Having “The Talk” With Kids: When, Why, and How Not to Make it Awkward

We have G-rated the Bible. You know, we teach in our primary grades Genesis, but we take out all the sinful stuff, and we really need to go back when our kids are 10, 11, 12, hitting middle school, and we need to do Genesis the rest of the story.

Because how much sexuality is there in Genesis? So much. So much, but we just remove that from the stories. Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Ann Wilson. And I'm Dave Wilson, and you can find us at familylifetoday.com or on our Family Life app. This is Family Life Today.

So I don't even know if I know the answer to this question, and I should after 41 years of marriage. But when was do you remember the first time somebody taught you about sexuality? I don't think anyone did.

Well, let me say I think it's peers. I think it was pornography. I think I was exposed to a lot of different things, but I don't think there was a conversation. Ever?

With mom or dad? No. I know you're dead.

Yeah, I can't imagine ever even saying the word. No. What about you? Marty Jordan.

Really? One of my best friends. I mean, think about that.

I'm probably 12, 11, 12 years old. I was over at his house. Mom never talked about it.

Dad wasn't there. I always pretended I knew stuff, and I was like, I wonder what the answer is to that. Well, I remember I was traumatized by what he told me. Like, that can't be true.

That is the more ridiculous thing. And so as I was walking out of his house, I literally looked at his mom and said, Is that is that true? And she just shook her head because she heard the conversation. And, you know, you think about now as parents in the world we live in, how do our kids find out about this? Okay, listeners, I'm pretty passionate. We have got to be intentional about this area, because if we are not, the culture is teaching our kids every single day.

And if we don't instruct our kids biblically and truthfully and honestly, the culture will feed them so many lies and so much misinformation. And so we've got two doctors in the studio today, two women who really devoted their lives in many ways to helping not just parents, but anyone talk to their teens about sexuality. Welcome to the studio. We've got Dr. Lateen and Dr. Beth with us today. Welcome to Family Life Today. Thank you.

Yeah. And you've written a book called Talking with Teens About Sexuality. And Dr. Beth, you are a college professor. You're a clinical psychologist.

I'm actually a licensed professional counselor, but I am also a college professor at Lubbock Christian University. Yeah. And so you deal with this all the time because you've got college kids sitting in your classroom every day. Yes. Do you guys talk about this topic?

Sure. I mean, I teach at my general psychology class. We actually have a course on it in our psychology program called Gender and Sexuality. But where else are the kids going to hear it from?

I mean, the fallacy has been I listen to you guys talk about, did anybody talk to you about it? The truth is that if we go pull a young generation of much younger parents and say the same thing, their answer is still the same. I've been working in this field for 30 years and nobody, as far as parents are concerned, are teaching their children any differently than they were taught or advocating our instruction to the Internet. It's what's happening.

Yeah. Kids are Googling now. Yes, they're Googling and they're not getting a biblical perspective.

And they also have decided that as parents, we don't have any idea about it, period. And Letaine, let me add to you're an author. You've written multiple books and co-authored multiple books.

But how did this coalition come to be? Well, my children, who are now adults, both went to Lubbock Christian University and they were students of Dr. Beth. And they would talk about Dr. Beth this and Dr. Beth that. And her classes were fun and they learned so much. And we had opportunity to meet, I think, at some social function at Lubbock Christian. And we kind of hit it off.

But since I live in Albuquerque and she lives in Lubbock, our opportunities over these decades has been just sporadic to even see each other. But one time she was talking about where she was going in her ministry and I was talking about what I was doing, you know, in terms of trajectory, you know, where we hope to end up. And I said, Beth, the stories that you tell about working especially with abused children, working with children with sexual issues. I said, those things need to be preserved because this wealth of information and insight, because she has such great insights, I said, needs to be preserved. And I said, you have stories to tell that people need to know. I just had read a book by Sam Chan, who is an author, and it's about evangelism in the 21st century. And he says that people learn through stories.

And that's the way they're learning today. And I said, Beth, we could write a book about, because her passion is protecting children. Bottom line, I think what she really wants to do is protect children. I said, why don't we write a book about protecting children from sexual predators? Because you know all the signs, you know all the ins and outs, you know how the criminal mind works. Because I don't know if you know this, Dr. Beth is often an expert witness in court trials with children that have been abused.

