex)” by Carolyn Nystrom. It is actually a picture book meant to be read WITH your child. The illustrations are beautiful, tasteful watercolors. It is written from a Christian perspective, an excellent foundation that we added to with more of our LDS beliefs. It has been a wonderful resource to use as we have read it with our children when it was age-appropriate to do so. Sometimes it’s hard for me to think of how to explain things and use the right words, but this book does it SO well.
Thanks for recommending more great resources Angie!
Thanks for sharing this series. It is nice to have some guidance on this topic!
We definitely talk a lot about personal safety and privacy but struggle a little bit with figuring out what they are ready to know about how things work part. Looks like a great resource.
This looks like a great resource. I like that I can jump in, in whatever areas that I am not sure exactly how to address. Thanks for sharing it!
Being a new mom, these look like they are fantastic resources!
The blessing of homeschooling our kids allows us to talk about sex in a reverent way. (If that makes sense) I feel that these books would really be a valuable teaching tool. I love The Parent’s Guide too and have used it to teach from.