How do you build the kind of relationship with kids that empowers them to stay abstinent until marriage, but also allows them to come to you when they have made mistakes instead of running to an abortion clinic for a “quick fix”?

Research shows that kids crave support, attention, and affirmation from their parents. They consider parents their greatest influence in decisions about sex. It may be hard to believe when you’re up against Britney Spears and Eminem, but the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy’s national survey shows that kids look to parents when making decisions about sex: 39% compared to friends, 16%, and media, 11%. If parents want their kids to make loving, honoring, wise choices about their bodies, other people’s bodies, and sex, parents need to spend lots of time with their children in ways that build their children’s character and conscience with a balance of grace and truth.  

Relationship is the goal of parenting say Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend in Raising Great Kids (p.15). It is through relationship that we build character. A child with character can deal with life as God designed even when no one is looking (p.29).

In “Six Simple Rules to Raise Sexually Abstinent Children,” John F. Tanner, Jr., advises parents to talk to their kids about what kind of person they want to become, not what kind of career they want to do. That inspires kids to value character more than grades, jobs, and rules.

Cloud and Townsend explain that parents are the external consciences for their kids, which kids internalize through experience (p.148). Does this sound like a big responsibility? God designed it that way to draw us into relationship with Himself and each other. If we examine the Ten Commandments written on our hearts what would we find? Don’t cry or your father will get angry? I’ll love you if you get good grades? Don’t be truthful about issues because it will make your mother cry? Ask for forgiveness when you hurt someone? How parents react to their child quickly becomes law inside their child’s mind.  

The good news is parents can encourage their child’s conscience to use love and God’s laws as a framework to tell right from wrong. They do it with a balance of grace—I’m on your side—and truth—this is the reality, these are the limits, and here are the consequences (p.153). Grace understands failure and is quick to forgive; truth requires children to take responsibility and repent when wrong (p.45). Yes and no are important because they teach children that there is something bigger than themselves.  

The content of the “no” changes over time—“don’t touch the stove” to “don’t sleep with your boyfriend”—but the function is the same: there is a moral order, a best and a worst choice for you. God desires the best. If parents don’t follow-through with the consequences of their limits, kids will learn they are above the law and don’t need to pay attention (p.149). This can have drastic results when kids apply this thinking to such realities as sexually transmitted diseases. It can also make day-to-day living a constant battle. So, the early “don’t touch the stove,” and yet loving embrace when they do, can really impact their decisions about physical boundaries in dating. A survey by Healthy Communities Healthy Youth shows that children who lack parental support, boundaries, and involvement are 33% more likely to become sexually active. Every interaction with kids—when they make mistakes, show emotion, or hormones—is a chance to stifle those parts of their personality or help them grow.  

God’s laws are simply limits to help us love him, one another, and ourselves. By explaining why they say no or yes, parents can teach that there is love behind the rule. Kids are yearning to know the why. Instead of “don’t have sex before marriage,” explain how it grieves God to put our own impulses before following Him. We tell Him we want nothing to do with Him. We put ourselves before our girlfriend or boyfriend, our future spouses. We take something intimate and fragile from another person for nothing permanent. We divide ourselves by giving ourselves away physically without giving away the rest of our personality. We risk death and sickness through STD’s. We have taken on the responsibility of creating a child. These are the real consequences of pre-marital sex. Kids learn that there is a reason for God’s limits; we suffer when we break them. Consciences are not to produce guilt, but rather an awareness of right and wrong (p.154). Character helps us to choose the right! Children will learn truth through real experiences, not petty rules. They will learn love through parents who explain why and walk alongside in the consequences.  

Parents lead by example. Children imitate their parents. The “do as I say not as I do” approach will teach kids to lie. Current abstinence programs such as “Sex and Young America” and the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy “Ten Tips for Parents,” all ask the parents to analyze their own beliefs, their own past, and own actions before they approach their kids. “How do you approach sin? Is sexual sin taboo while other sins are more acceptable? Do you seek to restore the sinner or shoot her?” “How is your relationship with your spouse? Do you model loving communication?” If parents hide their past, ignore it, seek reconciliation, or share honestly about the good and bad choices, their kids will do the same. By modeling accountability, parents can show they are not perfect and want to grow more than they want to look good. Even if unspoken, kids absorb the messages.  

Abstinence programs challenge kids to take ownership of their faith and actions, but their abstinence covenants are much more difficult to live out if kids are facing choices about sex without their parents’ support. Parents can passively work against the good of these programs by their silence. If parents talk about sex in age appropriate ways at a young age and simply continue to do so through the teenage years, they will remove the pressure of the “one shot” and the awkwardness of “the talk.” The goal is to be an ask-able parent who is a safe person for a child to come to when he or she is in trouble, curious, or confused. The more we bring this issue out into the light, the less power it has as a secret temptation.  

Parents cannot shelter kids from sexual exposure or temptations. Nor can they control their child’s actions or responses. However, parents can do their part to pour God’s love into their children—full of grace and truth. By seizing every opportunity, parents encourage their children to be kids who can tell right from wrong, learn from failure, and run after God’s best for their life. There is no sin too large for God’s love and no moment too small to show it. Abstinence becomes a lifestyle and not just a good idea when parents live in love. Their children will do the same.  

Sources 

Cloud, Henry and John Townsend. Raising Great Kids. Zondervan: Grand Rapids, 1999. 

National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. Faithful Nation: What American Adults and Teens Think About Faith, Morals, Religion, and Teen Pregnancy. n.p.: Washington, 2001 (www.teenpregnancy.org).

Talking Back: Ten Things Teens Want to Know about Teen Pregnancy. n.p.: Washington, 1999.

Ten Tips for Parents. n.p.: Washington, 1998. 

National Coalition for the Protection of Children and Families. Sex & Young America. n.p.: Cincinnati, 2001 (www.nationalcoalition.org). 

Search Institute. What is Healthy Communities Healthy Youth? Lutheran Brotherhood: Minneapolis, 1997. 

Tanner, John F. “Six Simple Rules to Raise Sexually Abstinent Children.” Abstinence Clearinghouse 3 Mar. 2004. 3 Mar. 2004 (http://abstinence.net/library/index.php?entryid=884).