So she knows forensically how to talk about it. And I said, we could tell these stories just like Sam Chan says to do, tell stories to engage the mind of parents who are generations behind us, or at least one generation behind us, and let them see scenarios that they can identify with that their child is having this problem or has been approached by someone or something else. And I said, I think that would be a very helpful book. And so that's how we got started writing that first book. My response to that was, I don't have time for this right now.

And I said, you be the brains, I'll be the brawn. So here's the question that we started with. So you say early in the book, most parents are one and done. If they have a conversation, it's one little conversation and never talked about it again. So talk about that, because there's a lot of parents listening and we're like, so how do I do this? I had to talk.

That's what they'll say. I had to talk. Did you have to talk? But you're saying it needs to be a lot more than one talk.

Oh, it needs to be much more than one talk and it needs to be much more than one weekend. In fact, if you want to start talking to your kids about sexuality, you know, you're starting the conversations from the time they're born and you don't even realize it. Because when you teach them body parts, you're starting the conversation. When you won't identify private parts with language that they can use. With correct terminology even?

Even correct terminology. And I'm not saying that correct terminology right now because we don't know the age of our listeners. But when you can't even do that and you turn red, you know, your kids have already gotten a message about sexuality. And in fact, every kid by age five needs to know what sexual safety is. Probably the first time I really recognized this need is I was called out to a congregation where young couples had been involved in a group get togethers at night, group meetings on Sunday nights.

And they would bring their kids and they would let all their kids play together without adult supervision. Well, there was a child in that group who was eight or nine at the time who acted out sexually on the younger children, children that were two and three years old in this congregation. And I went out and worked with the leaders in that congregation. I worked with, there were a dozen families that met with each of the families, kind of met with the kids, worked through kind of what sorts of issues might exist or could exist and help the leadership figure out how to deal with the family who had the child who was offending against other children. And what came out of that is I went back six months later and I said to the individuals that had had their children affected by this, I said, what would you have liked to have seen that would have been helpful to you in the process?

And I was thinking about the process after the abuse occurred. And they said, we wish there had been a book or something that we could have used to have taught our children sexual safety. So I went back to Lubbock at the time and created a coloring book called God Made Me, which teaches sexual safety in a very nonthreatening way that Christian parents can teach their children before age five. It talks about God made me and how special we are.

And he made the sun and the moon and the stars. And it's very nonthreatening because by age five, kids need to know that and see if we've had those conversations by age five, our conversations get more in depth as they get older. So even in that coloring book, could you explain like what was in the coloring book that would help parents and children to know what was safe? The main thing the coloring book did is it kind of made it safe to talk about private parts.

And all that we did in the coloring book was identify private parts as the parts of your body covered by swimming suit and then told kids that if somebody touches in there that they need to always tell their parents. And if telling their parents doesn't make it stop, then you tell other trusted adults, a nurse, a school teacher, a police officer, and that it's always OK to say no. Because most sexual abuse happens with people that our kids know. Is that not true? Ninety percent of offenders are people that we have invited into our inner circles.

They will be trusted friends and family members. I mean, I have sexual abuse in my background, and that's exactly where it happened. It was all the parents were together, all the kids were playing, and things were happening because parents never checked in, and they just didn't think about it. But I think we really need to think about that as parents.

And so, I mean, part of me is thinking you're like one of those little girls. Yeah. You just said your mom and dad never talked to you about it, so who did you talk to?

No one. Yeah, and that's pretty common? Very common.

Yeah. I found in my first couple of years of being a professor at Lubbock Christian University that I had a lot of students. We didn't have a counseling center back then, but I had a lot of students who would walk into my office because I was a psychology professor and would reveal abuse. And to be honest, they were revealing abuse that occurred in churches primarily, where it was ministers and youth ministers. And so they got far enough away from home that they finally talked, although there's a good percentage that don't ever talk about it.

