Jim Burns joins me for Episode 98. I first met Jim many years ago when I worked for Saddleback Church in CA. He is someone that I could have conversations with about parenting, relationships, marriage and faith for hours. He is the President of HomeWord—an organization that exists to equip parents, marriages and families and he the Director of the HomeWord Center for Youth and Family at Azusa Pacific University. He speaks to thousands of people around the world each year and has close to 2 million resources in print in 30 languages. You can see why I like to talk to him!
I asked Jim to join me around the table to talk about a subject that many of us feel very awkward about. We have an hour long dialog about the topic of sexuality and our kids. We talk about when you should have the infamous talk, what you should know about the “M word", pornography and sexual identities. Alright. I just went ahead and said all the awkward words. Now that I’ve done that, pull up a chair and join the conversation.
Takeaways From Our Conversation:
I think that this topic is one that most of us don’t feel adequate or prepared for as parents. The biggest takeaway is not waiting for one moment or one age to have that conversation but to start sooner than later weaving it into a normal part of your life with your kids. Start talking about sex from ages 3-5. The more you talk about these things hopefully the more comfortable to have these conversations as they grow. Moms of littles, this is the best time because it is not awkward to your kids. I highly recommend Jim’s books to initiate the conversation. That is what we used and it has opened the door to so many natural conversations.
The number one place that older kids get their sex ed from is the internet so you are going to have to have conversations with your kids about this. Age of the first exposure of pornography is age 11.
If you catch your child looking at porn, don’t make a big scary deal of it. Talk about healthy positive sex. And then talk about some of the things that aren’t healthy. If you see it, here’s what you should do. You almost have to desensitize them to it. We hurt for these people. When our kids are caught or your find out, make sure you are not a one topic parent in your reaction. Get a perspective. Talk with others.
10% will struggle with gender confusion; 1.5-2% are homosexual. It's not healthy to our kids to blast one sexual sin over another. There are 17 references to sexual sin, only 3 deal with homosexuality yet we tend to focus on that one issue. We need to partly normalize that.
What did you enjoy about this episode? What was your takeaway. Let's continue the conversation on Instagram or Twitter or you can send me an email here.
Thank you for following along life with me. I love being apart of your day. And as always, I hope this show helps you survive a little easier.