Yeah. What other kind of confusion is happening today in our culture that kids are facing that we as parents, like how could you coach parents today as kids are dealing with sexual confusion? Because there's a lot going on. I think one big issue that I think parents confuse, and to be honest with you, this book was a learning adventure for me as an author, learning from Dr. Beth, that there's a difference between gender and sex. I think a lot of confusion that's going on with kids these days is they don't define those two things specifically as they should. And when they start talking about being transgender, does that mean that you're homosexual? Or what's the difference between how you view yourself and how you act on your sexual impulses?

Those are two completely different things. What's that look like? How do we have those discussions as parents? Those conversations come to us every day if we're looking for them as parents. What does that mean? That means... Help us to look for them.

Yes, that means your kids are having interactions with friends at school, they're seeing things on TV, getting information on their tablets, all those things. Honestly, if a parent would take a notebook and just jot down all the things that they see or hear from their children or see in their environment that has sexual meaning to it or could explain relationships, that's where the education begins. And we're just not open to it. I think we're scared and we don't know what to say.

We don't even know some of the terminology today because it's changing so much. And so you're giving, I feel like you're helping us, you're coaching us as parents, giving us tools and language to know how we talk to our kids. Well, my question is how? Coach up a parent, even just to have a conversation about, you know, let's say they're not five years old, they're getting older. And you want to talk more about the way sexuality works in a marriage and relationships, that kind of thing.

Again, most parents are afraid to do it. Like you said, there's the one and done. I had to talk. Like at 10 or 11, they're saying that they've talked, had their one talk. By your book, you're saying there needs to be a conversation that's ongoing, probably daily. So what's that look like? Well, I think the easiest way to access it for me is your kids, even if they're watching what you think is a G rated Disney show in this day and time, there's issues there about gender and sexuality all the time. And you just open it up.

I mean, if you're there watching it and you see something, the easiest thing to do is to say, what does that mean? What do you think that means? And you both have done this. You're both moms. Beth, you're single, but you have fostered how many children?

15, 10 boys. So you've done this. I did a terrible job of it. No, I'm the first to confess my children are in their 40s now. And my husband took our son out to have the talk, right?

And they came back in like 15 minutes with McDonald's. And I said, did you have the talk? And he said, well, I had this book I was going to show Ryan. And he said, oh, yeah, my buddy and I saw that book over at somebody else's house. And we went through it. And Dan asked him, do you have any questions?

He said, no. And they said, let's go get burgers. That is pretty common.

That was it. And with my daughter, she was so traumatized by me mentioning menstruation that all she did was sit and look and wide eyed at me. And I cared, you know, this is going to happen to your body. It's normal. It's going to be OK, you know, and all this. And I got through and she hasn't said a word and I said, do you have any questions? And she just shook her head and that was that, you know, and I tried to open up conversations with her, but she was like deer in the headlights, you know, don't even mention. Yeah. I mean, you know, so good.

So I'm glad you're here. OK, so putting the kids on the spot and asking them if they have questions, it's not going to work. Or deer in the headlights, either one. But see, it's not nearly as confrontational to use information like a television show, a TikTok video. I mean, kids don't know how sexually suggestive a lot of the dancing is on TikTok. You know, you can watch that and say, OK, I'm just kind of wondering what you think about when you see this, because this is what I think other people think about.

Or cheer teams at the football game or you're thinking Disney movies, things going on. And so I think the issue is we think we have to have a whole lot of knowledge. We don't. We have to know how to have a conversation with our kids. So you're saying ask the question, what do you think of this?

Yes. And I'm going to say in regards to sexuality, about five percent of it is us giving a response and 95 percent of it is asking questions. So if we think we have to know everything and know how to lecture about it and know how to talk about all the body parts and STDs and all that, the kids get that in biology and they forget it. It doesn't apply because that's the other thing that happens a whole lot is we give kids clinical biology information.

And that doesn't mean a thing to them when they're in a situation with a peer and about to have sex, because that doesn't look like the biology book at all. And so there are lots of ways to have the conversation, but it begins with questions. Think about how this interview would go if you came in here and kind of gave me a little five minute lecture and said, do you have any questions?

Well, no. OK. And that's kind of what we want to do about sex education. So to me, I'm kind of like, you guys quit making this so hard.

Just just ask them. You know, what I'm thinking of as a dad, and I know a lot of our listeners are parents. They may be thinking the same way. I've I've always thought and we wrote about it in our parenting book. No perfect parents is like you need to be teaching spiritual truths along the way. Deuteronomy six, when you sit at the table, when you lie down, it's this everyday conversation. But I think often we don't think about that sexuality with our kids. We're thinking I want to talk about God along the way.

I want to use the Bible. I want to have moments during every day. And that's sort of the goal. We often keep the sexual conversation. It's like, well, that's sort of off limits. You know, I'm not going to go there.

And you're saying, no, that's a daily conversation to you. Use what you're watching. Use what you're reading. Don't run away from it. And I would say to a dad or a mom listening right now, have the courage to ask a simple question like you just said, Beth.

What do you think about that? Take us a step further. Give us an example of a Disney movie kind of idea. I have to tell you, I haven't seen a Disney movie recently.

I have read the articles that say my kids are older. Yeah. OK. Yeah. So the conversations I'm having now are about TikTok. I use software on phones that sends me alerts about content that my kids might be viewing and things like that. In fact, I have installed it with permission on phones of a couple of kids I see in counseling who don't understand appropriate sexual content. So when I get a red flag, it's very easy to say, OK, this came through on Mark today.

Let's look at it on your phone. And they alerted because this was sexual content or violence or whatever. I want to see that show that to me.

Yeah. And then they show that to me. And I can say, can you tell me what might not be appropriate there?

And then they may be able to. And then my other question I always follow up with is I say, what do you think about that? And then it's either what do you think I think about that or what do you think God thinks about that? See, then I've taught the values and I am going to go back to what you said about Deuteronomy passage. OK, we have G rated the Bible.

I have often said I hope somebody has done this or will take me up on this. You know, we teach in our primary grades Genesis, but we take out all the sinful stuff. So all those people in Genesis apparently were perfect. And we really need to go back when our kids are 10, 11, 12, hit middle school and we need to do Genesis the rest of the story. Because how much sexuality is there in Genesis? So much.

So much. But we just remove that from the stories. Well, I remember being in the car with our kids and I was listening to the Bible on tape in the day. And I came to Genesis where it says the men went to lot and said, bring the men out to us so that we can have sexual relations with them. Our kids are like five, seven.

And I turned it off. But you're saying that's an opportunity. I'm saying that's an opportunity. I mean, you want to pick it in an age-appropriate way. Right.

But it is an opportunity. Don't skip over them at the age-appropriate time. Yeah, part of me is thinking a five-year-old, that would be probably the appropriate thing to turn it off. I agree. Or turn the volume off.

I would have turned it off too. You know, a lot of parents think that we do sex education when our kids are teenagers. I'm going to tell you, we're way too late at 12 and 13.

That's 9, 10, 11, 12 conversations now. Yeah, and obviously, you know, our ministry Family Life is all about helping families do this. And so we have a resource called Passport to Purity. It's been around for decades. That is a tool for parents to use. Because we know this is not easy for us as parents. So it's like, here, we'll give you a tool.

And often when somebody hands me a tool, I'm like, oh, I can do that. Yes. You know, and so I tell our listeners, go to familylifetoday.com and get Passport to Purity and walk through. Because basically, we walk you through a conversation that you have with your kids. But what Beth and Latina are saying, don't let that be the end of the conversation.

That's just one conversation of thousands, probably, right? Yes, and that shouldn't be the beginning or the end. Yeah.

Either one. Right. Because with parenting, you should be talking about this across lifespan. I mean, my younger kids that grew up in my home, you know, the coloring book existed when it was age appropriate for them at four or five. I'm coming to Florida now, and they say, why are you going to Florida? You know, they hardly notice. They're teenagers.

Why are you going to Florida? And I'll say, well, I'm going to go talk about the book. And they'll say, is it one about sex again? Yes. You know, that's kind of their thing. And, you know, that they would even get to the point where they're like, we know that, doc. We know that. We know that, doc. And I'm guessing they know because you have these conversations in your home, in your church. Yes. Your church home. I'm kidding.

My church home, yes. But I mean, honestly, and I'm not saying we did it even really well. I remember my oldest son, CJ, is 35. He said, dad, you had this conversation with me when I was too young.

So I started with son number one, like I want to be ahead of the game. And so maybe now, maybe I was too young. I think it was two and a half.

No, I'm kidding. I think it was eight or nine. He was eight. But anyway, looking back, I do remember that one of our friends, we had three sons, all married now with grandkids. One of our friends of our son said one day in our kitchen, hey, I know the way to raise kids that will be virgins when they get married. Talk about sex every day in the kitchen. We're like, what?

He goes, every time I was at your house. There was some conversation that was sort of natural in this home about sexuality. And you have three sons that got married as virgins.

At least that's what they told us. I'm not saying we did it right, but there were conversations that were just a normal part of life. Even though for me, it was still like, I can preach about this. It's harder to talk about this in my kitchen, but it needed to be done. I think it's because it affected me so much.

This sexual abuse really had a toll on me. And I realized, like, we need to talk biblically how this is a good plan that God has. And why he has put any restrictions on it is because of his love for us. But you both even talk about often that we talk so much about what you shouldn't do.

We don't talk about the great plan that God has for us. And I think that's really an important part to cover as well. Yeah, and I would just say, as you listen to this program, the question is, what are you going to talk about tonight with your kids?

I think it's one of those deals where, again, I'm just thinking the way I'm wired to be like, wow, that was a good conversation. You know, next month I need to talk about that with my kids rather than maybe sitting down with my wife, sitting down with my husband, or if you're a single parent or a blended family saying, okay, what's our plan on this? And we need to start having some conversations.

And you guys just model for us. Just ask a question. I think, too, if you have school-age kids, they're hearing this constantly. And so if you haven't talked about it before, maybe have the conversation. Guys, I know stuff that's happening at school that you could be confused about.

You're hearing it on TV. You're seeing it on social media of sexuality. And we haven't talked about it that much, but I want this to be a place where you can ask questions. Maybe we need to ask you questions because there's a lot going on now that hasn't been going on in the past and terminology. Maybe you could help us.

Just open the door. Open the door for those discussions. I think all of us as parents are understanding that we're going to have to be more proactive and have more intentional conversations with our children about sexuality, probably at an age that feels like we're going to have to be more proactive and have more intentional conversations with our children about sexuality.

Probably at an age that feels premature for us. But the reality is our kids are hearing about this at school, on the playground, in social media, even in cartoons today. And so as parents, we have to have a strategy. That's what Dave and Ann Wilson have been talking about today with Beth Robinson and Latane Scott. They have written a book called Talking with Teens about Sexuality, critical conversations about social media, gender identity, same-sex attraction, pornography, purity, dating, all of it. The book is available for purchase. You can go to our website, FamilyLifeToday.com for more information or call us at 1-800-FL-TODAY. Again, the website is FamilyLifeToday.com. The title of the book is Talking with Teens about Sexuality.

Order online or call to order at 1-800-FL-TODAY, 1-800-358-6329. That's 1-800-F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. And some of you are going to want to add to your New Year's resolution list a getaway with your preteen for a Passport to Purity weekend together. A couple of days where you can get away and utilize this family life resource designed to help you engage with your preteen around the themes we've talked about today.

There's information about Passport to Purity on our website at FamilyLifeToday.com as well, so check that out. Now, we want to take just a minute and say a quick word of thank you to all of you who, over the last few weeks, have responded to our year-end matching gift opportunity. We've heard from many of you in the weeks leading up to Christmas and in the last week of the year, many of you who really were voting for family life.

You were saying this ministry is a ministry that needs to continue, it's a ministry that's helping our family, it's a ministry that's making a difference in our lives, and we want to see it not only continue but expand. We just want you to know how grateful we are for your support of family life today, for your partnership with us here in this ministry, and say thanks again for rallying at year-end to support the ongoing work of this ministry. And we hope you can join us again tomorrow when we're going to talk about the revolution that's happening inside a teenager's body and brain at puberty and how, as parents, we need to be alert to that and be ready for it, know how to help them navigate that. Dave and Anne Wilson continue with Beth Robinson and Latane Scott tomorrow. We hope you can be here for that as well. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Anne Wilson, I'm Bob Lapine. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life, a crew ministry, helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.